The UC3M, Santander and Airbus reward excellence and entrepreneurship
5/29/19
The Social Committee of the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) today presented its 2019 Awards for Excellence, which are supported by Banco Santander - through Santander Universidades - and the Airbus Group. These awards recognise the effort, quality, innovation and contribution to excellence of the university community. The event also saw the presentation of the 2018 Entrepreneur Awards, the objective of which is to promote an entrepreneurial culture and which are given to Final Degree Projects (TFG in the Spanish acronym) and Final Master's Degree Projects (TFM in the Spanish acronym) with an entrepreneurial profile.
The event was attended by the president of the UC3M, Juan Romo, and the chairman of Santander Universidades, Matías Rodríguez Inciarte. Also in attendance were the director of Santander Universidades España, Susana García Espinel; the national representative of Airbus Group’s Corporate Technology Office, Silvia Lazcano Urueña, and the managing director of Higher Art Education of the Community of Madrid, José Manuel Torralba Castelló.
2019 Awards for Excellence
The Awards for Excellence seek to promote research and they acknowledge the work done by four groups from the University: alumni, students, young doctorate research staff and administration and services staff. They also represent an opportunity to publicise young researchers with a global reach, outstanding students, administration and services staff that have carried out innovative projects, and graduates of the University with exemplary professional careers.
In this eleventh edition of the Awards for Excellence Awards, a total of 342,000 euro in prizes was awarded to 43 winners.
Among the winners were 10 young researchers with a clear global reach who receive 15,000 euro per year for two years and 22 students who stood out for their excellent academic record, who receive 1,000 euro. In addition, 20,000 euro was awarded to a team of administration and services staff that participated in a project which has contributed to excellence, mainstreaming, innovation and quality at the UC3M and which focused on the recruitment, intake and attraction of international undergraduate students. Finally, a diploma and trophy of recognition was awarded to 10 former students of the University who stand out for their remarkable professional development or their entrepreneurial activity in two categories: those who graduated between 2013 and 2015 and those who graduated more than five years ago.
2018 Entrepreneur Awards
The event also featured the presentation of the TFM Entrepreneur Awards. These awards, which were awarded for the first time, recognise work done in the 2017/2018 academic year by UC3M Master’s Degree students who created business ideas that stand out for their brilliance and viability. The first TFM Entrepreneur award of 10,000 euro went to Lydia Gutiérrez de la Llave, from UC3M’s Master's Degree in Entrepreneurship and Business Creation, who proposed the development of a line of sustainable bags made chiefly from recycled polyester or nylon. The second award, also of 10,000 euro, went to Luis González Toscano and Luis Mosquera Toscano, also students from UC3M’s Master's Degree in Entrepreneurship and Business Creation, with their business proposal "eSPORT: League of Legends and the competitive landscape on the amateur scene", which focuses on the electronic sports market.
The TFG Entrepreneur Awards, presented this year for the fourth time, recognise students who have completed innovative Final Degree Projects. The prizes awarded amount to 20,000 euro, which is used to finance entrepreneurial or educational activities in this field.
The first TGF Enterpreneur award, worth 10,000 euro, went to Ignacio Sánchez Vázquez, Antonio López Terradas Paniagua and Gonzalo Puig Zamora, from UC3M’s Degree in Aerospace Engineering, who have proposed a solution based on drones for the monitoring and analysis of crop fields at a low cost in order to conduct precision agriculture. The second TFG Entrepreneur award, of 7,000 euro, was awarded to a business proposal from Jaime Azcorra Sedano, from UC3M’s Degree in Telecommunications Technology Engineering, which consists of the application of a system to monitor local area computer networks and make virtual models of complete corporate networks. The third TFG Entrepreneur award, of 3,000 euro, went to the project 4th SKY-X (Keep calm, just fly), submitted by Alba Ulloa García, Cristina de la Barrera Bernard, Flavia Pérez Cámara and Yolanda Martín Sabater, from UC3M’s Degree in Aerospace Engineering, which proposes the development of a software that allows us to predict the flight path of a set of stratospheric balloons in order to bring free Internet to NGOs and hospitals in disadvantaged areas.
The event was accessible for the hearing impaired thanks to two subtitling technologies - called AccEvent and Mercury - developed by research staff from the Spanish Centre of Subtitling and Audio-description (CESyA in the Spanish acronym), funded by the Royal Disability Board and managed by the UC3M.
Support from Banco Santander
Santander's support for the Awards for Excellence through Santander Universidades is part of the relationship that both institutions have maintained since 1999 for the development of this and other academic projects. In fact, the two entities recently renewed their collaboration agreement so as to continue promoting projects and scholarship programmes, grants and awards to foster academic mobility, university entrepreneurship and excellence, and to support research at the UC3M and to attract leading researchers from Spain and abroad through initiatives such as the UC3M-Santander Chairs of Excellence or the CONEX (Connecting Excellence) programme.
Santander is the only European bank which features in the 'Change the World' 2018 ranking of companies that are contributing to improving the world (Fortune magazine) for its positive impact on society, among other criteria. Its firm commitment to Higher Education, which also distinguished it as the company that invests most in education in the world (report from Varkey/UNESCO/Fortune 500), has become one of its hallmarks, with 1,200 collaboration agreements with universities and institutions from more than 20 countries, more than 1,700 million euro for academic initiatives since 2002 and more than 73,000 university scholarships and grants awarded in 2018 with the aim of contributing to the progress of people, companies and society.
The role of the UC3M’s Social Committee involves, among other functions, the promotion of the participation of society in university activity, especially in its financing, and the promotion of relations between the University and its cultural, professional, economic and social environment.
The mission of the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) is to contribute to the improvement of society through advanced research in accordance with strict international criteria and quality teaching. It therefore aspires to excellence in all its activities, with the aim of becoming one of the best European universities. The UC3M is the best young university in Spain and the 22nd in the world, according to the QS ranking of the 50 best universities in the world which have been in existence for less than 50 years. It also features in the Times Higher Education (THE) 150 Under 50 ranking. It offers a wide range of courses in English and a high rate of job placement, which exceeds 90%.
