University
Federal University of Goiás A university in Goiás that measures things: pasture from orbit, weather over the Cerrado, and its own use of artificial intelligence.
14 December 1960
01 Faculdade de Direito Law 02 Faculdade de Farmácia e Odontologia Pharmacy & Dentistry 03 Escola de Engenharia Engineering 04 Conservatório de Música Music 05 Faculdade de Medicina Medicine joined to create Universidade Federal de Goiás
A university takes shape The Federal University of Goiás — Universidade Federal de Goiás, or UFG — was created on 14 December 1960, joining five higher-education schools that already existed in Goiânia. Today its activities include undergraduate and postgraduate education, across campuses in several cities of the state.
The workshop’s host university LAPIG is part of UFG’s Institute of Socio-Environmental Studies, known as IESA. The workshop takes place at the laboratory on Campus Samambaia in Goiânia.
A university of instruments The same campus carries a centre forecasting the weather of the Cerrado, a laboratory mapping its pastures, an agrometeorological station recording the climate of Goiânia since 1977, and the first undergraduate degree in artificial intelligence opened in Brazil.
A campus with no gate Not all of it is on one site. Câmpus Colemar Natal e Silva is spread through Goiânia’s Setor Universitário, around Praça Universitária, four kilometres from where the workshop meets: the Faculty of Law, the Hospital das Clínicas and their neighbours stand among ordinary streets. It is named after the man who directed that faculty, organised the assemblies and marches that argued for a federal university in Goiás, and became UFG’s first rector in 1961.
Beyond the laboratory UFG also co-organises FICA, the environmental film festival in Cidade de Goiás. The festival brings the university into conversations about cinema, science and the environment.
Instruments
A university that keeps observatories UFG is easier to describe by what it measures than by how many people it enrols. It keeps instruments pointed at the land, at the sky, and at its own use of artificial intelligence.
Watches the land
1994
LAPIG
Laboratório de Sensoriamento Remoto e Geoprocessamento
Remote sensing and geoprocessing for environmental and territorial monitoring — including the pastures this workshop is about. It is the laboratory you are sitting in.
Read about it here Watches the sky
2 km
CEMPA-Cerrado
Centro de Excelência em Estudos, Monitoramento e Previsões Ambientais do Cerrado
Numerical weather prediction for Goiás and the Centre-West, down to a two-kilometre grid over the Goiânia region, with climate bulletins, air-quality forecasts and active-fire monitoring.
Visit Watches the university
Daily
Observatório UFG-IA
A platform to monitor, collect data on and study artificial intelligence
A public collection of articles, papers, news and video on artificial intelligence, updated daily, alongside a survey of how the university itself uses the technology. Launched by LAPIG.
Visit Builds the instruments
2019
CEIA
Centro de Excelência em Inteligência Artificial
Created under a public policy of FAPEG, the state research foundation, on a triple-helix model of university, government and companies. UFG opened Brazil’s first undergraduate degree in AI the same year.
Visit One university, several places
Five campuses, six cities The workshop sits on one of them. Friday’s destination town has another, about 119 km away in a straight line — three and a half hours by coach.
Undergraduate courses 114
Students 22,000+
Cities 6 Câmpus Samambaia
Goiânia
The large campus north-west of the centre, wooded enough that monkeys use the walkways. It holds LAPIG, the Parque Tecnológico Samambaia and an agrometeorological station that has been recording the climate of Goiânia since 1977.
The workshop runs here Câmpus Colemar Natal e Silva
Setor Universitário, Goiânia
The campus inside the city, around Praça Universitária: the Faculty of Law — one of the five schools joined in 1960 — and the Hospital das Clínicas, among others. It carries the name of the man who ran the campaign for the university from that faculty and became its first rector.
A campus with no gate: it is a set of buildings in an ordinary Goiânia neighbourhood, four kilometres from Samambaia.
Câmpus Aparecida de Goiânia
Aparecida de Goiânia
Newer, in the neighbouring city; the Faculty of Science and Technology and its palaeontology collection are here.
Câmpus Cidade de Goiás
Cidade de Goiás
In the former capital, the UNESCO-listed town the programme visits on Friday. The group does not go to the campus — but the university is there.
Friday’s destination town Campus site Câmpus Cidade Ocidental
Cidade Ocidental
On the far side of the state, near the border with the Federal District.
