It was an institutional event at Cosmocaixa attended by more than 300 people, authorities and representants of the academic, profesional and business worlds, such as the Rector of Ramon Llull University, Dr. Josep Maria Garrell, Josep Pallarés, Director General of Universities of the Generalitat de Catalunya; as well as the former presidents of the Generalitat Artur Mas and José Montilla; Jaume Giró, Director General of "la Caica Bank Foundation" and main collaborator of the event; authorities such as the Mayor of Lleida, Àngel Ros and Jaume Ciurana, Deputy Delegate of Presidency and General Services at the Diputació de Barcelona; Consulates, Presidents of Associations and Chartered Institutes, General Managers and Presidents of companyies and academic authorities.
The event was conducted by the physicist and scientific broadcaster Dani Jiménez, who carried out various experiments through the event. It began with some words by the President of the Fundació Privada Universitat i Tecnología La Salle, Brother Josep Guiteras, who thanked the work and effort of all the people who made posible the creation and evolution of the Telecommunication studies, as well as those people who 50 years ago “promoted a renewal and pedagogical innovation with a way of educating and connecting with the needs of the environment and that recent history has proved was the right thing to do”.
After going through some of the most important events of the last 50 years, Maria Pilar Torné, member of the board of La Salle Campus Barcelona-URL, underlined that at La Salle “we were pioneers in the creation of new university studies that were ahead of their time, to train the new professionals that society and the business world demanded but also in the creation of a Campus that makes us unique and different”, underlining that these professionals coming out of the classrooms are also different “creative, innovative, entrepreneurial, capable of facing challenges and solving problems, without fear of change, and above of all, professionals with values”.
Closing Ceremony for the 50th aniversary
Josep M. Santos, Director General of La Salle-URL, also dedicated some words to remembering the past, but centered his speech on the future of the institution, “a future full of challenges, opportunities and changes”. Among these challenges, Santos pointed out the new ways of communication and relation, the new ways of creation, a global world where everything is connected and with digital transformation as a priority, as well as a social challenge of making the most of the knowledge and talent of the digital natives. And facing these opportunities, the Director General of La Salle spoke of the elements that make La Salle prepared to take them on, thank you to a cocktail of innovative talent, high level research and proximity with the business world via transference projects. All this will become tangible with the creation of BITLaSalle, Barcelona Institute of Technology, an innovative ecosystem that will put these actors in contact and that La Salle-URL will present publicly at the beginning of 2017.
Josep Pallarés, Director General of Universities of the Generalitat de Catalunya, focused on La Salle’s pioneer role in building a country fond of technology. The Rector of URL, Josep Maria Garrell mentioned that “URL and its 10 federal institutions, among which La Salle is founding member, has more than 19.000 students (15% from outside Spain), generates more than 2.000 highly qualified jobs, and new knowledge through research, transferring results to society, and 75.000 university graduates in the last 25 years. We believe this has great value for our country”. Finally, the Provincial Visitor of La Salle ARLEP región district, Brother Jesús Miguel Zamora, offered the closing speech of the 50th Anniversary.
During the year of celebration of these studies different events had place: two of the fathers of internet, Paul Mockapetris, inventor of DNS and Vinton Cerf, Vicepresident of Google, were invested doctor honoris causa by Ramon Llull University at the request of La Salle, becoming part of the Faculty; an event for Alumni “Now in the Future”; an exhibition and a retrospective book.
If you want photos of the event can do here.