The Nobel Prize Laureate Dr. Jerome Friedman, from MIT, Dr. Hironori Fujii, one of the best scientists in Japan, and one of the leading figures in Russian education, Dr. Viktor Sadovnichii, Rector of Lomonosov Moscow State University, will also be awarded in the ceremony held last Friday: The University of Belgrade, the largest in South East Europe with almost 100,000 students, awarded last Friday as Honorary Doctorates Prof. Mateo Valero, the director of the National Supercomputing Center in Spain, the Nobel Prize Laureate, Dr. Jerome Friedman (from the MIT), Dr. Viktor Sadovnichii, Rector of Lomonosov Moscow State University, and one of the most prestigious scientists in Japan, Dr. Hironori Fujii. The Honorary Doctorates procedure is extremely selective: approximately one honorary doctorate per year for the past 60 years and many Nobel Prizes among them. This year is the 200th anniversary of the university and exceptionally four Honorary Doctorates have been awarded: Nobel Prize Laureate Dr. Jerome Freeman, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Dr. Hironori Fujii, from Tokyo (Japan), who is on the top of the pyramid of Japanese scientists working on the project of the 100,000 km space elevator (1/3 distance to moon), Dr. Viktor Sadovnichii, Academician and Rector of Lomonosov Moscow State University, and Mateo Valero, from the National Supercomputing Center in Spain. Mateo Valero received the award for the following reasons:

• His research results have an extremely strong impact on the development of the world science in the computer architecture field. Furthermore, Prof. Mateo Valero has put again the whole of Europe on the map (after that United States and Japan dominated this scientific area by mid fifties) in this field
• His contribution to the creation of the computer architecture department at the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC)
• His contribution since 1984 to the creation of several parallel computing centers made possible the constitution of the National Supercomputing Center in 2004, where he is the director. This public consortium and the computer architecture department at UPC are strongly linked to the computer architecture departments of the most prestigious international universities, such as the University of Belgrade
• Prof. Mateo Valero has built strong bridges with the IT industry, especially Microsoft, Intel and IBM
• His activities have a strong impact in Serbia:
  • In 1986 Prof. Mateo Valero started to work tightly with Prof. Veljko Milutinovic (of the University of Belgrade), when Milutinovic was professor at Purdue University, developing the first microprocessor based on galenium arsenic
  • His eye opening speech a decade ago helped steer the direction of the development of Serbian science and engineering in the computer field
  • A dozen of the most talented graduates from Belgrade are currently doing PhDs under his umbrella in Barcelona, which is positive for Serbia. The best are now staying in Europe, close to home and many of them, after finishing their PhD, will return back home to help developing the nation. Others spent their internship time in Barcelona and are already back in Serbia employing the Barcelona experience for improving Serbia

The awards were presented in the major congress hall of Belgrade (Sava Centar). The ceremony and the 200th Anniversary included three cultural events: the reception at the City Hall of Belgrade, the reception at the Royal Palace and the Gala Ceremony dedicated to the Anniversary with President of Serbia’s and University of Belgrade speech followed by multimedia and Academic choruses’ performances. The ceremony of the award presentation ended with the gratitude speeches from the four Honorary Doctors. Among the University of Belgrade alumni there are 20 fellows of the IEEE and 10 professors on the top five universities of the USA (Standford, MIT, Berkeley, Illinois and UCLA). Furthermore, there are 2 Serbs listed as top 10 contributors of all times in the field of Electrical and Computing Engineering: Tesla and Pupin.