Up to date

Technology transference

"The global crisis obscures the changes taking place"

Carles Fradera, director of the Barcelona Digital Technology Center

The current edition of the Barcelona Digital Global Congress focuses on the future of the Internet. From May 17 to 20, experts from around the world will gather in Barcelona to discuss the technological developments necessary to achieve a digital society. Carles Fradera, director of the Barcelona Digital Technology Center since 2009, is in charge of organizing the Congress for the second consecutive year.

What is the mission of the Barcelona Digital Technology Center?
Barcelona Digital is a center for research, development and innovation in information technology for applications in healthcare, safety and transportation. Our areas of expertise are technology transfer and applied research that industry can directly employ in order to improve their business.

Who does Barcelona Digital work with?
Above all with companies and university research groups. We have client companies and follow a model of open innovation research projects where the recipient is the company. Our own researchers and, sometimes, those from Catalan universities, carry out the work.

What type of research projects does the center carry out?
We currently have 18 ongoing projects. A project on intelligent bandages was recently completed. Once applied, the bandage administers the medication it contains at the appropriate dose.

What else?
Another is BrainAble which deals with the application of information technologies applied to the recovery of brain diseases caused by an accident or illness. Recovery from brain injury involves the learning processes of the neurons that are still healthy after the injury. This process, assisted by therapists, is slow. The BrainAble project develops tools for faster learning. We also participate in another project, Inredis, where we develop tools for the physical disabled in order to help them use the same computer telecommunications services as everyone else.

Any examples from outside healthcare?
Of course, we have one project belonging to the field transportation security focused on integrating information technology in a vehicle. It involves making a car communicate with other vehicles in order that the machine can react much faster than the driver himself. In a situation of danger, first you see the danger, identify it and then react by hitting the brake pedal. In such a case, the smart car act much quicker.

Why is so much importance given to technology transfer?
Catalonia is a leader in the creation of knowledge. According to objective parameters such as the number of articles published in scientific journals and their citations, Catalonia is one of the leaders. But much of this knowledge does not reach companies. Our task is crucial, therefore. We must put emphasis on getting companies to share in this knowledge. We have a situation in which part of the knowledge generated in Catalonia goes to foreign companies. Thus, the more reason to insist that if we have an excellent system of knowledge generation, it is necessary that our company take full advantage of it.

How does the current economic crisis affect this process?
We are at a time when the global crisis obscures the changes that are occurring. But when we emerge from the crisis we will be in a different scenario, and we will find ourselves among the best-positioned countries… or not. Everything depends on how we act now. The stakes are very high.

How does Barcelona Digital promote innovation?
By making it clear the positive economic impact it has on a company’s performance. When you are able to make the return on investment clear to businesses, that is when you promote innovation. Promoting innovation is not saying how nice it is or “this technology is very cool,” but by saying “your company will increase its profits by adopting this technology.” Innovation is promoted when you make the return on investment evident.

That’s all it takes?
Well, we use some instruments to achieve this goal. The XII Barcelona Digital Global Congress is the annual meeting of reference; we can say it provides the fireworks. But there must be a steady drip of activities: digital debates, meetings among companies, etcetera. For example, we work regularly with a group of about 60 companies, the ICT Cluster, to continually seek opportunities for innovation and establishing partnerships. But this constant drip needs to be occasionally given more exposure, as it is now with the Congress.

What can you highlight from previous editions of the Congress?
In e-Health, ICT for health, we can highlight the fact that research groups from Catalonia stood at the forefront in line with those who came from abroad. The weight of the public healthcare sector in Catalonia means that, especially in areas such as medical records and electronic prescriptions, that we are in the top ten worldwide.

Where does Catalonia stand out the most?
In the previous edition, it was our importance in fraud investigations. The Spanish banking sector is very strong and very well positioned technologically. Due to efforts made last year, today we work with leading groups in computer security, such as Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), the best of the best in the field. In fact, Jim Reaves, CSA’s CEO, will participate in this year’s edition.

This year’s edition is about the future of the Internet. Any forecasts?
This is a time of radical change.

It appears to me that we have been experiencing radical change for a few years now ...
Yes, I agree. The first was with the advent of the Internet, then we had the eruption of Web 2.0. But this is the tip of the iceberg. So far the change has been important in the fact that people are able to communicate. The more than six billion inhabitants of this planet represent more than six billion possible elements of communication between them. But today there are 150,000 million machines, and they are where communication must be established.. This means bringing electronic and internet connections to everywhere, this would be a radical change.

Is this the trend?
I will give you an example. The great entertainment source until recently was the television, but people are changing for the computer. The audience has just moved to the Internet.

But are so many interconnected machines really necessary?
In part, yes. Everything can be done automatically, there is no need for a person to be involved. Maybe you think, “What shall we do then?” We can spend time thinking and generating new solutions. However, it is clear that the intelligent robot is just a toddler. Maybe it can walk and avoid obstacles, but it can not make any decisions. There is a part of intelligence that will remain under our domain, but everything that can be automated will be.

Subjects of the article