23/10/2025

Montserrat Rigall, honoured at the WA4STEAM Awards, an event which recognises women entrepreneurs

The Faculty of Communication Sciences lecturer presented in Madrid the second edition of the WA4STEAM Awards, aimed at recognising women in STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics), in which she was honoured for her support of female leadership as a member of RTVE.

Montserrat Rigall, a journalist specialised in artificial intelligence and member of the UIC Barcelona teaching staff, received a WA4STEAM Award in the Collaborating Organisation category as part of RTVE's Impulsa Visión, an initiative of the public television broadcaster that supports research and entrepreneurship and contributes to the development and competitiveness of the audiovisual sector, with a particular focus on the creation of start-ups, business stimulation and research grants.

WA4STEAM is an association comprised entirely of women dedicated to recognising, promoting and giving visibility to women leaders in the STEAM entrepreneurial ecosystem. Montserrat Rigall served as master of ceremonies on 17 October in Madrid for an event in which she also delivered a conference as a journalist specialised in artificial intelligence.

Rigall presented a video of a live feed from Indonesia for RTVE’s 24-hour news channel. Thanks to her mastery of mobile journalism and use of artificial intelligence, she produced several broadcasts for RTVE based on the news story of a Spanish tourist who had disappeared two months earlier. The conference “underscored how technology, applied properly, can be an agent of change in an historical moment influenced by the shift in paradigm brought about by AI,” explains the journalist.

The event featured a round table discussion on the future of AI, with particular emphasis on finance, science and technology. Participants included Amaya Gutiérrez, head of Investment and Portfolio Advisory at Rothschild; Cristina Garmendia, president of Cotec; and Teresa Riesgo, secretary-general of Innovation for the Government of Spain’s Ministry of Science and Innovation.

 

Journalists as guardians of truth

In October, Montserrat Rigall took part in the 7th Vives Forum on Digital Communication at Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Tarragona, organised by the Vives Network to, along these same lines, reflect on the challenges that artificial intelligence poses for communication professionals. “Academic institutions must promote fair and critical communication that strengthens the credibility of both journalism and organisations,” contends the UIC Barcelona lecturer, in a context of “message saturation and disinformation”.

The communication professional urged listeners to find an original way to communicate and prioritise quality over quantity, acknowledging the importance of human networking, something “no machine can replace”. In conclusion, Rigall went on to add that journalists “must shoulder a shared responsibility: to analyse knowledgeably and act as guardians of truth, while integrating new artificial intelligence tools critically and transparently.”