Last Monday, July 15, the president of the Port Authority of the Bay of Algeciras (APBA), Gerardo Landaluce, and the counselor of the Presidency, Interior, Social Dialogue and Administrative Simplification, Antonio Sanz, signed a collaboration protocol, accompanied by the mayor of the town, José Ignacio Landaluce, for the creation of a pioneering digital entrepreneurship node to apply the latest technologies to the improvement of port logistics. This center, included in the Digital Entrepreneurship Networks project of the RETECH Program, has an investment of three million euros and will be opened in the Maritime Station of Algeciras in early 2025.
In statements to the media, the counselor Antonio Sanz has assured that “this project will add innovation, further consolidating the positioning of the port of Algeciras and creating an ecosystem conducive to social and economic growth in this area”. He also stressed that “the port sector is key as a link in the logistics and transport chains”. For this reason, he said that “we want to attract and support those companies that develop solutions based on digital technologies related to the sector”. In this vision, “Andalusian talent and start-ups are key, the spearhead for the development of that ecosystem of innovation and technology that faces the future successfully”.
For his part, the president of the APBA, highlighted the boost that this agreement means for digital entrepreneurship and open innovation, which are included in the strategic objectives of the Port Authority to promote innovation throughout the maritime port area. Landaluce has pointed out that “today more than ever ports are strategic assets, so we need strong and solid ports to remain competitive”. The president has also valued the collaborative work that this project involves both for future entrepreneurs and for all companies in the Port Community of the Port of Algeciras.
For his part, the mayor of Algeciras, José Ignacio Landaluce, has highlighted “the involvement that, once again, shows both the Junta de Andalucía and the APBA in the great city project that is the Maritime Lake, increasingly complete and useful for the region, as well as with the constant investments in digital transformation, innovation and competitiveness that makes in Algeciras, of which this node of digital entrepreneurship is a clear example”.
Among the objectives of the entrepreneurship center is to deploy support services to new emerging companies or start-ups to promote their growth and entry into the maritime-port industry, boost innovation projects on disruptive and cutting-edge technologies, and promote open innovation frameworks in the port-logistics sector, based on joint projects on port innovation challenges with specialized companies in the industry.
This port digital entrepreneurship node will support the creation of high-value start-ups and create a more innovative business ecosystem in the field of Gibraltar, but it will not be the only one, since it is planned the implementation of three others: focused on digital content and video games (in Jaén), Agrotech (in Almería) and Smart Mobility and intelligent vehicles (in Alhaurín de la Torre, Málaga).
Finally, it should be noted that the RETECH initiative was launched by the Secretary of State for Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence, during the year 2022, and is financed by European Next Generation EU funds from the Spanish Government’s Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan.
This project, with a total budget of 23.6 million euros, focuses on the development of collaboration and open innovation ecosystems, as well as the promotion of support and technical accompaniment networks, mobilization of financing mechanisms and generation of synergies between territories, all around a total of 8 sectorial specialization nodes, distributed between Andalusia, the Community of Madrid and the autonomous city of Ceuta.
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