Arlindo Oliveira, a professor at Instituto Superior Técnico and president of Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores, Tecnologia e Ciência (INESC) won the “Career Award”, a joint initiative between Galp and the Portuguese Academy of Engineering. The ceremony took place on 25 February at Galp’s headquarters in Lisbon. The ‘social and economic relevance of Arlindo Oliveira’s career’, as well as the ‘dimension of excellence of engineering activity’ were the criteria considered when choosing the winner.

Arlindo Oliveira, a researcher in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI), shared ‘some insights on current discussions in the field’, emphasising that ‘the concept of mechanising reasoning is not a new one’ and that ‘Alan Turing addressed many of these ideas in 1950, despite not having a computer’. He also assured the audience that ‘there is nothing in intelligence that cannot be computed’.

Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, the President of the Portuguese Republic, in a recorded message, praised the award winner for his “outstanding career in science, both nationally and internationally” and emphasised that Arlindo Oliveira is ‘a forerunner and a pioneer in the field of AI in our country’.

The jury was chaired by Sebastião Feyo de Azevedo, president of the Portuguese Academy of Engineering. Eduardo Marçal Grilo, João Paulo Oliveira and Maria da Graça Carvalho, from the Portuguese Academy of Engineering, and Georgios Papadimitriou, Ana Casaca and Manuel Andrade, representing Galp, were the members of the jury.