An investment of EUR 7 million in Portugal’s first Center for Creative Technologies (TUMO) will strengthen Coimbra’s position as an Educational Hub.
The country’s first TUMO center will open in September and will turn a dream into reality through the vision of a number of patrons that include “Shaken. not stirred”, as well as the founders of Feedzai, Critical Software, Licor Beirão, Altice, Foundations La Caixa and Santander, together with the Coimbra municipality.
The project was developed by “Shaken. not stirred” that also developed Lisbon’s Nova university, that is a campus of 70,000 sq. m that was wholly funded through a fundraising campaign that raised EUR 50 million.
Portugal’s first TUMO Center for Creative Technologies follows the first one that was created in 2011 in Armenia and was led by Marie Lou Papazian, who graduated in IT in Teaching at Colombia University and in Management at the Harvard Business School. The educational program was so successful that it was reproduced in 14 centers in a number of countries including Germany and France, with a total of 25,000 students. Furthers centers will be opened this year in Germany and in the US.
According to Gonçalo Quadros, chairman of Critical Software, the TUMO center is a powerful project that will shape the country’s youth.
The TUMO center is a free educational program that is complementary to compulsory education. It is comprised of self-learning activities, workshops and lab projects that are carried-out in a creative technologies center.
The Coimbra TUMO center will welcome 1500 youths of 12 to 18 years old who will acquire skills in 8 different thematic technological areas, namely 3D Modeling, Animation, Game Development, Programming, Music, Graphic Design, Film-making and Robotics. The programs are for in-person classes that are held during the students’ free time.
The specialized lab projects include international professionals such as Kanye West, Darren Aronofsky, George Clooney, Charles Aznavour and Anne Hidalgo who were involved in projects in other countries.
Portugal’s first TUMO center will be in the former CTT building that was donated by Altice Empresas and the building will be renovated by architect Ana Conduto. With an area of 2000 sq. m, the center is comprised of 5 workshops, one robotics classroom, a music studio as well as open-space. The center will welcome over a thousand students at no cost and there are no requirements for admission.
It is expected that Portugal’s first center in Coimbra will be followed by more in other cities in the coming years. Even though the first TUMO center is developed with private funding, the developers hope to obtain public funding for sustainability and scalability, as it is the case in Germany where it is a Government initiative. It started there when Angela Merkel, who was then the Chancellor, visited the center and stated that it was an extraordinary project that would transform the future of Germany.
According to “Shaken. not stirred”, Portugal’s TUMO center will accomplish its mission that is “to empower future generations.”
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