Nearly 400 people attended the event at the Palacio de Congresos, organized by AIR Institute and the BISITE Research Group, in collaboration with the Salamanca Town Council. The Salamanca Tech Day event took place on Wednesday 3 May at the Palacio de Congresos y Exposiciones de Castilla y León. The initiative arises from the collaboration between AIR Institute, the BISITE Research Group of the University of Salamanca and the Town Council of Salamanca with the aim of highlighting the capacity of the province to be a national and international reference through six pillars: science, technology, logistics, sustainability, health and entrepreneurship.

In the presence of some 400 attendees in the Sala Menor of the Palacio de Congresos, the president of AIR Institute, Juan Manuel Corchado, opened the event by assuring that Salamanca is becoming a technological hub and is especially attractive for the IT industry, new technologies and innovation and “is in the best position to grow”. Next, the rector of the University of Salamanca, Ricardo Rivero, declared that “all the institutions are working together to generate the greatest number of opportunities for young people thanks to the leverage offered by research groups such as BISITE, something that is not found anywhere else in Spain”.

Afterwards, the president of the Provincial Council of Salamanca, Francisco Javier Iglesias, took the floor, and stressed that in Salamanca Tech there is also a great space for the rural world and the agri-food industry with “a unique space in Spain with which we can ensure the future of the town and the province”. The mayor of Salamanca, Carlos García Carbayo, stated that the aim of the event is to showcase Salamanca’s capacity to create a truly collaborative work environment and recalled that one of the main objectives was “to attract foreign companies and acquaint them with this environment, because very important things are going to happen in the next few years in relation to artificial intelligence”. Finally, the President of the Junta de Castilla y León, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, closed the opening speeches by recalling that public-private collaboration is essential and assured that “there is great potential for Salamanca and Castile and León to be a reference in innovation, which is synonymous with the future, opportunities and quality employment”.

Subsequently, the round tables began to discuss Salamanca’s potential. The first one, “Technology and Innovation”, was formed by the representatives of the Pontificia University of Salamanca, Indra, Iberdrola, VIEWNEXT and Axpe Consulting. The second round table, “Applied Biomedicine”, included members of the Junta de Castilla y León, IBSAL, Neurofix Pharma, Novartis and MSD.

After a short break, the third round table, “Research and Transfer”, included representatives from the University of Salamanca, the Royal Academy of Medicine of Salamanca and IRNASA-CSIC. “Logistics and Innovation” was the last round table of the day, with space for experts from the Institute for Business Competitiveness of Castile and Leon (ICE), Bernabé Campal S.L., Tebrio, Grupo Feltrero and Eurostar Media Group.

The Salamanca Tech Day innovation forum closed with a speech by Bernardo Hernández González, an investor in the technology sector and former product manager at Google, who gave his views on the evolution of technology and the opportunities it offers. He also took the opportunity to encourage the businessmen and entrepreneurs in attendance to promote technological development in Salamanca.

You can see all the photos of the event here.

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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