Overall, Coimbra is a fantastic city: it has a great history, a wonderful center full of life and a spectacular university, one of the most respected in the country and abroad. However, Coimbra is also a famous center of technological development, home of great companies that conquer new advances every day. But many people, whether it’s the locals or the visitors, are still unaware of that.
One of the representatives of this movement is the Improve Coimbra Group, composed of technology experts that want to help the city grow. Together they have created web and mobile applications, defined routes for cycling in Coimbra and mapped historic buildings that need to be renewed, among many other projects. For instance, if you walk across Coimbra and find a coffee with a sticker indicating the existence of wi- fi, it’s very likely that the group Improve put it there.
According to Sergio Santos, one of the representatives of the group, “more companies are emerging in the area of new technology, thanks to the efforts of the University of Coimbra and the Instituto Pedro Nunes (business incubator), as well as thanks to a group of people who lead by example with their own projects. The average size of Coimbra allows better interconnections between all stakeholders. It’s easier to share knowledge, inset events or organize informal meetings. What is expected now is that all these efforts help to consolidate a constant number of new companies”.
If you are visiting the city and truly want to enjoy the work of this group in a practical way, you can use the app UrbanFlow, which displays real time information about buses in Coimbra, or consult the website Wifi Cafes Coimbra (http://cafewifi.improvecoimbra.org/) to discover establishmentswith internet. Soon, it will be launched a platform for cultural events called Radar, which will show you when and where you can find that play or concert you want to see while you visit the city.
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