Princess of Girona Awards: A gala to recognize young people who choose "the difficult path"

BarcelonaPablo Sánchez, Manuel Bouzas, Andrés Dotti, Gabriela Asturias, Antoni Forner-Cuenca, and Valentina Agudelo received the Princess of Girona Award this Wednesday for their commitment to the future of the planet, health, education, and sustainable architecture. These six young people—four with Spanish nationality, one Guatemalan, and one Colombian—received the Foundation's awards from Princess Leonor at a ceremony held at the Liceu in Barcelona. The event was attended by the entire Spanish royal family, and Felipe VI called for "strengthening" ties between Catalonia and the Spanish state based on "mutual understanding," "solidarity," and "great shared goals."

The Princess of Girona Award is awarded to leaders of innovation, dedication, and leadership for youth who reflect values such as excellence, social responsibility, and hard work. This year, the awardees share the following common denominators: "social commitment, sustainable awareness, educational vocation, and transformative will." Among the recipients is engineer and entrepreneur Pablo Sánchez, who received the social award for his newborn incubator. in3ator, and architect Manuel Bouzas, who seeks to "decarbonize the construction sector" from his studio MB·AE and which has led him to win the Arts award.

Also receiving the award was civil engineer Andreu Dotti, who took home this year's CreaEmpresa award for his project Innovated, an educational company that aims to "transform the learning of mathematics." The latest national award winner was chemical engineer Antoni Forner Cuenca, who received the Research Award for the Electrochemical Materials and Systems group, which he leads and which focuses on "accelerating the development and deployment" of sustainable energy technologies.

As for the two international awardees, this year's Princess of Girona Awards were presented to scientist, doctor, and entrepreneur Gabriela Asturias, winner of the International Research Award for her project SOUL, a virtual assistant based on artificial intelligence that provides health guidance, and the entrepreneur Valentina Agudelo, who has won the CreaEmpresa International award for her project Juliet, a device that uses artificial intelligence to detect breast cancer.

Housing and the climate crisis

During the event, Manuel Bouzas spoke about the housing crisis facing the Spanish state, called for a redesign of the construction industry, and for young people to "look at the world with critical eyes." Valentina Agudelo said that "innovation is not a straight line," and Andreu Dotti recalled that "everyone can learn with effort" and that everyone is different, but has a passion. Antoni Forner-Cuenca, in turn, reflected on the pollution generated by human activity, called for reducing polluting emissions, and transforming society's energy system.

Felipe VI called for support for young people, who are "called to build the future," and called for "opening spaces for them," "giving them opportunities," and "trusting them." "Where there is trust, ideas emerge, initiative grows, and the courage to create and innovate is strengthened," he asserted. For her part, Princess Leonor (who gave part of her speech in Catalan and admitted that she was overwhelmed by being on stage at the Liceu, describing it as a "sanctuary of the arts") noted that the award winners address the complexity of the world and "transform it into clear, accessible, and effective solutions." "All six have anticipated the challenges and worked long-term in a world where everything is urgent. All six have chosen the difficult path, that of commitment, purpose, awareness of what is right, of what must be done," she stated.

The gala was held for the first time at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, and was also the first time since 2017 that the President of the Generalitat (Catalan Government), Salvador Illa, received the royal family at the beginning of this ceremony. Also participating were the Minister of Industry and Tourism, Jordi Hereu; the mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, and the president of the Princess of Gerona Foundation, Francisco Belil.