Nearly two hundred faculty members, students, and alumni of DCC-FCUP participated in the commemorative event marking four decades of education in this field.
On October 25, the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto (FCUP) celebrated 40 years of education in Computer Science, with an event that brought together, at the Ferreira da Silva Auditorium, faculty members, researchers, students, staff, former colleagues, alumni, and employers of a department that has been a pioneer “in training professionals, conducting research, and building bridges between academia and industry.”
For Fernando Silva, Director of the Department of Computer Science (DCC), the event was both “rewarding” and “inspiring”. He highlighted the importance of such celebrations for the DCC community, as they provided an opportunity for former classmates and colleagues to reconnect. Notably, he emphasized the “strong emotional bond that endures between alumni and faculty.”
The celebrations of four decades of education offered not only a true “journey” into the department’s past but also a glimpse of what DCC’s programs can offer current students. Alumni shared several examples of outstanding professional paths, all emphasizing how essential it is to “learn how to learn” and the value of the “foundational knowledge acquired at FCUP,” noted Fernando Silva.
The event also featured a lecture by renowned professor and researcher Moshe Y. Vardi, who drew attention to the need to value resilience, not just efficiency, in today’s context of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
AI was, in fact, one of the central themes of the event. In a panel discussion addressing the role of this technology in education, employability, and the modernization of public administration, participants underscored the importance of integrating generative models responsibly to promote deep learning.
Reflecting on the past decades, the DCC Director emphasized the diversification of the department’s educational offerings, which now encompass areas with major societal impact — such as Bioinformatics, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, and Information Security — all of which “coexist harmoniously with the department’s strong foundational and methodological training in Computer Science.”
Fernando Silva also highlighted the growth in student numbers, which have more than doubled in the past two decades, currently exceeding 1,500 students across the three study cycles. “Today, Computer Science is a driver of innovation across many other fields of knowledge, and DCC stands out for its strong interdisciplinary nature and active collaboration with companies and research centers,” he concluded.