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Can you imagine our life without technology?
I think we wouldn't survive.
We could not enjoy a lot of services that right now we think are very basic
such as mobile phones, the internet…
That is unconceivable, right?
We would live totally in the past.
Without computing and information exchanging we would really be like 50 years back.
Without the new technologies I imagine myself in the Middle Ages!
It’s like a revolution, you know, like the Industrial Revolution… Well,
the Technological Revolution is like that right now. It’s everywhere
and you can do lots of things with it, you can do almost anything.
It you take away everything that communications and computing have
introduced, then life would really get worse. For sure it has nothing to do with
happiness because before all of this, people lived too and they were just as happy.
Computer Engineering Telecommunication Engineering
There are enormous challenges for telecommunication and computer
engineering in years to come. In Spain we are really facing a
transformation in many of our traditional sectors within the
industrial field, and in other cases regarding emerging sectors.
Qualifications such as Computer and Telecommunication Engineering
are essential to face the new challenges that are coming.
What I like right now are new technologies; so when you finish
High School and you haven’t thought about what you are going
to do in the future, you think “I like new technologies” so you
choose to study Telecommunication since it looks interesting.
Truth is I wasn’t really sure about what I wanted to do; but I liked
informatics and computers... I was always at home using the computer.
I love technology, the internet, mobile communications… This is
an opportunity to get to know more thoroughly how it all works.
Computing is indeed an applied branch of engineering, and it
provided me with the opportunity to carry out scientific studies without
dissociating myself from the arts.
In school they always talked to us about these studies.... they are
considered to have many job opportunities.
I took it into consideration mainly because of that... it’s job-oriented.
If you study these engineering courses, what are your possible future jobs?
You can work in anything you want to. They are telling us all the time:
once you finish here, we are going to work almost anywhere we want to.
From working in a cooperation plan in South America, to working
in a project in Hollywood; for a consulting firm or in videogame
development. There are so many things in which technology
gets involved, and so many things that technology can do
for people, that you can work almost anywhere you want to.
The market is broad, there are many jobs and a wide range of projects.
At IBM we conduct numerous projects of totally different characteristics
which sometimes come as a surprise to a lot of people. Recently, we
have been working (and still are) at the archaeological site of Atapuerca.
IBM has developed a system based on PDAs and laptops that has enabled
an on-site labeling process.
Currently my job is basically to create possibilities for companies
and people so that they can work and intercommunicate better.
I might find myself shopping at the market and I know that the
transaction occurring when I swipe my credit card worked out
because we helped. And there are multiple cases similar to this.
Important things: well, here we are working in a digital TV headline.
Digital TV was actually so in vogue that in 2012 we stopped using the
former analogical TV. So it’s one of the most emerging markets right now.
You can work on space research, on satellite communications, on medicine…
I don’t know, in a huge number of sectors... In the automobile industry.
Programa Utopía is a research project organized by the CSIC, in which we
are trying to develop a vehicle with enough security assurance for it to
run in highways without the need of a human driver. Within this project,
we are working on the integration of a diverse number of techniques,
such as computing, communications and mechatronics to meet our goals.
This is UAM's Biological Neurocomputing Lab.
What we do here is study information processing in the nervous system.
The most powerful information processing machine is not a Pentium nor
a huge supercomputer, but our own nervous system. The human brain,
even that of a mouse, is more powerful than any machine that exists so far.
This is a multidisciplinary department which includes engineers in computing,
telecommunication, and obviously biologists. Everyone with the same
target: obtaining knowledge in order to develop new technologies.
For example: for a person with visual impairment, we could create a device
to substitute and mend that impairment. We can create intelligent robots…
- Odisea? - Yes?
- Turn on the light
This is the Environmental Intelligence Lab, where we are building the
home of the future. Here we have a living room that can be controlled
using the computer. You can control the TV, turn on the radio, manage
lights… everything without having to move from your couch.
We can control the house either with systems like Odisea, by means
of voice recognition... - Hello.
...either with more simple integrated devices like for example the couch
itself, with a switch to turn on the TV or turn off the lights.
- Good bye.
Basically this Lab includes experts in a variety of branches within
Criminalistics, which comprises a set of sciences and techniques.
There are computer engineers, telecommunication engineers and
of course chemists, biologists. More and more we are in need of
qualified staff. Due to the increase in technologies and their use
in police research, hopefully we'll be able to get here before things
happen and not afterwards, which is much worse in every case.
What does a telecommunication / computer engineer look like?
Computer engineers have always been seen as the kind of people
locked between four walls, always programming, eating pizza…
and no way, you know. I think every day that image is changing.
We all have a normal life, we go out and we have friends... and
we do other things apart from computing, although we like it.
Regarding the idea that it's a very repetitive job, it’s actually the
opposite. What we try is that the machines are the ones doing the
repetitive tasks. And in order to do that, we need to have the creativity
to define the system so that the machine is the one repeating.
I think that everything that has to do with solving problems entails
a part of creativity that is very important. If you are not creative,
if you don’t take the initiative… probably, you won’t find any
solutions at all, or the ones you come up with are quite bad.
It’s very creative, and most of the times you set your own
limits; because you can come up with so many things,
originally simple ideas that might turn out to be amazing
and complex, and afterwards when they are implemented,
they might have an impact on millions and millions of people.
I think here you don’t have the chance to be a mere observer.
Whether it is in innovation, in development, or production you
are being part of the change. So if you want to experience that,
being a part of it whatever it takes being a part of it, you know:
a share of fun, a share of emotion, but also a share of effort
and responsibility… then I think it is worth studying it.