The director of BSC, awarded in El Periódico’s first edition prize for his contribution to improving the Barcelona city project
The director of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center - Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS), Mateo Valero, has been awarded the Barceloní de l'Any prize, which the newspaper El Periódico is awarding this year for the first time to coincide with the Mercè festivities. The award honours a person who has contributed during the year 2024 to defining, promoting or improving the project of the city of Barcelona, whether on a civic, economic, cultural, scientific or social level.
The jury of the first edition of the award has distinguished Valero for being “the father of BSC and various generations of supercomputers that have followed one after the other up to the MareNostrum 5, inaugurated only nine months ago and called upon to make Barcelona's scientific capital grow”.
Valero was chosen by seven citizens' organisations from a proposal of candidates drawn up by the editorial and advisory board of El Periódico: the Barcelona Oberta association, the Official College of Architects, the Catalan theatre association Adetca, the Taula del Tercer Sector, the Foment de les Arts i del Disseny (FAD) and the Restaurant and Hotel Guilds.
The award ceremony will take place on Wednesday 18 September in the gardens of the Palau Robert, on the eve of the start of the week-long festival of La Mercè, in a ceremony presided over by the Mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, and the heads of the Prensa Ibérica group, publisher of El Periódico.
The new Barceloní de l'Any award brings to Barcelona the philosophy of the Català del Any prize, which El Periódico has already awarded in 21 editions and which will celebrate its 22nd edition next November.
About Mateo Valero
The director of BSC holds the three most important supercomputing awards worldwide: the Eckert-Mauchly Prize in Computer Architecture, awarded by the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) and the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), as well as the Seymour Cray Prize in Supercomputing and the Charles Babbage Prize in Parallel Computers, both awarded by the IEEE.
He has also been awarded two national research prizes (Julio Rey Pastor, in 2001, and Leonardo Torres Quevedo, in 2006) and is a member of ten scientific academies.
For his significant contributions, he is considered one of the most important contributors to Computer Architecture in the last 25 years in Europe. He has published approximately 700 articles, has collaborated in the organisation of more than 300 international conferences and has given more than 600 lectures.
Mateo has eleven Honoris Causa awards. He is Doctor Honoris Causa of the Chalmers University of Technology, University of Belgrade, University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, University of Veracruz, University of Zaragoza, University Complutense of Madrid, University of Cantabria, University of Murcia, Doctor Honoris Causa elect of the University of Granada, Doctor Honoris Causa of CINVESTAV and of the Cristobal Colon University.
He is the favorite son of his town, Alfamén (Zaragoza) and in 2005, the local school was named CEIP Mateo Valero in his honor.
Further information here.