The conference will be held in Congress Centre of Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), which is located within the Alameda campus of IST, in Civil Engineering building (Alameda Campus), floor 01 and 02.
The IST Congress Centre has a Main Auditorium with capacity for 300 delegates, where all the lectures will take place. In addition, the IST Congress Centre has large halls for posters display, coffee breaks and congress rooms with capacity from 20 to 70 seats. All rooms are fully equipped and have excellent acoustics and projection conditions.
Located in one of the central-most parts of Lisbon, the Alameda Campus benefits from a transport network that facilitates mobility to all the areas of the city. In its vicinity, there are many shopping, leisure, culture, entertaining and sports areas.
The Congress Centre is situated just 3 km from Lisbon International Airport.
CITY OF LISBON
Lisbon is the capital and largest city of Portugal, located in the estuary of the River Tagus. The city has about 545 245 inhabitants, but its metropolitan area has about 2.8 million, one-fourth of the population of the country.
According to the popular legend the mythical hero Ulisses established the city. Recent archaeological discoveries prove that the city was established by Phoenicians. In 1147, D. Afonso Henriques and its army of Crusades conquered the city to the Moors, and afterwards, due its strategic localization, made it the Capital of the Kingdom of Portugal. In order to affirm himself in the city and in the region, the Portuguese King ordered the construction of the Castle of São Jorge.
With the 1755 earthquake, the City of Lisbon is almost totally destroyed. The Marquês de Pombal, Prime-Minister of D. José, reconstructed the city. The buildings and squares of the downtown Lisbon still prevail, being one of Lisbon tourist attractions, such as Terreiro do Paço.
In the area surrounding the Castle of São Jorge, you can find Alfama, the ancient moorish quarter with its narrow and labyrinth-alike side streets. Below, there is Bairro Alto, a typically Portuguese quarter, where Fado still echoes in the little taverns.
Besides typical and enchanted streets and quarters full of History, Lisbon also differentiates itself for its modern and bold architecture. Expo '98 revolutionized Parque das Nações, linking Lisbon with the future. It enabled a new, clean area which probably turned out to be the most ambitious national project of urban development of the century.
The traditional music of Lisbon is the Fado, a nostalgic song accompanied by the Portuguese guitar. The Fado is a Portuguese musical style, generally sung by only one person (fadista) and accompanied by the Portuguese guitar. The themes of the songs are related with destiny, nostalgy, jealousy or the small stories of the daily life in the typical districts. The word Fado comes of Latin fatum, which means, "destiny".
