Professor Daniel García Sánchez

Professor Daniel García Sánchez

There is, many times, an excessive separation between the academic and industrial worlds. This separation seems somehow artificial. Both should be focused in solving real problems from society. However, very frequently, the former gets lost in impact factors and other quality indicators, while the latter does it in immediate solutions losing the long term viewpoint.
It is unusual to find personal profiles with a deep impact at both sides of that divide, as Professor Stroustrup has done. He has crossed in more than one occasion the border between academia and industry. His academic publication record is stellar and so is his impact on many industries. This is infrequent. But what is exceptional is having done it while keeping during decades the very same long term goal: A programming language that allows combining abstractions and developing software making efficient use of available hardware.
I feel honored introducing you today Bjarne Stroustrup, the creator of the C++ language. Many of you make use of this language on a daily basis. It is highly likely that many of the programs in your computer are written in C++. Every time you perform an internet search, you are using C++. It has also been used to make notable scientific findings, as the experiments leading to the discovery of the Higgs Boson at CERN, or the software used in hospitals for CT or magnetic resonances. You use it when you buy a plane ticket. It is even part of the software in space probes as the Mars Rovers. It is also used in entertainment industry. It will have been used to generate special effects in your last favorite film. The younger audience may have used videogames developed in C++. It is estimated that around 4,5 million software developers all around the world use C++
Bjarne Stroustrup was born in Aarhus, Denmark, in 1950, where he obtained a Master in Mathematics in 1975. After that, he moved to Cambridge University, to the world’s oldest Computer Science Department, where he carried out his doctoral thesis under the supervision of the first PhD in Computer Science in history, David Wheeler. After completing his PhD with thesis entitled “Communication and Control in Distributed Computer Systems”, in 1979 he joined the mythical AT&T Bell Labs. There, he became head of the Large Scale Programming Department, until he moved to Texas A&M University where he was a Professor from 2002 to 2014. After that, he rejoined industry as a Director within the technology division at Morgan Stanley, in New York. He is also a Professor at Columbia University. 
During his career, Prof. Stroustrup has received a wealth of awards. Let me cite only some of the very recent ones: the John Scott Legacy Medal and Premium from Franklin Institute, the Computer Pioneer Award from IEEE Computer Society, the Charles Stark Draper Award from the US National Academy of Engineering, and the Faraday medal from The Institution of Engineering Technology. Those awards were previously given to personalities like Marie Curie, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, Alexander Fleming, John Backus, Maurice Wilkes, Jack S. Kilby, Vinton Cerf, Tim Berners Lee, J.J. Thomson or Ernest Rutherford. The list continues with many other awards and distinctions during his whole career.
In 1989 I was an intern in a company when I was given a book to learn an “experimental” language. It was called C++. In fact, C++ had been created between 1979 and 1983 and it was commercially released in 1986. In 1989 the second release was launched and it is estimated that it had around 50,000 users. The same year, efforts to standardize C++ started. This is, in my opinion, one of the greatest strengths of the language. It is not owned by any corporation what allows an ecosystem where multiple vendors compete with tools for a diversity of platforms, and where long term stability is favored.
When I joined the C++ committee in 2008, I noticed that the devastating hurricane “Ike” only delayed Bjarne’s arrival at the meeting by two days. It has been really exceptional that he is absent of a meeting. Almost 30 years after its creation, standardization goes on. With more than 180 volunteers meeting three times per year, and representing the most significant players in computing industry from 12 countries, it is by far the largest programming languages committee within ISO, with more members than all other programming languages committees together.
Moreover, Bjarne Stroustrup is a person of an extraordinary human quality. In him, many have found a great friend and a patient master. We have seen how he always treats everybody as a peer, making constructive comments to help how to improve ideas and finding positive aspects in any opinion. He is, definitely, an example to follow.
Bjarne is linked to Spain not only through his relationship with UC3M, but also by his son Nicholas a brilliant researcher in Systems Biology at CRG in Barcelona.
Professor Stroustrup, we welcome you as a member of the UC3M faculty.