The Innovation Center of Altice, in Aveiro, received on the 12^th October, the visit of the European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, Carlos Moedas. The initiative was integrated in TECHDAYS, one of the largest national spaces for technology, research and development, of which Altice Labs is the main sponsor, and took place from the 12^th to 14^th October. During the event the first public demonstration of the 5G technology was carried out, which is being developed in partnership with Ericsson in this Innovation Center of the Altice group.

The laboratories of Altice Labs are the group’s innovation nerve center where more than 650 engineers are working to develop new technology solutions to to get first to the most innovative products and services.

" We try to think ahead, but with a business mindset. This is a growing, successful research and development center that continues to export profitable technology " says Alexandre Fonseca, Altice / PT's Chief Technology Officer.

For Alexandre Fonseca, " this visit to Altice's main Innovation Center demonstrates the importance it has not only for the region of Aveiro but also for the country, as Portugal seeks to position itself at the forefront of innovation and technological development. Altice Labs currently has more than 1000 engineers working on the development of solutions and products to be exported to more than 35 geographies and 650 of these engineers are precisely in Aveiro.These figures are representative of the importance and centrality that this investment in innovation and technology has to Altice Group ".

Innovation is, in fact, a strategic pillar of Altice worldwide. " It's the only thing that can allow us to keep abreast of the trend and so we need to have innovation at the center of everything we do ", says Claudia Goya, Executive Chairman of Altice/PT during the visit of the European Commissioner.

" It is from here that innovations and new products come out that will sustain all this digital transformation that we want to be the path that Altice will take to be a global player ", adds Alcino Lavrador, General Manager of Altice Labs who, at the beginning of the visit , led Carlos Moedas on a journey that began in the 1950s with a stop at the most striking moments of this innovation center.

Carlos Moedas also attended the presentation of a project in the area of ​​networks and 5G operations, the SELFNET (Framework for Self-Organized network management in virtualized and software defined networks). The project addresses the design and implementation of an autonomous network management infrastructure, featuring self-organizing capabilities in network infrastructure management, automatically detecting and mitigating the most common network problems that are still manually handled by operational teams today, reducing costs and improving the end-user experience. It will integrate technologies that are state of the art in the areas of SDN, NFV, SON, Cloud computing, artificial intelligence, QoE and next generation networks.