SILVIA VIDAL and RAMON MIRANDA

Silvia Vidal has been CEO of Avanade Iberia since 2019 and defines the company’s strategy in Spain and Portugal. With more than thirty years of experience in the sector, started in programming and consulting. She joined Avanade in 2016 to lead the areas of delivery, sales and operations. She defines herself as a simple, foldless person, who loves the challenges and ambition for knowledge. Friend of her friends, she assures she has no fears, but respect, and that she likes to help people grow.

Ramón Miranda is Avanade’s Technology Innovation Officer (TIO) in Europe, a company in which he has spent the last 23 years developing his career. He is a specialist in Microsoft platforms and all kinds of projects worldwide, from ideation to execution. He is an innovation enthusiast. Unquiet and open, he firmly believes in the transformative power of people, innovation, and technologies. He is committed to creating significant change and progress towards a better future.

Let’s talk about Avanade. It was founded in 2000 by Accenture

LLP and Microsoft Corporation, and became the leading provider in digital advice and services, in the cloud, industrial solutions and experiences based on the design of the Microsoft ecosystem. With 60 000 professionals in 26 countries it has a real human impact on its customers and employees.

With the largest number of Microsoft certifications, over 60,000, and 18 Microsoft Gold-level competencies, Avanade has a unique position that allows us to help companies grow and to solve their challenges.

Also through inorganic growth. Yes, last year we announced that Kabel would become part of Avanade by bringing in new capabilities like artificial intelligence, data and multi-cloud. The acquisition had a very positive impact on all professionals, one plus one had to give us much more than two. As you know, Kabel has twice been recognized as a partner of the year in AI by Microsoft and with the acquisition we further strengthen our strategy to bring Artificial Intelligence to the next level.

What is your Barcelona Innovation Center, the BIC?

In the BIC, which is located in Barcelona, we provide service to customers from all over Europe.

Created

In 2012, focusing as a tool of inspiration and during these years it has evolved into a co-innovation space between customers and professionals of Avanade alongside the Barcelona ecosystem. The BIC is part of the Global Avanade Centers network as the Reference Center for Europe. Our goal is to achieve value more quickly through innovative human-centric solutions, with a multidisciplinary team, building new paradigms of experience digital and productivity. In fact, we have in the BIC alumni from La Salle Campus Barcelona, whose practical orientation fits very well. Avanade Innovation Labs are spaces for living the future today by behaving as independent assets charged with generating value, through research, experimentation, and creation. It is a somewhat similar environment to the future IASlab

La Salle Campus Barcelona, which will be a transfer space and multidisciplinary practices.

What are Avanade’s strategic axes and growth drivers?

Avanade is focalized to successfully drive the transformation of the industry, improving its processes using the newest tools and technology, as for example Gen AI, and the use of data to promote decision-making and why not new business models with the aim of improving the time to market and the time to value

Let’s talk about leadership. What do you think are the main values and axes of good leadership?

Believe in people and empower them. Leadership is to make the company grow on the basis of each of us, listening to every voice. Leadership is watching, listening, understanding and acting. In Avanade, we promote diversity and not only in terms of gender. It is important to be in love every day with what we do and, above all, to be able to pass it on.

What remains to be done in relation to the STEAM vocations?

When we talk about STEAM and focus on universities the choice is already made. We believe that we need to take the necessary steps, we need to disseminate in secondary and high school. It is true that today, in young people, we are seeing a concern for sustainability. Technology moves the world, but it is important that technology has a purpose and work it in the early stages.

Any learnings that has left you imprinted on this path?

If things don’t work, change them; if the puzzle hasa piece that does not fit, don’t insist on fitting it.

Artificial intelligence is one of the issues of the moment, including its application to business. What are the advantages, values, and risks?

All technological revolutions have always been questioned and debated. AI is with us to stay, and it is in our lives to improve it. Genuine and cognitive intelligence use tools to understand and interpret our needs. In other words, they allow users to learn the language so that users do not have to learn the language of machines. The question is how to use it, we have to be aware and know how to set the limits. AI transforms routine tasks and generates new professions of value.

