The sixth edition of Sacyr iChallenges has confirmed the international projection of this open innovation program.
International turnout has increased by nearly 40%, with submissions from over 30 countries.
Apart from Spain, the countries with the highest volume of submissions are the United States, Canada, Israel, Finland, the United Kingdom, and South Korea. Sacyr iChallenges had consolidated its presence in English-speaking countries, which represented 27% of this edition’s submissions.
This year, the application stage ended with 205 submissions to the three challenges issued by the company.
On the other hand, this year the number of innovation agents with over 10 years of experience increased by over 40%. This figure demonstrates how much the innovation ecosystem has grown in the past years and how it has come to accept a program like Sacyr iChallenges, increasingly focused on learning, testing, and adapting state-of-the-art solutions developed by companies that are more and more consolidated and capable of offering safer business solutions.
Marta Gil, Marta Gil, Chief Strategy, Innovation and Sustainability Officer, highlighted this year’s noticeable increase in quality in the proposals: “It’s a positive outcome, having such a good turnout, similar to that in previous years, even with more technical challenges, requiring more specific solutions responding to business needs. Once again, we’ve been bewildered by the talent and diversity involved in the tech proposals by the international innovation community”.
“Thanks to the Sacyr teams involved in this program we continue to make progress in pilot projects, and in scaling up successful projects to achieve greater impact. We are certain that this is the key to developing more efficient and sustainable infrastructure, and we are proud to lead this project with the collaboration of innovation ecosystem members”, explained Marta Gil.
Sacyr iChallenges is one of the foundations in Sacyr’s innovation and transformation strategy.
With this open innovation program, Sacyr aims to find partners with whom to promote sustainable solutions to improve the quality of life of citizens through better infrastructure and services.
Three challenges focused on sustainability
Sacyr iChallenges 6 focuses again on promoting sustainability, a core foundation in the 2021-2025 Sacyr Sustainable Action Plan. The program launched three challenges relating to multiple necessities of its business areas.
- Linear infrastructure adaptation to new transport models. How to build, adapt and operate safer, more attractive, and better-prepared roads for a more sustainable and interconnective mobility?
- New solutions to detect and monitor pollutants in water treatment facilities. How to optimize the detection and monitoring of priority and concern-raising pollutants in water treatment facilities?
- Innovative solutions to anticipate a project’s design parameters: geotechnical campaigns, topography, bathymetry, and object detection. How to obtain accurate and trust-worthy automated information in early project stages to design and build more efficiently while causing minimal impact?
Key dates and selection criteria
Once the deadline for submissions is closed, a committee including Sacyr professionals and business experts, along with the company’s innovation experts, will analyze all submitted proposals.
The next stop is Focus Week, a gathering of the selected finalists and business experts, to analyze the viability of the selected solutions.
Afterwards, Sacyr will announce the selected proposals that will work hand in hand with mixed teams collaborating with Sacyr business experts and external agents to continue developing solutions.
Lastly, at Sacyr Innovation Summit, an event that will take place in October at Sacyr’s headquarters, the selected innovation agents will take part in in-person sessions to define pilot projects along with Sacyr experts and will have the opportunity to showcase their submissions to the company’s top management.
Moreover, the Sacyr Foundation will recognize some of the solutions submitted to Sacyr iChallenges in the framework of its 13th Innovation Awards.
