On 20 January, Barcelona Supercomputing Center held the 2018 Annual Meeting in the UPC Vèrtex building Auditori (auditorium). In this event, Mateo Valero, BSC director, and Josep Martorell, BSC associate director, reviewed the achievements reached in 2018 and the expected projects in the future.
More than 450 researchers and support staff attended the event. As special guests, the former Secretary of State for Research, Development and Innovation, and former president of the BSC Board of Trustees by the Spanish Government, Carmen Vela, and the former member of BSC Board of Trustees by the Catalan Government and former BSC associate director, Francesc Subirada, attended the meeting.
Our group participated in the BSCTalks. This is a part where researchers can explain to all BSC staff what they are doing through short attractive TED-style presentations. In order to be one of the selected speakers, previously, all candidates have sent a short video where they explained their proposal and these videos were uploaded at a web page. After an internal votation, the eight most voted proposals were selected for giving the talk in the annual meeting.
Xavier Sáez and Dani Gallart gave the talk entitled “Looking at the stars” where they explained the motivation to undertake nuclear fusion research, the fusion group work and the roadmap to get fusion energy.
The event finished with an invited lecture by the alpinist Ferran Latorre entitled “The Quest of the 14. The Challenge as a magnet”, where explained his CAT14x8000 project. The aim of this project was to become the first Catalan to climb the 14 highest peaks without oxygen. On 27 May 2017, Ferran achieved this challenge with the climbing of Everest.
Good job guys!