From Avanade we are helping companies to get started projects with Generative AI, like the case of a large service sector company whose core business was documentary validation. It managed millions of documents from thousands of companies to carry out the validation of many requirements.

With the Generative AI, we managed to achieve a 70% automation level with an error of only 1% in these validations.

AI is a technology that uses existing information while man looks at and creates the future, which is our distinctive ability. To avoid risks, the use of artificial intelligence in the EU will be regulated by the Artificial Intelligence Act, the first comprehensive AI law in the world.

Let’s talk about Avanade’s relationship with the academy and, in particular, with La Salle-URL. At first, we had relationship with the academy related to talent acquisition. The relationship with the university is strategic. We decide to be an active part in practices, values and talent; that helps us see and capture innovation and, at the same time, check at training needs and be actively involved.

Our entry into CBC helps us a lot, we feel very comfortable with our participation in this space, always with a win-win approach. But we want to do more than we are doing, take one more step.

A brief, more personal test: some questions to get to know you better.

What is the quality that you admire most in a person?

Silvia: The generosity.

Ramón: Be an open and true person. Real.

Who do you admire and why?

Silvia: My main driver was my father, for being a person made of himself, for his will, his strength, his tenacity and his generosity.

Ramón: My referent was my father. I am what I am and I am where I am thanks to him. I admire very much my paternal grandmother; she lived the war as a single mother. My father taught him how to read and to write, she was a very brave woman. I also admire, in general, anyone who teaches me anything.

What are your hobbies?

Silvia: El pàdel i el golf. A més, juntament amb les meves amigues, cada any faig un tram de cinc dies del Camí de Santiago.

Ramón: La tecnologia i la tecnologia aplicada a l’esport, com la muntanya, córrer, nedar, el ciclisme. Segur que no m’avorriré quan em jubili.

And your favorite personal occupation?

Silvia: Family and friends.

Ramón: Sports fishing, which also gave me my first salary. The second was with the programming of a video game with a Comodore 64.

Which city would you like to live in?

Silvia: A Cadiz

Ramón: In Àreu, a village in the

A thinker or writer who inspires you?

Silvia: Satya Nadella

Ramón: I am fascinated by architecture and art. I admire Gaudí for his imagination and Dalí for his genius.

Finally, what is your idea of happiness?

Silvia: Fill every day with good times.

Ramón: Going to sleep knowing what you’re going to do tomorrow is really doing what you like.

La Salle Highlights

La Salle Campus Barcelona hosts the

Triple Helix Conference

(THC),

with the slogan: “Enterprising and Compromising Universities in Sustainable Development: linking education, research and innovation to achieve SDGs and ESGs”.

Organized by the Triple Helix Association (THA), ACEEU and La Salle-URL, the THC brought together academic, business and government leaders committed to sustainable development.

The conference was inaugurated by Josep M. Santos, General Director of La Salle-URL; Josep M. Garrell, President of the EUA.; and the THC co-Pre-

URL, among the best Spanish universities according to the U-Ranking sidents, Josep M. Piqué and Carina Rapetti. The main purpose was to strengthen links between education, research, and innovation to achieve the SDG objectives and the ESG’s criteria.

Ramon Llull University (URL) is in the group of Spanish universities with the best teaching performance, and the first in Catalonia. The U-Ranking, one of the most important reports on the state university scene, ranks 71 universities according to their teaching performance, research activity, innovation, and global performance.

The URL occupies the fifth group of universities in Spain with the best performance. In reference to the specific indicators for research and innovation, the URL appears again in the tenth group of top universities.

In the four days, the conference had the participation of more than 400 delegates in 100 activities belonging to 300 institutions from five continents.

All speakers emphasized the

Four La Salle-URL programs, among the best business school studies according to Forbes role of training new leaders committed to sustainability and social responsibility. Cases study and good practices were presented which, organizations around the world, have successfully implemented the principles of the SDGs and the ESGs.

