The Director of the IMDEA Software Institute, Manuel Carro, as well as Professor Pierre Ganty participated on September 30 in the scientific café organized within the framework of the European Researchers’ Night at the Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid together with other colleagues from the IMDEA Institutes. This annual event is promoted by the Vice-Presidency, Ministry of Education and Universities of the Community of Madrid, and coordinated by the Foundation for Knowledge, Madri+d since 2009, with funding from the European Commission, under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA).
After a warm welcome by Alicia Gómez-Navarro, Director General of the Residencia de Estudiantes, Ana Isabel Cremades, Director General of Research and Technological Innovation, was in charge of opening the event. She highlighted the fundamental work carried out by the IMDEA Institutes, both for developing science of excellence and for organizing events in which to disseminate scientific knowledge to society.
Manuel Carro and José Manuel Torralba, Director of IMDEA Materials, presented the activity in which researchers from IMDEA Institutes talked about how the research carried out at the centers - through lines, projects or contracts - helps to fulfill the 5 missions of the EU, whose common goal is to achieve a better and more sustainable future.
In this colloquium, very diverse topics were discussed, one of them focused on how to fight against cancer from disciplines such as Precision Nutrition or Nanoscience. It was also discussed how to help curb climate change by reducing waste production or promoting its reuse and manufacturing batteries or biodegradable prostheses with new materials. The workshop also focused on how to make the cities of the future much more intelligent through research into communication networks and software, and thus contribute to making them more livable spaces. In particular, Pierre Ganty mentioned that “thanks to high-precision agriculture, the data collected through software makes it possible to optimize the use of chemical products, making the process more efficient and less harmful”.
In the scientific café, the problem of energy consumption was presented and in this sense Ganty expressed that the cryptocurrency “Bitcoin consumes as much energy as the whole of Argentina. The technology tries to solve very complicated puzzles that require a lot of energy. This is a real problem but cryptographers are changing the paradigm by moving to proof-of-stake, an example of natural evolution”.
And finally, he delved into the idea of starting with small, achievable initiatives in the short term, as is the case of “the airline that is implementing a software for its airplane routes. A ‘waze’ for airplanes. The forecast is that they are going to cut CO2 emissions by 1% from the start, in addition to fuel savings”.
