a passion for society, a passion for art and culture,
BBVA sponsors the Innova Network, a gathering of innovative projects from Ibero-America held in Madrid
23 June 2009
BBVA has sponsored the first conference held by the Innova Network, a gathering of start-ups (innovative companies associated with technology and high growth potential), which seeks to act as a springboard for entrepreneurs in Ibero-America. The Innova Network honoured the region’s three best projects, belonging to the Argentinean firms Keepcon and Popego, and to Chile’s Betazeta. The three firms have had the opportunity to present their projects to the 800 people attending the event, held last week in Madrid.
BBVA, one of the largest investors in innovation in the financial sector, has sponsored this internet conference that, under the banner Ibero-America meets the world (Iberoamérica se encuentra con el mundo), aspires to position itself as the foremost internet event in Spanish or Portuguese.
The Innova Network has been set up this year for the purpose of forging ties between internet leaders in Spain, Portugal and Latin America and the rest of the world. More than 300 firms throughout the whole of Ibero-America, all of which are of recent creation and have an innovative component associated with technology and high growth potential, competed for the Innova Network award.
This scheme supports entrepreneurs with an innovative spirit, and thanks to the cooperation of BBVA and the Endeavor Foundation, the award-winning firms have been able to showcase their projects to an audience made up of other entrepreneurs and delegates from venture capital companies and institutions.
BBVA has had a significant presence at this first edition of the Innova Network: Viviana Bertolami, head of Retail Banking and Innovation for BBVA South America, took part in one of the session’s round-tables; Manuel Silva, from Corporate Expansion at BBVA, was a member of the jury that allocated the awards, as he had done previously in the Open Talent project launched by the Bank; and Vicente de la Parra, head of Innovation and Business Development for BBVA South America was responsible for announcing the competition winners.
The first three awards went to two firms from Argentina and one from Chile. The first of these, Keepcon, automates the process of moderating all kinds of web content (text, photos and video) and automatically detects the presence of risk elements, as defined by each client.
Secondly, Popego develops artificial intelligence and innovative interfaces for improving access to information over the internet. Based on the public online activity of users, the firm automatically builds up a profile of interests that screens all the information available on the net and locates content of relevance to each specific interest.
Last but not least, Betazeta is the largest network of internet communities in Latin America in which millions of people can meet to share their interests in information and entertainment.
In addition, the jury made honorary mentions of the firms Conexifarma, SocialMetrix and CargoPlace.com. In view of its social impact, the Duto S.A. project also received a mention.
Enterprising schemes
“The three winning projects have been remarkable for the robustness of their enterprising schemes, their huge capacity for international projection and the innovation in the project’s development”, indicated Alejandro Mashad, COO of the Endeavor Foundation and chairman of the jury that assessed the projects.
“The aim of these awards has been to drive the creation of new projects and provide a platform for entrepreneurs to make themselves known”, affirmed Pablo Larguía, founder of the Innova Network. “This is undoubtedly the perfect moment for entrepreneurs, as they are necessary for economic recovery and the creation of new jobs”, he concluded.
Over the course of these two days in Madrid, the Innova Network has attracted leaders of opinion, innovators, business people, academics, bloggers, institutions, media and investors from the world of technology and internet in Latin America, along with their peers in Europe and the USA. They were joined by a further 10,000 people who logged on to the event via the internet and posted questions and comments on Twitter.
In addition to BBVA, the sponsors have been the Local Authority of Madrid, Telefónica, Caja Madrid, the Spanish Ministry of Industry, Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Casa Sefarad-Israel.
