Catalan universities meet to debate the challenges and opportunities of artificial intelligence
140 people from a dozen public and private universities, with representatives of the UAB and the UAB Research Park amongst them, met last Thursday to debate about promoting innovation and knowledge transfer.
The II Conference of the Transfer Offices of the Catalan Universities took place on 13 June. The initiative gathered more than 140 professionals, among whom were representatives from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and the UAB Research Park. The main goal of the meeting was to debate innovation, knowledge transfer, and collaboration between the academic and business sectors. The conference also focused on artificial intelligence and the specific funding lines for spinoffs.
Laia Arnal, general manager of the Director General of Knowledge Transfer and Society of the Ministry for Research and Universities of the Government of Catalonia, oversaw the presentation, as did Mercè Segarra, vice rector for Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Transfer at the University of Barcelona. Both highlighted the role of universities as catalysts of innovation, transfer, and knowledge valorisation.
Following their presentation, Giovanni Porcellana, deputy director of Switzerland Innovation Park West EPFL, shared the initiatives made by the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and other institutions in western Switzerland, such as the University of Geneva, to attract private investors, develop collaborative research projects with industry, and transfer technologies to the productive sector.
The potential of artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is here to stay, and, as such, it is mandatory to analyse the limits it must have as well as the processes from which it can benefit. Malcom Bain, partner at Across Legal SLP, explained the new European legislation on AI and its potential impacts on research and transfer, along with the challenges and opportunities derived from it and the guidelines from the EU.
On the other hand, Vikesh Chugani, innovation manager at Atrineo Iberia SL, explained the potential AI has to transform the way in which the results of research are identified, evaluated, and commercialised. At the same time, he also highlighted how AI can be used to speed up work processes, identify new business opportunities and new partners for the technologies coming from universities, and support the decision-making process.
Funding for spin-offs
The conference also provided an opportunity to learn more about the steps to follow to fund spin-offs, innovative businesses born from research projects at universities. In this sense, Paco Badia, managing partner at Grow Venture Partners, and Emili Gómez, investment manager at ICF Venture Capital, explained the existing funding lines for spin-offs.