Ga. Tech, MIT expand logistics programs overseas
Georgia Tech's Supply Chain and Logistics Institute in early September opened a Logistics Innovation and Research Center in Panama to help the government turn the Central American nation into a top-flight intercontinental trade hub.
Not to be outdone, the Center for Transportation & Logistics (CTL) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology opened a Center for Latin American Logistics Innovation in Bogot', Colombia in 2008 and has interest in setting up a logistics university in Panama too, school officials say.
Georgia Tech's Logistics Center will gather data on logistics and trade flows, and develop reports showing Panama's value as a transshipment, consolidation and shipment preparation location. It will offer degree programs for students and executive-level courses for logistics professionals. And it will work to identify new infrastructure needs and logistics services by leading the development of a National Logistics Council and a National Logistics Plan.
The university's presence in Panama is part of a larger push to create a network of logistics research centers throughout Latin America and beyond that can collaborate together to improve trade performance.
A full-length feature about how Georgia Tech and MIT are exporting logistics knowledge to the rest of the world can be found here. ' Eric Kulisch