The Salle-URL ranked four of its programs in the best programs of business schools 2023 published by the Forbes magazine in Spain. The list identifies the most competitive business programs in the country based on the assessment of the program’s offer and the prestige of the centers that provide the studies. All classified programs are from the International Faculty of Commerce and Digital Economy La Salle (FICEDLS).

CBC corporations participated at THC in sharing their good practices and governance models.

The URL, best Catalan university in the ODS ‘Decent Work and Economic Growth’ according to Impact Ranking

Ramon Llull University (URL) ranks as one of the best universities in the world in Times Higher Education’s Impact 2023 Ranking.

The study evaluates 1,591 universities from 112 countries, and evaluates the impact of universities in relation to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) of the United Nations (UN). The Salle-URL has a program aimed at reducing the carbon footprint in campus and contributing to a more sustainable world

CBC - ENTERPRISES

IBM and La Salle-URL sign an agreement to collaborate in digital transformation and technological innovation

IBM and La Salle-URL, sign an agreement to promote digital transformation and technological innovation, through different projects, initiatives, and activities. The agreement also confirms the incorporation of IBM into the Corporate Board Council (CBC)

Javier Olaizola, IBM Consulting Managing Partner for Spain, Portugal, Greece and Israel; and Josep M. Santos, General Director of La Salle-URL and co-chairman of the CBC, signed the agreement on the La Salle-URL campus in Barcelona. “We are very pleased that a leading com- pany in its sector such as IBM is joining our Corporate Board Council. We will become more proactive to train the best professionals in order to respond better to social challenges”, explained Josep M. Santos, General Director of La Salle-URL. the multinational has in Barcelona. Institutional representatives from Accenture and La Salle-URL participated in the meeting and toured together the Barcelona Innovation Center. Accenture and La Salle-URL sign a partnership agreement under the Corporate Board Council

Accenture and La Salle-URL, join efforts to work together on the deployment of new projects and initiatives linked to technology and digitalization. Both institutions sign a partnership agreement within the framework of the Corporate Board Council (CBC).

Alex Borrell, General Director of Insurance Lead for Iberia and Israel of Accenture, and Josep M. Santos, General Director of La Salle-URL, have signed the agreement in the offices that

Barcelona Cable Landing Station, a digital open port

Catalonia has enjoyed the first international underwater fiber optic cable landing station for about eight months: Barcelona Cable Landing Station (Barcelona CLS), a digital open port of high-capacity submarine cables, where unrestricted cables will arrive from the Middle East, Africa and the Mediterranean, providing the fastest connection between Europe and America.

The station is licensed to host up to eight submarine cables and two cables have already landed

Siemens announces an investment of 2 billion of euros to boost growth, innovation and resilience

Siemens will invest 2 billion of euros in new manufacturing capacities, in innovation laboratories, education centers and other centers of its own.

Siemens has announced an investment strategy to boost future growth, innovation and increase resilience. Investment underpins the strategy of combining the real and digital worlds, as well as its focus on diversification and local business.

(one of them being the 2Africa in which Meta participates), and agreements have also been made with leading companies in the sector: DE-CIX, COLT Technology Services, EdgeConneX, Aire Networks, EXA Infrastructure and Axent. The location of the landing station at Sant Adrià de Besòs allows excellent connections to all fiber optic networks in the territory and is attracting the interest of the metropolitan data centers, which want to con- nect.

In this way, it contributes to positioning Barcelona as a digital reference port in the Mediterranean and technological hub in southern Europe.

Barcelona CLS wants to turn this into a future opportunity for ICT Engineering students from La Salle-URLwho will be able to consider developing their career in the undersea cable landing station of Sant Adrià de Besòs.

In addition, the multinational will allocate some 500 million euro in research and development (R+D), in areas such as artificial intelligence and industrial metaverse. These investments focus on strengthening strength in key technologies such as simulation, digital twins, artificial or power electronic intelligence, and on the open digital business platform Siemens Xcelerator.

