Bankinter Foundation for Innovation

Source of knowledge. The Bankinter Foundation for Innovation was established in 2003 with the mission of concentrating knowledge in order to create sustainable wealth through innovation and entrepreneurship.

Within the Bank's spirit and philosophy, the Foundation's vocation is to be a breakaway model of contribution to society. It devotes all its efforts to promoting innovation and entrepreneurship, as drivers of sustainable wealth creation among all the agents active in our society, from business owners and senior managers and entrepreneurs to those who will succeed them in the future, i.e. students.

The Foundation, through its four main initiatives, could be described as a virtuous circle starting with the Future Trends Forum (FTF), passing through Academia and Entrepreneurs and ending with Cre100do, the project launched in 2014.

This circle starts from the Future Trends Forum, where the latest trends in innovation are detected and analysed by leading world experts. The next step is to take all that knowledge to the university community, through Akademia. However, once they have been aired among the leaders of the future, these ideas do not remain in the classroom, but are transmitted to the real world through the Entrepreneurs Programme. The process is completed when, the enterprises, having been set up, succeed in growing and becoming drivers of the economy thanks to Cre100do, the final stage in a long process which will serve to boost Spanish business.

Future Trends Forum

This think tank, which brings together an exclusive group of 400 experts from various disciplines, has the objective of anticipating the immediate future.

It detects, analyses, discusses and disseminates trends in innovation -social, economic, scientific and technological- that will affect society in the short or medium term.

Constantly in touch with the latest trends. The purpose of the Future Trends Forum (FTF) is to act as a think tank that detects and analyses the trends in innovation that will affect society in the short and medium term. Once these trends have been analysed, they are openly debated and disseminated.

This think tank, made up of a select group of nearly 400 personalities who are internationally renowned in their various sectors and disciplines, has the objective of anticipating the immediate future, detecting social, economic, scientific and technological trends that will transform current
business paradigms and models.

For four consecutive years the FTF has been Spain's first and only science and technology think tank and placed among the world's top 26 according to the Global Go-To Think Tank ranking produced by the University of Pennsylvania, covering more than 6,000 think tanks.

The following trends were analysed in 2014:

• Superhumans: This publication, dated May 2014, a reflection of the analysis carried out in the 21st meeting of the Future Trends Forum held in Madrid in December 2013, reviews the human capabilities that we wish to attain (or are already attaining) in order to become ‘superhumans’. These capabilities were analysed from various points of view: scientific, technological, but also business, ethical and philosophical; and taking account not only of their impact on people but also of how they will change our social relations and our humanity. The report was published in May 2014 and conferences were held in Madrid and Valencia during the autumn of 2014.
• The future of money: In the June FTF meeting in Madrid a multi-discipline group of international experts analysed the revolution that is under way in the world of money. The creation of a common protocol makes it possible to convert money into a new kind of information exchangeable among network users without the need of an intermediary. These are the cryptocurrencies. This revolution also empowers new agents, such as telecommunications companies which create new methods of payment, and engenders new needs in different geographical scenarios. The paths that money can take are innumerable, and its growth potential, fired by technology, poses a considerable challenge to the current economic and financial system. The Future Trends Forum meeting was held in June 2014 and the publication was presented in November 2014.
• Big data and human performance: A meeting which took place on 2 and 3 December 2014 to discuss the improvement of human performance by means of big data. You can access the video summary of the meeting here and its conclusions will be published in May 2015.

Akademia

The project's mission is to have an influence on the education of future leaders and to encourage them to be innovative.

The Bankinter Foundation for Innovation selects 30 students to attend these courses, which are delivered in the best Spanish universities.

Training the leaders of the future. The mission of the Akademia project, set up in 2006 by the Bankinter Foundation for Innovation, is to have an influence on the education of future leaders and to encourage them to be innovative. Aimed at young university students, it is geared towards encouraging and promoting an innovative attitude, motivating its participants to take up the challenge presented by an environment in a constant state of flux.

It started eight years ago with two universities (Deusto and Universidad Politécnica de Valencia). In September 2014 the course was being delivered in nine universities, following the recent incorporation of CUNEF and the Universidad Europea de Canarias.

The Bankinter Foundation for Innovation selects 30 students to attend these courses, which are delivered in the best Spanish universities with a view to complementing the university training with some essential ideas for achieving success in the present dynamic and complex environment.

The Foundation seeks out the most imaginative and engaged candidates by means of personal interviews in which students are presented with a challenge, since most innovative ideas are not just the result of fortuitous one-off flashes of inspiration, but derive from a process of learning and contextual analysis, which Akademia makes available to the students.

