IMDEA Software has participated once again with the rest of IMDEAs in the Madrid is Science Fair, organized by the Fundación para el Conocimiento Madrimasd, which took place from March 23rd to 25th.
The Madrid is Science Fair is a science outreach event aimed at school communities and the general public. Madrid is Science is conceived as a comprehensive showcase of the R&D&I capabilities of the Madrid Regional Government for the construction of a sustainable future, showing citizens the response that Science, Technology and Innovation can give to the challenges of the planet.
IMDEA Software led various activities for the public at the Fair to play and understand some computer science concepts. They were able to learn how an algorithm works by playing “The Towers of Hanoi”; to decipher and encrypt code with “Caesar’s disks”; what an image is for a computer through “Instagram filters”; how to speed up tasks with parallelism using sums and/or cards from a deck of cards; circumvent the security controls of a server with “HacKtivity”; and search and describe secure protocols without revealing secrets through “Multi-Party Computation”, among others.
23rd of March
Researchers Diego Castejón, Srdjan Matic, Konstantinos Papaioannou and Georgia Christofidi attended the visitors during the first day.
The director of IMDEA Software, Manuel Carro, attended the official opening of the Fair and visited the stand together with the Vice-Minister of Universities, Science and Innovation; Fidel Rodríguez Batalla, the General Director of Universities and Higher Artistic Education of the Madrid Regional Government; Ricardo Díaz, and the president of the Madrimasd Foundation; Federico Morán. Carro introduced them to Multi-Party Computation and Diego Castejón was in charge of guiding them to follow a protocol through a game of cards and numbers.
24th of March
On the second day, researchers Fernando Macías, Marcos Grandury, Daniela Ferreiro, Niki Vazou, Juand Caballero, Pedro Moreno and Martín Ceresa were at the stand.
The Vice President and Councilor for Education and Universities, Enrique Ossorio, Fidel Rodríquez Batalla, Ricardo Díaz and Federico Morán visited the IMDEA stand after the official visit to the Aula Fair. The General Director of Research and Technological Innovation, Ana Isabel Cremades, also stopped by IMDEA’s stand in the afternoon.
After the official visit, science popularizer Javier Santaolla presented the AMAUTAS platform and the collaboration agreement between the IMDEA Institutes and the scientific knowledge platform. Santaolalla was assisted by IMDEA Materials researcher Mónica Echeverry for the presentation, as she is the protagonist of the first course resulting from this collaboration: “Materials that save lives”, which is now available at AMAUTAS.
25th of March
IMDEA Software’s Director, Manuel Carro, Martín Ceresa, David Balbás, Gabina Bianchi and Louis Rustenholz were in charge of the stand during the third and last day, where families and people of all ages were able to learn first-hand what the Institute does.