Participants this year had the option of presenting their work either as a social commitment project, scientific paper or as a spoken debate.  The event got under way with a summarised presentation of all the projects, after which each group was given 15 minutes to present their work to the presiding lecturers, who had already received the students’ written projects prior to their presentations. 

 

A total of 20 of scientific papers, two social commitment projects and four debate topics were presented.  Most participants were university students, 55 of whom were from UIC Barcelona, whilst others came from ESADE, the Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña, the University of Barcelona and the Pompeu Fabra University, among other institutions. 

 

Once all the presentations had been given, attendees were able to relax and enjoy the conference entitled “No hace falta tener éxito para ser un líder” (You don’t need to be successful to be a leader) by Sebas Lorente, lawyer, lecturer and former golfer. He spoke about the role of leadership in today’s society and gave a personal account of how he had managed to overcome the odds.  During the conference, he also stated that to be a leader, “effort and enthusiasm are the most important tools for facing everyday challenges and transforming them into success stories”.

 

Following the speech, three awards were presented —one for each presentation category— along with two second place prizes.  The award for the debate category was presented to team Pedralbes, which was formed of Luis Felipe García (UB) and Diego Sánchez (UAB).

 

As for the social commitment projects, the award was presented to two UPC students, Carlota Koert and Laura Pérez, and two students from UIC Barcelona, Marina Ramis and Teresa Joven, were presented with awards for their scientific papers. The second place prizes were awarded to two groups, the first formed of Valentina Torres and Laia Piñar (UIC Barcelona and UPF), and the second formed of Paula Cadenas, Oriol Blanco, Laura Martín and Gloria Tena (UIC Barcelona).

 

The jury tasked with adjudicating the scientific papers was made up of Iris Crespo, from the Department of Basic Sciences at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Science; Pablo Agnese from the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences; Rebeca Pardo from the Faculty of Communication Sciences and Abel Miró from the Faculty of Humanities. Juan Pablo Garrido, Director of Corporate Development at UIC Barcelona assessed the social commitment projects, and economist Albert Guivernau, assessed the debates.