The Mining Engineering Student Group (NUMIST) organised the 14th Santa Bárbara Seminar Series this Wednesday, 4th December. This is the first event of Técnico Career Weeks.

“These events are very important to complement the training you receive at Técnico”, said the president of Técnico, professor Arlindo Oliveira, to the students. “I believe that this branch of engineering will gain more importance due to the current concerns about the environment and exploitation of natural resources”, he added.

Engineer Diana Carvalho, from FILSTONE, shared her experience on extractive industry and gave an insight about the company. “People are the soul of a business”, said engineer Diana Carvalho demystifying the idea that there are few women working in the extractive industry and showing that this engineering area has a lot of skilled workforce, increasingly attracting young people. “At FILSTONE we make the most of everything we extract, our waste is minimal”, explained the engineer, who also talked about a software developed by FILSTONE that allows to manage real-time data (production, internal consumption, etc.). “Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things”, said engineer Diana Carvalho.

Joana Pernes, president of NUMIST, explained that the 14th Santa Bárbara Seminar Series focus on “extractive industry nowadays”. “We managed to bring different companies and we also wanted to organise a debate on lithium extraction in Portugal because it is a very controversial topic related to our area”, she explains. Several debates were held during the afternoon, which provided a fruitful exchange of ideas and experiences among the participants.