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SINAIS Project – Sustainable Interaction with Social Networks

SINAIS (Sustainable Interaction through Social Networks, Context Sensing, and Service Innovation) is a project funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the Carnegie Mellon Portugal Program. This is a 3-year research project led by LabUSE at the University of Madeira, with a consortium involving Carnegie Mellon University, the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto, the Catholic University, and various companies and government agencies.  

ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) for sustainable development is one of the four flagship “i2010” initiatives of the European Commission to highlight the potential of ICT in improving quality of life. The goal of contributing to sustainable behaviors, practices, and products/services is particularly relevant given the island context of Madeira. The organization's objective is to establish a strong, coherent, and lasting connection between Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Madeira. The project is intentionally broad in scope, aiming to establish a unifying long-term research theme in which the partnership can become a world leader. The European Commission's 7th Framework Programme defines sustainability as one of the three major socio-economic transformations that Europe should lead; the strategic objective of this project is to seed a substantial research unit as additional funding becomes available for this topic.  

The project's outcome will be a series of products and services that enable new ways of supporting sustainable behavior, exploring these from the perspectives of entrepreneurship and the development of new businesses and business models.    

Duration: January 2009 to December 2011