US programmer Richard Stallman visited the University of Salamanca to deliver a conference entitled “Free Software in Ethics and Practice”.

Richard Stallman is a free software advocate par excellence, and defends it at all costs. To him we owe the GNU operating system, as well as the founding of the Free Software Foundation, an agency that promotes the concept of free software. At the moment he is dedicated to spread the GNU philosophy around the world through talks, conferences and workshops.                                                                                                      

It has been a pleasure to be able to listen to him and find out about his ideas and proposals directly from him. Stallman has told us that he does not have a mobile phone, and is not planning to get one until these devices have free software. He takes great care by browsing through specific websites only, in order not to give access to his browsing history and generally avoids using any device that can leave some trace in the network.

Stallman has been named Doctor Honoris Causa in 17 different universities and countries, notably the Universities of Vriji Brussels (Belgium), Pavia (Italy), Lakehead (Canada), Cordoba(Mexico), Glasgow (United Kingdom) and Pierre and Marie Curie (France) and received several awards such as the MacArthur Fellowship, the Pioneer Award, the Takeda Techno-Entrepreneurship Award for Social / Economic Well-Being and the ACM Software System Award.

The Students Section of the ACM association of the USAL was in charge of organizing this talk in collaboration with the Dean of the Faculty of Sciences. Good work and thanks for the initiative. It is seldom to see the Faculty´s hall so filled with people.

As published in media:

Posted by Juan M. Corchado

Juan Manuel Corchado (15 May 1971, Salamanca, Spain) is Professor at the University of Salamanca. He has been Vice-Rector for Research from 2013 to 2017 and Director of the Science Park of the University of Salamanca. Elected as Dean of the Faculty of Science twice, he holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Salamanca and a PhD in Artificial Intelligence from the University of the West of Scotland. He leads the renowned BISITE (Bioinformatics, Intelligent Systems and Educational Technology) Research Group, created in 2000. Director of the IoT Digital Innovation Hub and President of the AIR Institute, J. M. Corchado is also Visiting Professor at the Osaka Institute of Technology since January 2015, Visiting Professor at the Universiti Malaysia Kelantan and Member of the Advisory Group on Online Terrorist Propaganda of the European Counter Terrorism Centre (EUROPOL). J. M. Corchado has been president of the IEEE Systems, Man and Cybernetics Society, and academic coordinator of the University Institute for Research in Art and Animation Technology at the University of Salamanca, as well as researcher at the Universities of Paisley (UK), Vigo (Spain) and the Plymouth Marine Laboratory (UK). He currently combines all his activity with the direction of Master programmes in Security, Digital Animation, Mobile Telephony, Information Systems Management, Internet of Things, Social Media, 3D Design and Printing, Blockchain, Z System, Industry 4.0, Agile Project Management, and Smart Cities & Intelligent Buildings, at the University of Salamanca and his work as editor-in-chief of the journals ADCAIJ (Advances in Distributed Computing and Artificial Intelligence Journal), OJCST (Oriental Journal of Computer Science and Technology) or Electronics MDPI (Computer Science & Engineering section). J. M. Corchado mainly works on projects related to Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Blockchain, IoT, Fog Computing, Edge Computing, Smart Cities, Smart Grids and Sentiment Analysis. He has recently been included in the board of trustees of the AstraZeneca Foundation, along with other health professionals and researchers recognised for bringing scientific knowledge closer to society.

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