Education and Training News e-University: Laptops for higher education students and teaching staff e-University: Laptops for higher education students and teaching staff
- 26/05/2009
On 27th May 2009, a ceremony was held at 11 am at the Pavilhão do Conhecimento in Lisbon where Toshiba Portugal, together with the enterprises Prológica, Microsoft and Autodesk, and with Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC), launched the Toshiba e-University Programme to facilitate the purchase of laptops by higher education students and teaching staff.
This initiative wraps up the actions planned in 2008 between Toshiba Portugal and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education in the scope of the Toshiba Research and Learning Network.
The computers that are formatted for the Toshiba e-University Programme are equipped with specific software. It will be possible to purchase these computers at a lower cost using the guarantor-less bank credit system, with mutual guarantees, which has been in place in Portugal since 2007. The Santander-Totta bank was the first bank to join the Programme, which is open to participation from other banks.
The new financial support system includes three options for higher education students and teaching staff, namely: i) initial payment of 110 Euros and 36 payments of 15 Euros; ii) initial payment of 50 Euros and 24 payments of 25 Euros; and iii) lump sum on delivery (610 Euros).
The computers are delivered with software of interest to higher education students and teaching staff installed, including Microsoft programmes like MS Office Enterprise, Visual Studio, Windows Server Administration Tools, Robotics Studio, Windows Media Encoder, and Autodesk computer-assisted design software for architecture/construction, civil and industrial engineering, such as AutoCAD, Revit, Autodesk Inventor, and geographic information and multimedia systems, like AutoCAD Map 3D, Raster Design, among others. Computers are configured in such a way as to enable wireless Internet access automatically on higher education campuses in the scope of the e-U: Campus Virtual initiative.
The Toshiba e-University Programme is one of the initiatives foreseen in the scope of the Toshiba Research and Learning Network, which was set up in October 2008 between the Japanese computer manufacturer and Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC), the Science and Technology Foundation (FCT) and the Ciência Viva Agency.
The Toshiba Research and Learning Network also comprises a guest research chair (Invited Chair “Atsutoshi Nishida”), together with the setting up of research laboratories geared up to create and disseminate digital content, as well as the setting up of I.T. laboratories designed to disseminate digital content in Ciência Viva Centres.
The Toshiba e-University Programme is part of the “e-U: e-University” initiative by Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC), which is open to all computer manufacturers.