News

T3chFest is aimed at students as well as professionals in the sector, with the aim of encouraging interest in technology and raising awareness about the development and application of the latest trends. This edition is predicted to be attended by 1,800 people coming from all the autonomous communities and by speakers of different nationalities from European and American countries. What’s new this year is there will be talks in English. With a figure that’s increasing year after year, in this edition 40 per cent of the talks will be given by women. In this edition, the values of diversity and ethics that surround science and technology will once more be brought to the forefront, in an attempt to make this event a space where people are the protagonists in connection with technology, indicate sources from the event’s organisation.

At the fair there will be an exhibitors’ area where those attending will be able to find over 25 stands, with sponsorship from firms such as Accenture, Airbus, Infojobs, Decathlon, Idealista and Microsoft, among others. What’s more, as well as showing the new technology they are using, the companies will use the event to recruit talent and evaluate the CVs of those interested in working or doing internships with them.

The poster includes two competitions: one on programming, with six tests of increasing difficulty; and the T3chFest Hackathon, a competition in teams, the topic of which will be “the Internet of Things in the rural world”, which will be carried out the previous weekend along with other technological workshops aimed at a family audience. During these workshops, a stands area has been set up, with information about different technological communities and projects, and other open-space area, so that those attending can share knowledge. With the aim of bringing technology closer to the new generations, free introductory talks will also be given.

This year the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (Initials in Spanish: FECYT) is collaborating with the event. On Friday their team will present “Science Truck”, a new science dissemination project starring youtubers – who will be in the Auditorium – which will be played live in secondary education centres. There will also be a presentation on the Thursday on #ScienceinParliament, with the promoter and the president of this independent citizen initiative, Andreu Climent and Eduardo Oliver. Its objective is to make science and scientific knowledge one of the sources of information in the formulation of political proposals.

82 presentations in two days

During TechFest 2019 a total of 82 presentations will be held on five different stages. The morning session on Thursday 14th will kick off with a talk on the design of a video game to disseminate astronomy from the hands of its creators, Sara Gil Casanova and Fernando Liébana, also the co-designers of two apps for learning about the universe and women who have done research on it. After that, the latest winner of the European Commission’s women innovators prize for her work as the head of multinational company from Zaragoza Lebelium, Alicia Asín, will talk about “the keys for a new revolution” that includes the Internet of Things which, according to her, will transform each and every sector we work in. Following this, researcher from the Department of Bioengineering and Aerospace Engineering, Cristina Quilez, will talk about the reality of bioprinting skin and other organs. In this afternoon session, UC3M researchers from the UC3M4Safety team will show the work they’ve carried out on Bindi, a system to prevent, detect and avoid attacks on women using intelligent sensors. Afterwards, a researcher in Artificial Intelligence from Australia, Karin Verspoor, will talk about her experience among penguins in the Antarctic, where she recently went on a trip to in order promote the role of women in science.

The following day, Friday 15th, the morning session will begin with a talk by Paco Martín Fernández, a researcher from IBM in New York (US), who will talk about the reality of quantum computers and how they are used for programming. Later it will be the Newtral team’s turn, a team of journalists lead by Ana Pastor that aims to verify news stories in order to combat fake news. The technology of digital special effects used in the cinema will also be touched on, thanks to Carolina Jiménez García’s conference, an important person in the field who has worked under the instruction of directors such as Ridley Scott, George Miller, Peter Jackson and Tim Burton, among others. Afterwards, a team of degree students from the Universidad de Vigo will present a system for the prevention, detection and monitoring of forest fires named Fireback, with which they won Telefónica’s Think Big prize in the national technological competition HackForGood (H4G). In the afternoon, among other proposals, attendees can meet Conrad Roset, creative director of the video game of the year, GRIS, a work of the Barcelona studio Nomada Studio winner in the category of video games in the latest edition of the Annie Awards, the equivalent of Oscars in the world of animation.

For more information: Web T3chFest