“It is nearly impossible that SINFO is organised only by students”, this is often heard at SINFO – the biggest free tech conference in Portugal organised by Técnico. This successful event that attracts different companies and internationally renowned speakers requires “a lot of work” and “an immense dedication” of Técnico students.
Some keynote speakers at SINFO 29 were: Erin Ramos( Head of Effects Animation at Walt Disney Animation Studios), Martin O’Donnell (Audio Director and Composer at Highwire Games), Sérgio Santos, (VFX Composition Supervisor @ Dø Postproduction), Eddy Willems (Security Evangelist @ G Data CyberDefense), Chris Kubecka (Security Researcher, CEO @ HypaSEC) and Shubha Swamy (Software Engineer @ Twitter).
This Friday, March 11, Christian Kroll, founder of Ecosia, an eco-friendly search engine, gave a lecture titled “How a tech startup planted over 150 million trees”. “Ecosia works like a normal search engine. When you click on the search button, you get the result of your search. And like all other search engines, we use the profits from our ads, but the big difference is that we use this money not to finance autonomous vehicles or virtual reality, but to plant trees all over the world”, he explained.
All over the world, Ecosia supports over 20 tree-planting projects in different countries: from Africa to Latin America, Indonesia and Spain. “Our commitment is to focus on developing countries, in order to create opportunities for people and combat problems. By planting trees, you can really take a new direction so that people can make their land fertile again”, said the entrepreneur.
Christian Kroll made a brief presentation of the company and explained that he and his partner signed a legally binding commitment that does not allow the startup to become profitable or to be sold. “We wanted to make sure that Ecosia’s main goal of planting trees will always be protected,” he shared.
56 companies, of which 9 are attending SINFO for the first time
This year’s edition brought together 56 companies, 9 of which were debutants. “We invited new companies this year because we noticed that people often felt that, year after year, the companies were the same”, stresses Mariana Cintrão, one of the coordinators of SINFO 29.
“We noticed a great interest from companies in attending the event”, highlights Maria Forjó, also coordinator SINFO 29. “Unfortunately, we cannot accommodate everyone, but it is also very good to know that there is great interest from the companies in coming and meeting our students”, says, Marta Ambrósio, another coordinator of SINFO 29.
According to João Pina, also coordinator of SINFO 29, the student attendance at the event has remained stable throughout the week and exceeded “our expectations”. “In previous years, we used to have more people on Monday, and this year the attendance has been very consistent on the remaining days”, shares the student. “Even the companies that came to previous editions have been surprised by the public acceptance”, shares Mariana Cintrão.
Maria Forjó shares “a speaker once told us that it was impossible that SINFO was organised only by students. It is very rewarding that companies come to us and say that the event was incredible, that everything was very well organised and that students demonstrated genuine interest. Obviously, we feel a huge sense of accomplishment to see our work recognised”.
“SINFO is made up not only of people who are currently part of SINFO team, but also of those people who have already left but are always available to help us. That’s why SINFO has this dimension and works out so well”, stresses Maria Forjó.
“It takes a lot of dedication to deal with different types of situations. I think I speak for everyone when I say that we managed to create a good atmosphere and a good team”, says Mariana Cintrão.
