The 4th Hipatia European Science Prize is awarded to Nuria Oliver
The international expert in Artificial Intelligence (AI) Nuria Oliver, scientific director and co-founder of the Ellis Alicante Foundation, today received the 4th Barcelona Hipatia European Science Prize, promoted by Barcelona City Council in collaboration with the Barcelona Knowledge Hub of the European Academy (AE-BKH). At an institutional ceremony in the Saló de Cent, the Mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, presented the €30,000 prize in recognition of her quest for excellence in the development of new AI methods and systems to promote a positive social impact, a track record of exceptional international impact that has resulted in more than 40 registered patents.
The Mayor stressed that Barcelona recognises the talent of Dr. Nuria Oliver, a woman who “broke the glass ceiling” and represents the same values of the city: “technological humanism, science and feminism”. The mayor thanked her publicly for denouncing the risks and problems in terms of well-being and mental health that social networks can have on minors. Collboni also recalled Barcelona’s “love of science”, which claims to be the Global Capital of Technology and European Capital of Science and Innovation, with “a solid commitment to promoting innovation and putting knowledge at the service of society”. The Vision of Barcelona for 2035″, he said, “is a vision of humanistic values, of equality in all disciplines, which promotes female talent in science and innovation”.
At the event, the award winner, Nuria Oliver, gave a lecture on her career and goals that have been the reason for her recognition, entitled Towards a Socially Sustainable Artificial Intelligence. Oliver structured her talk in two parts. The first focused on reviewing his academic and professional career, which has been oriented towards the development of technology for the common good, and the second on giving an overview of the current state and impact of AI. In this part, he stressed that we are living through a fourth industrial revolution in which the physical, digital and biological worlds are converging, at the core of which is AI. In addition, according to Oliver, AI is key to tackling today’s major challenges such as the ageing population, population, energy, climate change and pandemics. The lecture can be viewed at the streaming link of the event.
The award ceremony was also attended by Europaea Academy President Marja Makarow, the academic director of the AE-BKH, Jaume Bertranpetit, and the fourth deputy mayor for Economy, Finance, Economic Promotion and Tourism, Jordi Valls.
About Nuria Oliver
A Telecommunications Engineer from the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM) and a PhD in Media Arts and Sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Oliver has focused her research on modelling individual and aggregate human behaviour through machine learning techniques and the creation of intelligent and interactive systems, covering various areas of social impact, including health and wellbeing, financial inclusion and natural disasters.
Among other positions in the telecommunications sector, she has been Chief Scientific Officer at Telefónica R&D; Chief Scientific and Data Science Officer at Vodafone Group (UK), and co-founder and Vice President of ELLIS, European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems (Germany). She is passionate about science and technology outreach, with hundreds of media appearances, and is actively engaged in attracting young talent – especially women – into engineering and computer science. During the Covid-19 pandemic, she was commissioner of the Presidency of the Generalitat Valenciana for the Valencian AI Strategy, and especially for the coordination of data science to fight Covid-19.
The Hypatia Prize
The Hypatia Prize was launched in 2018 as one of the actions of the first Barcelona Science Plan. Its aim is to raise the profile of the search for excellence in Europe and to promote the city of Barcelona as a European capital of science and knowledge.
This call, corresponding to the year 2023, has awarded a researcher in the field of Science and Technology, starting a new three-year cycle that will continue over the next 2 years, awarding successively a person from the field of Life Sciences and Health (2024) and the field of Humanities and Social Sciences (2025). In the first edition (2018; Science and Technology), the Hypatia Prize was awarded to the mathematician László Lovász; in the second edition (2019-2020; Life and Health Sciences), to the virologist Ilaria Capua; and in the third edition (2021; Humanities and Social Sciences), the prize was awarded to the philosopher of science Nancy Cartwright.
Academia Europaea-Barcelona Knowledge Hub
Academia Europaea is an international non-governmental association with more than 5000 members, including more than 80 Nobel Laureates, which promotes research and education in all areas of knowledge. Academia Europaea operates through a network of regional knowledge centres, including the Barcelona Knowledge Hub covering the Mediterranean and Southern European regions. The BKH was launched in 2013 and is currently located at the headquarters of the Catalan Foundation for Research and Innovation. Its activity runs along five strategic lines: the promotion of interdisciplinary scientific dialogue, citizen participation, the exploration of synergies between science and art, the visibility of the Catalan research ecosystem in the international context, and the recognition of academic excellence, where the Hypatia European Science Prize is framed.