Siemens recently announced a partnership with MICROSOFT to accelerate code generation for industrial automation using ChatGPT; in addition to NVIDIA to build industrial metaverse to improve the design, planning, production and operation of factories and infrastructure.

International Events

REBUILD, the building industry technology fair, held its fifth edition from 28 to 30 March.

REBUILD closed with a record turnout, with 17,344 visitors, 372 exhibitors and 581 international experts, at the National Architecture Congress 4.0 and with an economic impact of 37 million euros for the city of Madrid. This edition addressed the challenges facing the building industry, which are more industrialized, sustainable and digital.

La Salle Technova, the innovation park of La Salle Campus Barcelona, organized the Startups Forums-Pitch, with a dozen emerging companies and large sectoral corporations and investors

Advanced Factories finished its seventh edition in Barcelona with about 35,000 visitors.

The congress, closed on April 20, with 34,827 professionals and more than 537 exhibitors on automation systems, integration of production systems, collaborative and industrial robotics. This year’s innovation was the Advanced MachineTools (AMT), with the aim of providing a vision of the commercial platforms of machinery for companies and manufacturers through metal and emerging technologies and the most innovative solutions, which are transforming the industry. the machine-tool. try’s forecast for the use of artificial intelligence is to grow by 45% between 2023 and 2027.

La Salle Technova, the innovation park of La Salle Campus Barcelona, through an international ecosystem research of the best sectoral technology-based startups, participated in organizing forums-pitch with ten emerging companies, with corporations and investors.

The Food 4 Future World Summit was held in Bilbao from 16 to 19 May.

The F4F, the largest European congress on technology innovation in the food and drink industry, presented in Bilbao with the latest

The implementation of technologies such as automation, robotics, artificial intelligence, Digital Twin or cybersecurity, among others, will help to increase food industry productivity by 20%. 15% of robots installed worldwide are in F&B companies, and the indusinvolves the emergence of new professional profiles and the consolidation of concepts such as LifeLong Learning.

Digital Enterprise Show 2023 (DES) makes Málaga, from June 12 to 14, the world’s technological capital.

The impact of exponential technologies in the professional field

DES agreed to an interactive exhibition area with more than 300 exhibitors that presented their solutions based on IoT, Cybersecurity, Big Data, Digital Marketing, IA or Blockchain. More than 500 speakers dealt with success cases, new business models, lea-

La Salle Technova, the innovation park of La Salle Campus Barcelona, participated in the Foodtech Startup Forum, in several Pitch with sixty startups facing large corporations and investors dership, and influence on the implementation of digital strategies. The DES had nine forums on the impact of technology, through real cases for sectors such as finance, retail, automotive, public sector, tourism, health, industry, energy and pharmacy.

La Salle Technova organized the Scale-Up World Summit, where they exhibited about sixty sectoral startups.

La Salle-URL, among the best business schools in Spain

Forbes magazine recently published its annual rankings with the best business schools in Spain. Among them, La Salle-URL ranks with four programs in the Business & Management area as one of the best universities in the country.

- Master of Science in Project Management

- Master of Science in Information and Communication Technologies Management

- Executive MBA

- Program in Think and Creativity

Aware of the impact of training on the professional and personal development of students, These programs are noted for their academic quality, inno- vative methodology, practical approach and international projection. Our mission is to provide comprehensive education that combines academic excellence with human and social values in the training of entrepreneurial leaders.

La Salle-URL is an international technology university with specialization programs in engineering, architecture, business, digital arts, animation, philosophy, and humanities.

Furthermore, the cloister made up of experts in the area allows a network of pupils to be created that facilitates networking and access to the labor market, thereby contributing to economic and social progress through the generation and dissemination of knowledge.

Formación Online desde 1999

Forbes magazine recently published its annual rankings with the best business schools in Spain. Among them, La Salle-URL ranks with four programs in the Business & Management area as one of the best universities in the country.