EmTech Spain Day 1 Highlights
Spain’s first Emerging Technology conference (EmTech), sponsored by the Spanish-language version of MIT’s Technology Review, kicked off today in the coastal city of Malaga. Like its American counterpart, the conference features the best and brightest innovators and entrepreneurs in the world. In addition, Spain’s first TR35 winners were also recognized today. TR35 is awarded every year to the 10 most-brilliant scientists and innovators under 35.
Today’s Highlights:
Opening Ceremony
Speakers and sponsors gather outside CREDIT: EmTech
This year’s EmTech was opened by Opinno’s own Pedro Moneo in his role as Spain’s Technology Review Director. He touched upon how amazing it is to be gathered in Malaga and also mentioned Spain’s first TR35 competition.
“It was difficult to find initiatives that covered all the bases, but I believe we’ve found them,” he said about the 10 young innovators.
Jason Pontin, Editor-in-Chief of Technology Review noted that technology is the key to the future and that he is delighted to be a part of it in Spain.
Finally, Susan Hockfield, President of MIT, gave a recorded welcoming presentation.
The Future of Smart Cities
Ryan Chin, a researcher at MIT Media Lab Smart Cities Group, and Juan Antonio Zufiria, IBM‘s Executive President in Spain, Portugal, Greece and Israel, presented their thoughts on the problems cities are facing and possible solutions.
Chin took the stage to explain the development of his Mobility on Demand concept. The idea, which is being co-developed by the University of Vitoria-Gasteiz, will allow people in cities to travel around using a network of electric vehicles. Chin said that 20 prototypes will be deployed in 2012.
“Almost 40% of the fuel utilized in the city goes towards looking for a parking space,” Chin said.
Indeed, Mobility on Demand hopes to solve both of these problems by providing efficient electric cars and combined parking/charging stations in urban centers.
Future of Cities speakers CREDIT: EmTech
Juan Antonio Zufiria, president of IBM Spain, added to Chin’s thoughts.
“Cities are the best paradigm for these practical applications,” he said. “Each year seven new cities are created. They are the point of social integration and sustainability for the planet. 75% of the energy produced by the world is consumed by cities.”
Zufiria spoke about how technology is being used to improve the way cities work by making sensor networks that provide key data to planners. Everything from traffic lights to air quality monitors can be networked together to provide analytics for planning.
Finally, Susana Carillo, Endesa’s Smart Grid Project manager, spoke about how Malaga itself is embracing greentech.
“In November, we will install mini wind generators on the city’s streetlights,” she said.
All the speakers agreed on the need for network-connected machines and sensors for any modern city to thrive.
The Future of the Internet
Geoff Ralston, Co-Founder of Imagine K12, Othman Laraki, Search & Geo Director for Twitter and Erik Schultink , CTO for Tuenti, spoke about how the Internet is continuing to revolutionize our lives.
Ralston believes “it’s very easy to make predictions. My dream was to work with Steve Jobs, but I couldn’t because I had to create an technology incubator for the world of education,” he said.
Ralston talked about how social networks are becoming more ‘three-dimensional’ due to increased computational abilities. He said we are never really offline anymore and that this is a powerful concept for education in that it can be further lead to individualization.
The speakers share their thoughts CREDIT: EmTech
Tuenti founder Schultink spoke about how the Internet is now a mobile-based network. He said hardware and apps such as those produced by Apple are driving expectations.
“These products have created a new environment because they (i.e. Apple) control the app stores and have a direct relationship with users,” he said. “The future is going more in this direction.”
Laraki continued on the theme of social networks by explaining how some social networks exist on top of others.
“Originally, Hotmail users only interacted in Hotmail,” Laraki illustrated. “Now, when reading an on-line newspaper you interact with other social networks. Twitter exists outside the twitter.com domain. Each interaction is constructive.”
He also spoke about the growth of non-English-speaking markets and how content delivery needs to keep improving in those areas.
“Don’t forget Spanish-speaking countries,” he said. “There is important growth in countries that speak Spanish. Each country has its culture but there are many common elements in this grand global language.”
The Future of Gaming
Ignacio Perez Dolset, founder and CEO of Grupo Zed and Philip Tan, Co-President of Singapore-MIT Gambit presented their take on the current and future path of video games.
Perez said that we are living in a ‘golden age’ of video games due to the combination of powerful computers and the Internet.
“Emerging companies need to be digital companies. This is key and the role of games is very important as the game will still have an important mission in the future with the added-value of connectivity between machines and other people. It’s an unbeatable combination: you aren’t just observing, you are participating.”
Perez gives his vision CREDIT: EmTech
Phillip Tan then spoke about the enormous problem of burnout among video game developers.
“There is hardly any innovation: eight out of 10 new games are sequels, sequels of others who had success, due to fear of risk of innovation,” he said.
As such, Tan takes a dim view of current developers. He believes a new generation must take the lead.
EmTech Spain will continue tomorrow with more presentations by leading innovators. In addition, the Innovator of the Year and Humanitarian of the Year award will be presented to two deserving TR35 winners. EmTech news can also be followed on Twitter at @opinno in English and @emtechspain in Spanish.
Editor’s Note: Special thanks goes to Esther Paniagua, Isabel Diaz and Elena Zafra for their contributions to this article. Click here for detailed Spanish-language releases on each talk.
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