“Talking about the digital future is talking about innovation,” highlighted the co-president of the United Nations IA Advisory Body, Carme Artigas, in her welcome speech to the “Innovation: real impact” session of Encuentros en La Vanguardia with the collaboration of Acciona. Held at Espacio 23 in Madrid and broadcast through the website of this newspaper, the day included a debate in which the director of Acciona's Digital Hub, Carmen Camuñas, participated; the general director of COTEC, Jorge Barrero; and the director of the Autopia program of the Center for Automation and Robotics of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), Jorge Villagrá.
Carme Artigas defines “innovation” as the ability to “do different things in a different way to achieve different results.” “The commitment to improving the country's level of digitalization goes beyond the adoption of technological tools,” warned Artigas. Therefore, from the Secretary of State for Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence that she directed for the last four years to “take advantage of the unprecedented opportunities” that digitalization offers to “improve the economy and society.” She is also facing challenges such as reducing the “digital gaps”, both related to age, gender or territoriality so that “no one is left behind”.
Innovation must “impact” the “transformation of the country's productive model and the improvement of society.” “Technological progress makes no sense if it does not lead to social progress,” she clarifies. Artigas recognizes that the public sector has to be “the first to innovate.” Along these lines, he revealed that during this term, for example, “we are going to see many more applications of artificial intelligence in the administration” that will be added to already existing technological solutions, among which he mentioned “My citizen folder”, which seeks to improve the digital interaction between the administration and citizens.
30% of European funds in Spain have been dedicated to digitalization as a “lever” to innovate “on many fronts.” In “infrastructures”, he mentioned connectivity, quantum computing and AI. Until last Friday, the Secretary of State for Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence highlighted the “leadership” of Spain under its Presidency of the European Union in technological matters, which culminates in the first law to regulate the use of AI in the world.
“We want 40% of our economy to be digital.” In order to go from the current 26% to 40%, digital entrepreneurship is supported. He celebrated that “the Startup Law makes Spain the most attractive country in Europe to attract investments and talent.” He also highlighted the importance of promoting the Strategic Projects for Economic Recovery and Transformation (PERTE), which are “very clear vertical bets” to digitize different strategic sectors.
The “training of the next generations based on competencies” among which it mentions “computational thinking, critical thinking, creativity, collaboration capacity, communication capacity and curiosity.” “Talent calls for talent and if there is talent there will be investment and there will be opportunities,” he added. Furthermore, Artigas highlighted that “no country can do anything without public-private collaboration,” innovating with real impact. “Digital transformation is marking the path of growth in Spain. I am convinced that the world to come will be better than the previous one and I am sure that we will be able to capture the opportunities of technology,” he concluded.
After the welcome from Carme Artigas, a debate began in which the director of Acciona's Digital Hub, Carmen Camuñas, participated; the general director of COTEC, Jorge Barrero; and the director of the Autopia program of the Center for Automation and Robotics of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), Jorge Villagrá. “Innovation should not remain in the laboratory, but must generate real impact on the business and society,” highlighted the director of Acciona's Digital Hub. Furthermore, Carmen Camuñas believes that innovation must “be limited” so she recommends “testing pilots” to check “if they generate impact” before scaling the projects.
As examples of Acciona's pilot projects, Carmen Camuñas explained that in Canada, with the help of Internet of Things (IoT) sensors located on trucks, they can measure the amount of salt on the road to optimize the route. Another project carried out at Acciona uses AI to predict the operation of wind turbines through noise, so that the maintenance task is more efficient.
Acciona is committed to innovation and channels it through four technology centers and the Digital Hub directed by Carmen Camuñas. “We are continually innovating and supporting the ecosystem, with an open innovation program with startups to which we throw challenges,” she explained.
The general director of COTEC defines innovation as “any change based on knowledge that provides value, in its multiple dimensions.” Barrero also recalled, as a challenge when measuring the real impact of innovation, that due to its scalable nature and the ease with which ideas end up benefiting organizations that have not incurred the investment risk, sooner or later, which Known as the spillover effect, the greatest impact often occurs far away in time and space from the moment in which the idea was generated. For all this, he insisted that “we cannot measure the impact with a narrow look only at the patents or sales that an idea has generated for a company but with a broader look.”
“Researchers also have doubts about how to measure the real impact of our work, but it seems that it must have a more social component and be oriented more frequently towards transfer,” acknowledged the director of the Autopia program of the Center for Automation and Robotics. of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), Jorge Villagrá CSIC. From his point of view, we must highlight “the importance of public-private collaboration and co-creation with research centers and universities.” Although in recent years there has been more powerful innovation and universities and innovation centers are seen as centers of value generation, there is still a long way to go in terms of public-private collaboration,” he insisted.
The participants in the session agreed on the role that education plays in enhancing the innovative spirit. “We have to try to instill a change of thought in society,” said Carmen Camuñas. The director of Acciona's Digital Hub gave as an example the skills necessary to interact with machines. “Asking questions to AI is learned by improving curiosity and communication skills,” she stressed. “Little by little the way of educating is changing,” she celebrated.
“Regarding education we have to rethink many things but without abandoning the idea that the more education, the greater vital progress. Regarding the impact on employment, rather than professions, the analysis must be done by tasks and roles. Anyone who works like a machine, without providing differential value, is susceptible to being replaced by a machine. We must look for the human side in all professions,” warned the general director of COTEC, Jorge Barrero. “Surely all jobs that can be automated will be destroyed, but new ones will be created and many others will be modified. We have to empower people through training,” clarified the director of the Autopia program of the Center for Automation and Robotics of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC). Jorge Villagrá also claimed that “it is strictly necessary to understand the ethical implications of technology and in particular AI.”
The “AI boom” is one of the biggest future challenges in the opinion of experts, as expressed by the director of Acciona's Digital Hub. Carmen Camuñas believes that we must “establish governance models for AI and hold internal debates within each organization.” She also remembers that “there will not be a single cutting-edge technology but rather it will be a combination of many” and, therefore, this debate should also be expanded to other technologies such as robotics.
“When machines can innovate on their own and pose disruptions on their own, we will enter an unknown scenario,” Jorge Barrero predicted. For now, however, Jorge Villagrá recalled that "we are far from having a primitive intelligence like that of dogs or cats, because, although AI generates portentous and spectacular solutions, it does not understand what it does."
