The event, held yesterday at the World Trade Center Barcelona, brought together expert voices and an experiential proposal under the guiding theme "Shaping the Intangible."
The celebration reinforced the Foundation's role as a meeting point between the Port of Barcelona, companies, the innovative ecosystem, and the city.
The BCN Port Innovation Foundation celebrated its 3rd anniversary yesterday with an event open to the public at the World Trade Center Barcelona, under the guiding theme "Shaping the Intangible."
The gathering highlighted innovation's capacity to transform ideas, challenges, and opportunities into concrete projects with real impact for the maritime-port sector, businesses, and the city. In just three years, the Foundation has consolidated itself as a key instrument to accelerate the transformation of the Port of Barcelona towards a more efficient, sustainable, and connected model with its environment.
After inviting the ecosystem to "Go beyond the limits" on its second anniversary, this year the Foundation has taken another step: shaping ideas and turning them into real impact. The program explored this guiding theme with complementary perspectives on economics, technology, artificial intelligence, and new innovation scenarios.
Participants included Gonzalo Bernardos, who offered an analysis of the economic context and the changes influencing decision-making, and María Jesús Puerta, who shared an unexpected perspective on recycling in extreme environments, artificial intelligence, and a proposal that has piqued NASA's interest.
Next, Miquel de la Mano, technical director of the BCN Port Innovation Foundation, connected the two previous presentations with the Foundation's current moment, positioning innovation as a tool to convert complex ideas into tangible projects within the port ecosystem. In this context, he highlighted initiatives such as Ocean Digital Twin, linked to the development of digital twins, an innovation line that dialogues with some of the projects promoted by María Jesús Puerta and exemplifies how technology can help anticipate scenarios to make better decisions.
One of the afternoon's highlights was the first-time presentation of the Foundation's public face: Mara, the avatar who will now feature in various moments and contents of BCN Port Innovation. Her appearance gave visual form to a voice that had already accompanied the videos of previous anniversaries and had not been publicly shown until now.
