What’s Next: Vision 2033. Future challenges and opportunities

BStartup Events
19 of December By BStartup 6 minutes
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BStartup

For the finale of our tenth anniversary, on 20 November we held an event at Barcelona’s Joan Miró Foundation, bringing together more than 200 players from the national entrepreneurial ecosystem, among them representatives of leading startups, business leaders and investors from the worlds of technology and innovation, as well as Banco Sabadell executives.

 

During the event we wanted to discuss the future with our What’s Next: Vision 2033 panel moderated by Yolanda Pérez (Banco Sabadell), bringing together leaders from the sector to explore the challenges and opportunities that await us in the coming years in the fields of technology, sustainability and healthcare.

 

What’s Next | Vision 2033: ICT

The discussion panel dedicated to the ICT sector was attended by representatives from the world of innovation and technology – Juan Carlos Riveiro (Cercle.ai, Vilynx, Gigle); Mariona Sanz (Barcelona Supercomputing Center); Lourdes Álvarez de Toledo (JME Ventures); Gerard Olivé (Antai Ventures); Javier Megias (Plug and Play); Laura Urquizu (RedPoints) and Carlos Blanco (Encomenda y Nuclio) – to talk about the challenges and technologies that will define the coming decade.

 

“Many good things are on the horizon in the field of Artificial Intelligence, but there will also be many changes that can sometimes be perceived differently. It is a time full of opportunities. Algorithms are a commodity; they require extremely powerful machines but, most importantly, they also require data, which are the key to everything. It is essential to understand that when defining a business strategy” – Juan Carlos Riveiro (Cercle.ai, Vilynx, Gigle).

 

“Quantum computing is an uncharted ocean, a new paradigm. From the business standpoint we still don’t know what the impact will be, but we do know that the problems that can be solved with quantum computing are different from those that can be solved with traditional computing. We can only imagine where this will take us. It is important to pave the way so that we can be ready for when machines become more easily accessible” – Mariona Sanz (BSCC).

 

“It helps to take a look back at what has happened in the past decade to determine where investments might come from in the future. In the coming years, I think we will see the decentralisation of Corporate Venture Capital on a massive scale. Competition will be increasingly tough, so Venture Capital firms will need to become more vertical” – Lourdes Álvarez de Toledo (JME Ventures).

 

“Anticipating customers’ needs has always been key and we can use Artificial Intelligence to do just that. Those who anticipate future needs will be able to extract much more value from the market” – Gerard Olivé (Antai).

 

“I think that startups and, above all, scaleups have a huge potential to transform the future. In Spain we are in a privileged position. We have the ability to attract a lot of international talent. Where Artificial Intelligence is concerned, we believe we are on the verge of a profound transformation, but there are two aspects that must be taken into account: ethics and governance (and management of the associated costs) and social impact. The main challenge is to ensure we move beyond the first derivative. Our task is to understand the social impact that all this will have” – Javier Megias (Plug and Play).

 

“For the first time in history we are seeing major regulatory shifts that will alter the entire panorama. In the near future, several new regulations will be brought in that will change the way businesses and companies are set up in the coming years” – Laura Urquizu (RedPoints).

 

“All of the technologies that have been years in the making are now coalescing. In the next five years we will see a wave of new startups that will apply these currently coalescing technologies to usher in a new era, particularly for enterprise software, offering competitive advantages” – Carlos Blanco (Encomenda y Nuclio).

 

Access the full recording here

 

What’s Next | Outlook for 2033: Healthcare and Sustainability

The second panel brought together key players from the worlds of healthcare and sustainability, including Damià Tormo (Columbus Venture Partners), Clara Campás (Asabys Partners), Elena de Benavides (Elewitt), Lucas Carné (011h, Privalia), Marc Coloma (Heura), Oriol Fuertes (QIDA), Elena Carrera (Banco Sabadell) and Carolina Aguilar (Inbrain Neuroelectronics).

 

“Until now we have had to learn from how nature has evolved in the past, but right now we can generate data depicting changes thousands of millions of years into the future in just a few days” – Damià Tormo (Columbus Venture Partners).

 

“I think there are five key points here: neurotechnology is currently at its pinnacle; Europe is providing a lot of support for these strategies; technology is helping us to move on to the next stage, which is to diagnose and offer treatment in real time without having to go to the doctor; the development of Artificial Intelligence; and, finally, the ability to regulate neurorights. Spain is now in a position to become one of the world’s leading countries in this field” – Carolina Aguilar (Inbrain Neuroelectronics).

 

“When we launched Asabys Partners we knew that the future of healthcare would see multidisciplinary changes where illnesses could be treated in different ways. We now have access to a more complete set of data about patients, even before they become patients, which allows us to monitor their treatment more closely than ever before” – Clara Campás (Asabys Partners).

 

“Until now the focus has primarily been on finding cures, whereas the future lies in prevention and care, so this is what we must focus on going forward. What we want is for people to enjoy a better quality of life for longer” – Orio Fuertes (QIDA).

 

“We believe that sustainability entails a radical shift in the business model; the challenge is to embed that shift into companies’ core business and that change requires investment. Banks have a fundamental role to play in this and among other things we aim for both our Institution and our customers to be net zero by 2050. There are many of us who are heading in that direction” – Elena Carrera (Banco Sabadell).

 

“Technology allows you to break through the barriers that exist between different sectors. One paradigmatic example is the satellites industry. There are cases where satellite imagery is used to track the spread of self-consumption. In the very near future we will see a surge in the use of technologies that already exist today, and a very promising glimpse into that net-zero 2050” – Elena de Benavides (Elewitt).

 

“I believe we will see convergences, a union between healthcare and sustainability in the sense of how we generate positive impacts. We have been advocating scalability but now is the time to see how we can align consumer demand, sustainability and healthcare in an integrated way throughout the value chain” – Marc Coloma (Heura).

 

“The construction sector has a huge impact on the environment. 011h takes a closer look at the types of materials used to construct buildings, to incorporate low-carbon options and make buildings into circular products, encouraging the reuse and recycling of materials” – Lucas Carné (011h, Privalia).

 

Access the full recording here

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