On October 19, our partner Wayra physically hosted different agents from the Spanish business innovation ecosystem in its offices in Madrid to promote the opportunities that the EU-LAC Digital Accelerator offers.
Don’t miss the following summary video:
Organised by the leader of the project, TECNALIA, the event “Building Bridges to Accelerate Digital Transformation in Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean” welcomed both public and private sector entities in a hybrid meeting, in which more than 40 people joined virtually from Latin America and the Caribbean regions.
The purpose of the conference was to raise awareness about the open innovation methodology that the EU-LAC Digital Accelerator project is implementing to accelerate digital transformation. Key messages were conveyed at the meeting to encourage participants to explore and share open innovation experiences. Inés Oliveira, Head of Partnerships at Wayra Spain, shared in her presentation “10 years and 10 learnings” how to make business innovation possible. ”Innovating means being close to ecosystems, stimuli, and stakeholders that can help us build bridges.” This is how Inés began her presentation in which she shared her own experiences that prove the success of Wayra’s open innovation methodology, which is integrated into the modus operandi of the EU-LAC Digital Accelerator.
”Latin America is currently the most dynamic entrepreneurship ecosystem in the world.”
During the event, we celebrated the roundtable “Challenging barriers to expand connections” moderated by Agustín Moro, Global Director Partnerships at Telefónica Ventures. Sergio Bandinelli, Director of Business Development at Tecnalia Ventures and Coordinator of the project, was able to share our mission: “On the one hand, matching: we look for corporations and startups to create business collaborations across the Atlantic. On the other hand, we offer free acceleration services to these transatlantic partnerships that have been built between a corporate and a startup.” Also in the roundtable, Tatiana Virviescas, Private Finance Operations Senior Specialist at IDB Lab and member of the EU-LAC Digital Accelerator team, stated that “Latin America is currently the most dynamic entrepreneurship ecosystem in the world.”
Likewise, we showcased to the audience the success case between the Startup Wise CX (Argentina) and Telefónica (Spain). Alejandro Santos, Country Manager Spain at Wise CX shared his reality as an entrepreneur: ‘’ We need these bridges, we need these connections and it is indispensable for startups to have facilitators that allow us to reach corporations ’’.
Precisely, EU-LAC Digital Accelerator has this mission of building bridges to digitalisation. Large companies can participate in the Smart Production Call for Challenges, registering a challenge on the EU-LAC Digital Accelerator multi-sector platform to access business opportunities with startups and innovative SMEs.
After this first face-to-face meeting open to the innovation ecosystem, EU-LAC Digital Accelerator is preparing to continue its mission of promoting the connection between corporates and startups to boost digital transformation through open innovation in Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean.
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