Josep Amat i Girbau, Creu de Sant Jordi award 2020

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Doctor in industrial engineering and emeritus professor at the UPC, Amat receives the award for the solidity of his research in the fields of digital signal processing and computer vision.

On Monday, September 21, the Government of the Generalitat de Catalonia awarded the Creus de Sant Jordi. 29 personalities and 15 entities highlighted by the services provided in Catalonia in the defence of their identity or at a civic and cultural level were the winners in a ceremony held in the Sant Jordi Hall of the Generalitat.

The president of the Generalitat, Quim Torra, addressed the winners as "the example and reflection of what Catalonia is". Josep Amat i Girbau has been honoured for his scientific career in robotics, and other winners have been personalities and organisations such as the motorcyclist Laia Sanz, the Roca cook brothers, the painter and sculptor Miquel Barceló and the NGO Payasos Sin Fronteras.

Amat i Girbau, full professor of Computer Architecture and Technology since 1987, has carried out his teaching duties until 2010 as a lecturer at the Barcelona School of Industrial Engineering and the Barcelona School of Informatics. On the other hand, Amat is responsible for the first important innovations in the field of telenavigation, in addition to having aimed the introduction of robotisation in the surgical field in Catalonia.

Head of the Robotics and Vision Division of the Research Centre for Biomedical Engineering (CREB), in 2012 he is co-founder and technical director of the UPC spin-off Rob Surgical, which develops a new range of medical robots focused on the surgery of laparoscopy. He is also a co-inventor of the Bitrack, a robot for minimally invasive surgery.

The full professor and former lecturer at the FIB received the Narcís Monturiol Medal from the Generalitat of Catalonia in 1990, won the Barcelona International Science and Technology Prize in 1992 and the Catalan Foundation for Research Prize in 1995. In addition, he has been honoured with The City of Barcelona Award in 1996, the Lluís Carulla Award of Honour in 1998, the Medal of Honour for Creativity from the García Cabrerizo Foundation in 2008, and the Award of Honour from the Nit de les Telecomunicacions i de la Informàtica in 2013. Likewise, Amat has been a member of the Institute of Catalan Studies since 1990 and of the Royal Academy of Sciences and Arts of Barcelona since 2000.

Read more:

https://presidencia.gencat.cat/ca/ambits_d_actuacio/premis/detalls/Aprov_CSJ_2020

https://www.ccma.cat/324/les-creus-de-sant-jordi-2020-premien-el-mon-de-la-cultura-consulta-tots-els-guardonats/noticia/3048152/

https://www.lavanguardia.com/politica/20200921/483607787379/creu-de-sant-jordi-cataluna-premiados-2020-acto.html

http://people-esaii.upc.edu/people/amat/?lang=ca