In a ceremony held on Thursday, March 16, Unicamp's Computing Institute (IC) swore in its new director and new associate director, professors Leandro Aparecido Villas and Esther Luna Colombini, for the four-year period 2023-2027. The event, which took place at Espaço Barão, in the district of Barão Geraldo, was also an opportunity to celebrate 54 years of the Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, created in 1969, and was attended by the faculty, students and administrative technicians who contributed to the history of the unit, as well as representatives from partner companies.
In addition to the new directors, the event was attended by the rector of Unicamp Antonio José de Almeida Meirelles, the general coordinator of the university Maria Luiza Moretti and the former director of the IC for the 2019-2023 administration Anderson da Rocha Rezende. Also present was the director of the university's General Directorate of Human Resources, Maria Aparecida Quina de Souza, who read the term of commitment and investiture, signed by Villas and Meirelles.
In his speech, the rector recalled that Brazil faces enormous challenges in producing innovations in areas such as health, bioenergy and agriculture, which demands the expertise of information technology and artificial intelligence professionals. “IC plays an essential role in this sense, being part of the agenda of this university, which wishes to be strongly linked to the idea of innovation to solve society's problems. And we will only do this if we are able to unite a broad set of actors around a new perspective of a more modern economy”, he highlights.
Professor Leandro Villas, who held the position of associate director of the IC during Rezende's administration, has a bachelor's, master's and doctorate in computer science and has worked as a professor at the institute since 2013. He was a prominent researcher at the PARADISE Lab at the University of Ottawa , in Canada, and received the IC academic excellence award in 2015 and 2019, in addition to the award Latin America Young Professional Award by the IEEE Communications Society.
Moved, Villas thanked the academic community for the trust placed in him and stressed that, in his administration, he intends to honor the history of the unit and its pioneers, many of whom were present at the ceremony. “Over the next four years, we want to consolidate the achievements already made, expand the institute’s presence in the academic and scientific community, strengthen our partnerships with companies and research institutions and, above all, guarantee the quality of our training and research”, commented the professor .
History of IC
Unicamp's Computing Institute was created in 1996. However, its origins date back to 1969, when the university created the bachelor's degree in Computer Science, then linked to the Institute of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science (Imecc). In 1977, the first postgraduate course in the area was created, offering a master's degree in Computer Science; In 1997, the institute also started offering doctorates.
“Although the IC can be considered a young unit, the computer science course is completing 54 years. It was the first course of its kind in Brazil and an example for other institutions, which came to look here, at our university, for a teaching model in the area”, reports general coordinator Maria Luiza Moretti. “This also demonstrates IC’s leading role in facing the technological challenges of our time, including communication challenges, such as those posed by the Covid-19 pandemic.”
Maintaining the objective of being a program of excellence, Unicamp's undergraduate degree in computer science is considered the best in Brazil, while its postgraduate degree received top marks in the Capes evaluation. In addition, IC also offers an undergraduate course in Computer Engineering, promoted in partnership with the Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering (FEEC), which attracts many people every year. Currently, the Unit has 50 teachers, 36 technical-administrative employees, more than 900 undergraduates, 214 master's students and 169 doctoral students, with the two most popular courses in the university entrance exam, after the medicine course.
To welcome this community, the institute has worked to expand its structure, planning for the completion of new buildings in the coming years. Furthermore, they have focused on working as much as possible on inclusion projects, with the aim of attracting more women and low-income young people to their courses. “We are very proud of the Bolsa Alumni project, in which former students make donations to offer scholarships, tutoring and consultancy. And we also have the Comp Social program, which aims to help incoming students stay until they get support from the university, to overcome this initial bureaucracy”, comments new associate director Esther Colombini.
The ceremony ended with a presentation by technology and innovation companies ProFusion, Via Consulting, Matera, Icaro Tech, Eldorado, Neuralmind and Sofist, who sponsored the event and develop several projects in partnership with the institute.
Originally published on Unicamp website
