Manuel Goulão, a Técnico alumnus, was the winner of the second edition of the ‘Vencer o Adamastor’ award, established by the Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores (INESC) and the Público newspaper to recognise ‘innovative works by young scientists working in the area of electrical engineering, computing and related fields that reveal not only scientific excellence, but also potential for economic development”, according to the award’s website.
The Técnico alumnus, now a researcher at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (Japan), was honoured for his work on post-quantum cryptography, which aims to anticipate computer attacks and privacy violations that may be carried out by quantum computers – which have significantly more computing power than current computers and, therefore, pose a potentially greater threat if used for malicious purposes.
According to Rogério Colaço, president of Técnico, “this award is of recognised impact and relevance in our country’ and recognised a work that focused on ‘an extraordinary topic’. ‘Winning the Adamastor means not being afraid to follow unexplored paths’ he said, congratulating Miguel Goulão on his achievement.
The president of INESC, Arlindo Oliveira, stated that “innovation is the driving force of modern societies”. The distinguished professor at Técnico pointed out that “cryptography, the need to hide information, is a very old field which, with the advent of the internet, is now used dozens of times a day by all of us”. He also acknowledged that quantum computers could pose a threat to the security of today’s communications and shared he was “very pleased that Manuel Goulão had been awarded the prize”.
During his presentation on the award-winning work, Goulão explained that he specialises in the field of multi-party computing. This involves a group of entities with private information working together in a network to carry out operations with this information collectively without sharing the data with the other entities. This approach has shown positive impacts in various applications including social studies on family income and school success, gender pay gap, market equilibrium, key sharing, and artificial intelligence. Goulão emphasised the importance of cryptography as the foundation of privacy, and privacy as the foundation of all other rights. He also referred to Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which aims to protect everyone against “arbitrary intrusions into private life.”
The ceremony was attended by the Rector of Universidade de Lisboa, Luís Ferreira, who left a message of recognition for the award winner, INESC and the Público newspaper. He also expressed his “affection” for Técnico, “because it has transformed very promising secondary school students into individuals capable of show their full potential”.
‘The role of science journalism at Público is a well-established and long-standing – we’ve had a science section since the newspaper was founded 34 years ago,’ recalled Marta Moitinho Oliveira, deputy director at Público newspaper. ‘That’s why it makes sense for us to be here and to be partners in this award’, she added, thanking Técnico and INESC.
After presenting a symbolic large prize cheque to the award winner, the award jury chair, José Tribolet, confessed that he hadn’t yet met Manuel Goulão before the award ceremony. The retired distinguished professor shared that, after exchanging a few words with the researcher before the ceremony began, he concluded that “he is a nice guy, a good person”. He wished the winner further success in his career and urged him to ‘come home, we need you a lot’.
