“Open Innovation in times of crisis”

Luis Fernando Álvarez Gascón, President of the Innovating Companies Forum (Foro de Empresas Innovadoras: FEI), Vice-president of the Spanish Association of Electronics, Digital Contents and ICT Companies (AMETIC in Spanish initials) and CEO of GMV’s Secure e-Solutions sector, moderated the online debate “Innovation in times of crisis” organized by FEI. He started off by offering his condolences to everyone who has lost a loved one and looked ahead to better times: “we are now living through a tough time in both economic and healthcare terms, unimaginable only a few months ago, but we will come out of this stiff challenge even stronger”. He went on, “we at FEI advocate innovation as part of the solution. Innovation, he argued, “therefore has to be given its worthy place in Spanish society, in the ongoing debate and public policies. We have a mission”, he explained, “to beat the virus, but immediately afterwards comes the recovery and the task of reinventing the country on a more sustainable basis”.

Álvarez-Gascón then passed on the baton to Francisco Marín, founder president of the Foro de Empresas Innovadoras, sole director of the company Poile Ingenieros and, for some years, general manager of the Industrial Technology Development Center (CDTI in Spanish initials). He passed on an institutional message on behalf of FEI, expressing its solidarity and fellow feeling with the relatives of all COVID-19 victims. He also brought out the role of major ICT innovation. In this current crisis after all, it is precisely such developments that are making it possible for businesses to carry on in the form of teleworking and virtual meetings, like this current FEI-brokered one. He agreed with the current FEI president in that the three examples of pandemic-countering voluntary work presented in the online event exemplify FEI’s line of work in providing agreed and developed proposals in the form of “open innovation” with companies, universities and the government.

Francisco Marín and Luis Fernando Álvarez-Gascón expressed their pride about the involvement of FEI partners in charitable projects in the current healthcare crisis sparked off by the coronavirus pandemic. These innovating projects epitomize FEI’s outlook and spirit. In the words of Marin, “the forum aims to reestablish the prime role of civil society and organized citizenship, working in collaboration with our legitimate representatives to come up with a solution for the problems now affecting us”.

Before presenting the three projects driving the “empowerment” of a problem-solving civil society and public-private collaboration, Luis Fernando Álvarez-Gascón reminded his audience that the Foro de Empresas Innovadoras is made up by a group of professionals from different backgrounds and points of view all united in the aim of giving innovation its worthy place within Spain’s society. All its members share the conviction that “innovation is the solution for many of the challenges now facing our society, involving such issues as sustainability, the necessary competitiveness of Spain’s firms over and beyond the mere trimming of salary costs”. Because the way of innovating has changed: “the new paradigm is open innovation; we do not innovate alone; we stand on each other’s’ shoulders; joint forces make better progress”. As an example of all this Álvarez-Gascón then gave way to “three heroes who are going to tell us about their experience, showing that even this dark cloud has its silver lining”.

UCM CORONAVIRUS PROJECT

Celia Sánchez-Ramos, FEI member and director of the Neurorobotics and Neurocomputing Research Group of Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM), presented the UCM CORONAVIRUS PROJECT, which initially set out to boost COVID-19 testing resources. To this end it managed to type-approve the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) equipment of the university’s schools in only ten days, then obtaining certification from the Instituto Carlos III after several tests. A call also went out to volunteers, laboratory technicians and doctors who knew how to use PCR equipment to measure patients’ quantitative viral load, with over 9000 volunteers signing on through the Google form. Today a 50-strong team is carrying out 500 diagnostic tests (PCRs) per day.

The project’s sphere of action was then decided on the basis of current testing capacities, eventually zooming in on care homes. Prevention improvements were pinpointed plus the PPE supply needs for care-home workers and residents, as well as proper hygiene and disinfection products for this specific situation. Up to now, on the strength of donations from foundations and the public, direct procurement of diagnosis material and PPEs has been achieved, supplying over 50 care homes with the necessary daily disinfection products. Nowadays 5000 tests are carried out and 10,000 care-home residents are being attended to. The aim, as the doctor points out, is to “conduct ten thousand tests a day to check the spread of the virus in Spain. We need to keep building up our wherewithal, so any individual or group contribution is welcome”.

You can collaborate with the UCM Coronavirus Project by writing to: [email protected]

Video of the project 

MULTIPLY CAPABILITIES TENFOLD 

Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), triggered by the coronavirus, calls for treatment with supplemental oxygen and mechanical ventilation to carry additional oxygen to the blood. This is achieved by means of artificial respirators, which were in short supply. An open innovation project and public-private collaboration has managed to launch a life-saving operation to increase the supply of these respirators. This “miracle” was orchestrated in only two weeks: to the laudable initiative of the family firms Hersill and Escribano, and with the support of the Secretary General for Industry the Ministry of Industry and AMETIC weighed in with the contribution of Ezequiel Navarro, CEO of Premo and member of the Innovating Companies Forum (FEI in Spanish initials).

As Navarro himself explained, it all began with a linkedin forum proposal “to do something sure and swift: multiply the output capacity of type-approved respirators. Turn a tried-and-tested track into a highway. An international team was set up in a call that attracted half a million registrations”. The starting point, he goes on “was to identify possible partners, bottlenecks and hurdles to overcome”. Two technology centers and over 15 firms have been giving behind-the-scenes support to the challenge of solving the respirator shortage, which was holding healthcare personnel in checkmate.

Once all the members were ready they managed between them to weave the magic carpet and set it aloft, multiplying tenfold the output of type-approved respirators in Spain within a 30k radius of Madrid. The collaboration between two family-run SMEs and the abovementioned agents meant Spain was now able to turn out 700 respirators a week instead of 70. A classic example of public-private collaboration. 

Vídeo of the proyect

"MADRID BEATING THE VIRUS” HACKATHON 

To come up with solutions on three fronts: healthcare, fellow-feeling and economics. Thus was born the Hackathon Madrid Beating the Virus (Madrid Vence al virus), an initiative that would normally have taken at least a year, successfully launched in three months by the regional authority of Madrid. The hard figures: 8000 signed up from 49 different countries; 700 action proposals; 50 evaluators and 244 viable projects presented by scientists, undergraduates, professional innovators and members of the public at large with ideas for tackling the challenge of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In the words of Alejandro Arraz, member of the Innovating Companies Forum (Foro de Empresas Innovadoras) and Technical Advisor of the Madrid Regional Ministry of Science, Universities and Innovation, the setting up of the Hackathon “involved networking taking full advantage of Madrid’s innovating ecosystem, on the strength of a selfless effort by the public at large backed up by the regional authority of Madrid, which has provided all the necessary wherewithal”.

The virtual Hackathon was held in collaboration with Madrid’s universities and research and innovation centers. The upshot: “a hundred up-and-running projects with another 20 in the pipeline” to continue driving Madrid region’s economy in agile mode in a life-saving endeavor.

As Alejandro Arranz wound up "in this crisis we have all learnt the value of innovation and we dearly hope this lesson is retained and acted on when the crisis is over ".

Francisco Marín announced that, by the end of the month, FEI would finish a document of crisis-exit recommendations, with key ideas like an upholding of democracy and the European lifestyle; a determination to build up industrial and innovative capabilities within a macroeconomic context to make this viable, resting on the twin pillars of a sustainable welfare state and improvement of the quality of life.

Luis Fernando Álvarez stressed as a silver lining the fact that this crisis is bringing out the value of science and technology and the importance of a national industry capable of national self-supply in situations like the current pandemic. “Conclusions must be sought,” he went on, “with a forward-looking approach like FEI’s”.