Georgia Tech is launching an initiative in Costa Rica to help boost the speed and efficiency of shipments moving to and from that country. Grand opening of the Trade-Chain Innovation and Productivity (TIP) Center in San Jose, Costa Rica is scheduled for August 20-21. Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez and Georgia Tech President G.P. "Bud" Peterson will speak at the opening ceremony. Georgia Tech already runs the Supply Chain & Logistics Institute in Atlanta and The Logistics Institute Asia-Pacific in Singapore. The goal, it said, is to boost international trade through research, innovation and education. The Costa Rican TIP Center will combine analytics, digital services and management techniques to increase productivity of the supply chain. At the outset, it will focus on food products, high-value electronics and digitized business services. The center is a joint effort of the Supply Chain & Logistics Institute, the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering and the College of Management at Georgia Tech, along with the Foreign Trade Corp. of Costa Rica (PROCOMER) and the Chamber of Industries in Costa Rica. Source: Georgia Tech