Aiming to showcase the region of Madrid and its companies as the central axis of innovation and digitalization, the Business Confederation of Madrid (CEIM) hosted the second Innovation Summit with the backing of the Community of Madrid and the collaboration of PONS IP. The summit is an annual event which focuses on important matters expected to have a positive impact on R&D&I in the short and medium term, as well as topics that can improve knowledge transfer to companies, thereby boosting productivity and competitive standing.
Additionally, the Second CEIM Innovation Summit served to highlight the role that both Business Associations and Public Agencies play as drivers of Madrid’s innovation ecosystem. During the summit, representatives from public agencies and innovation directors of large and medium-sized companies alike highlighted the importance of promoting Spain’s technological sovereignty through innovation aligned with industry interests at the Second CEIM Innovation Summit.
The event opened with Miguel Garrido de la Cierva, president of the CEIM, who thanked all the organizers, guests and speakers for attending the event and indicated that “the warm welcome that this second annual summit has received means that companies from the Community of Madrid and the CEIM have internalized the fact that innovating is a risky activity, but one for which there is no alternative. It is the only path forward.” The president also highlighted that “innovation and digitalization form part of the digital and technological divide so companies and entities must provide training so employees can expand their skill sets and enhance their employability, adapting to this technological market”.
To understand the initiatives that allow public agencies to improve their processes, Sara Molero, moderator of the Round Table Debate for Support to Public Agencies in Innovation welcomed Fernando Herrero, director general of Innovation and Entrepreneurship of the City Government of Madrid, Ana Isabel Cremades director general of Research and Technological Innovation of the Community of Madrid and Galo Gutiérrez, director general of Industry and SMEs of the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism.
Almudena Trigo, a founding partner of BeAble Capital, an independent venture capital firm specialized in high tech industrial transfer gave her Keynote Conference focused on Technology and Competitive Standing.
Next came the Round Table Debate on Technological Trends moderated by Raúl Natividad, president of the Innovation, Digitalization and Information Society Commission of the CEIM. The debate featured Ana Castro, deputy vice president of Knowledge Transfer at the CSIC, Ana Ramírez, director of the IMDEA Research Institute on Food&Health Sciences, Jesús Valero director general at TECNALIA and Luis Pérez-Freire, director general at GRADIANT, with the speakers highlighting the relevance of research and development in the business industry in order to contribute scientific solutions and spur the development of new products and services.
Carlos Kuchkovsky, CEO of QCentroid, delivered his Keynote Conference on the Metaverse, focusing on the importance of accelerating a sustainable transformation with new ways of working and science, data and exponential technology.
The final Round Table Debate focused on Good Practices in Technological Innovation and featured Luis Ignacio Vicente del Olmo, strategic counsel at PONS IP as the moderator, who emphasized that “we have a small R&D system compared to our GDP”. In figures, we are at 1.43 so we have to focus on being more efficient. He highlighted that today in Spain, there are 23% fewer companies dedicated to R&D than 10 years ago, stressing that “we should improve traceability with technological advances and use public grants to make the system more dynamic as they help us to change the productive industry, which will lead to greater progress”. Luis Ignacio Vicente del Olmo encouraged the round table participants to debate this question, Dimitris Bountolos, director general of Information Systems and Innovation at Ferrovial, Silvia Lazcano; director of Technology at Airbus Spain, Vanesa Blanch; director of Innovation and Corporate Relations at Mercadona and Jaime Martorell, Special Commissioner for Strategic Recovery and Economic Transformation Projects for Microelectronics and Semiconductors at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Digital Transformation.
The closing ceremony for the event was led by Alberto Retana, director general of Digital Policies of the Community of Madrid together with Ángel Niño, council delegate for the area of Innovation and Entrepreneurship of the City Government of Madrid and the president of the CEIM Innovation Commission, Raúl Latida.
They were all in agreement and noted that“it is essential for public agencies, entrepreneurs, SMEs, start-ups and large companies to speak together with a willingness to discuss innovation at a time when we are redefining the rules of the future. We’ve experienced three revolutions and we believe we are in the fourth due to innovation which would mean that we are on the threshold of a moment in which technology exceeds human work in several aspects, although the whole world will not be able to work with AI automatically “.
