IQS Participates in the Fundación Princesa de Girona Technological Expedition

Three IQS doctoral students, accompanied by Dr Andrés García, Head of the Industrial Engineering Department, participated in an event on 26 February held thanks to the Fundación Princesa de Girona within the framework of the Mobile World Congress that launched at Dfactory. This was all possible thanks to the collaboration agreement between the IQS Business Foundation and the Fundación Princesa de Girona.

The doctoral students, Antoni Torres Coll (Bioengineering and with the Materials Engineering Group, GEMAT), Javier Gómez Sánchez (Chemistry and Chemical Engineering and R&D Engineer, GLOO), and Carles Bofill Bonet (Bioengineering and Materials Engineering Group, GEMAT), started the event at Dfactory, a hub for the creation of a system that supports the promotion and development of Industry 4.0. Salvador Tasqué Díez, director general of the Fundación Princesa de Girona, and an IQS alumnus, welcomed the students and explained his work on Artificial Intelligence for export systems in chemical engineering, which he conducted in 1992 under the supervision of Dr María Luisa Espasa, tenured professor at IQS.

The presentations by the participating institutions “placed an emphasis at all times on the desire to retain talent in Barcelona and support the necessary collaborations for being a leading centre of technology 4.0 in all areas. This reality is supported across different administrations,” stated doctoral student Carles Bofill.

Next, a roundtable session was held with professionals who have started various startups to explain their experiences with the aim of encouraging people to create and develop ideas.

At the MWC, the technological expedition visited 4YFN, were they were able to discover countless startups. Divided into different groups, they contacted emerging companies that they aimed to evaluate from their founding based on different criteria: education, AI, sustainability, and social impact. They also sought to assess the clarity of the solutions in terms of innovation and impact. The final event of the day was led by the entrepreneur Pau García-Milà.

“The experience was truly enriching and enabled us to see where efforts, ideas, technology, innovation, and industry are being focused on in different fields such as healthcare, education, and technology” stated the three IQS doctoral students.