Professor Tomaso Poggio from the Center for Brains, Minds and Machines Massachusetts Institute of Technology won the first international Scientific Award “Ratio et Spes”, established jointly by the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń and the Vatican Foundation of Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI.

Ten publications (books, articles and series of articles) were submitted to the competition, which were evaluated by seven experts. Professor Poggio was awarded for the publication “Theoretical Issues in Deep Networks: Approximation, Optimization and Generalization”, which is the result of the collaboration of the professor with Dr Andrzej Banburski and Qianli Liao.

The area of ​​knowledge of the first competition ‘Ratio et Spes’ was artificial intelligence. The award’s scientific council appreciated the interdisciplinary nature of the publication and its reference to contemporary problems, which can have a significant impact on the lives of individuals and societies.