During the course students attend 14 theoretical sessions and two practical ones, which are complemented by meetings with entrepreneurs who tell of their experience, and at the end of the course they present a business model developed by them.

In 2014, as well as completing a faculty formed by independent professionals who offer their knowledge, a blended (partly face-to-face) course was launched and a new handling platform was commissioned. All this is aimed at facilitating learning for young people willing to take up the challenge represented by Akademia.

Entrepreneurs

The idea of the project is to invest in high-potential entrepreneurship that creates wealth.

Since 2013, 700 projects have been presented, of which nine have been selected by Bankinter's Venture Capital area.

Learning and supporting the entrepreneurial ecosystem. The Entrepreneurs project provides Spanish start-ups with financial support and access to an ecosystem which includes the main Spanish business angels, universities and technology centres.

The initiative, which started in 2013 with the idea of investing in six or eight companies a year, aspires to become a recognised meeting point for entrepreneurs and investors specialising in seed capital financing.

Since its launch, 700 projects in such diverse fields as healthcare, renewable energy, nanotechnology and telecommunications have presented their initiatives. Following a process of analysis and evaluation on the part of the Foundation, Bankinter's Venture Capital area has taken equity stakes in nine of these projects.

In 2014, it invested in five of the nine projects currently in the portfolio:

• Coinffeine: Established by four Spanish computer engineers, the initiative is developing a pioneering platform for means of payment using bitcoin. The technology of this start-up allows people to exchange cryptocurrencies and other financial assets, securely and without intermediaries The most important thing, apart from the fact that it is the first time a Spanish or European bank or possibly any bank in the world has invested in bitcoin technology, is that in the foreseeable future private individuals may use this technology to mutually exchange all kinds of digital financial assets or products, such as shares, futures, derivatives, etc., on a secure basis.
• Movintracks: This is a new marketing-in-the-cloud platform which, for the first time, people can use to design interactive, measurable brand experiences in physical spaces and via mobile devices. Its creation coincides with the explosion in mobile technologies which seem intent on changing everything: NFC (Near Field Communication) and the latest version of Bluetooth, called 4.0 or BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy). All these developments enable brands to interact with their audiences via mobile devices.
• ChicPlace: This is a shopping platform that brings together Europe's most charming shops, offering original, unique, stylish products. The main categories are home, decoration, accessories and fashion, with a clear emphasis on gift items. There are thousands of small shops and craftsmen with original, different or unique products that do not have the necessary scale with which to set up their own e-commerce. ChicPlace opens the sale of these products to numerous consumers around the world.
• Captio: This is an integral solution for automating the management of business travel expenses. The system automatically extracts the data from the tickets and generates the expense claim form, covering accounting, bank reconciliation and the corresponding VAT refund, since it is certified by the Tax Agency (EAT).
• Beroomers: This is a marketplace for student accommodation, the aim of which is to collate the existing supply and channel it to students, whether Spanish students going to study away from home in other Spanish cities or abroad or foreign students on exchange programmes studying in Spain. Guillermo Ruiz and Sunil Mahtani launched Beroomers in the summer of 2013, and within a few months they were offering 500 accommodation options in six Spanish cities, with information in Spanish and English. After reaching €70,000 in reservations in the first few months of 2014, and having demonstrated traction, they embarked upon a round of financing to enable them to start expanding throughout Spain.

Cre100do

The five-year objective of this project is to turn 100 mediumsize companies into major corporates.

Economies with big companies, particularly if they have an international dimension, are more stable, more productive and hold up better in crises.

Accenture, AFI, Amadeus, AT Kearney, Bankinter, Deloitte, ESADE, Garrigues, IBM, IESE, McKinsey and Telefónica have already joined the initiative.

Supporting the future driver of the economy. Created in 2014, Cre100do is an initiative driven by the Bankinter Foundation for Innovation, with the collaboration of ICEX (Spanish Institute for Foreign Trade) and the Círculo de Empresarios (a leading business association). Its objective is to help medium-sized Spanish companies to grow in the next five years to become the national economic engine and to create qualified employment.

Economies with big companies, particularly if they have an international dimension, are more stable, more productive and hold up better in crises, since they are more innovative and have a greater capacity for business survival.

Each year the initiative will select between 15 and 25 companies with sales of between €25 million and €250 million, to help them boost their turnover over the next five years. The selection will be made from sectors in which the positive impact of these companies is likely to have a multiplier effect, applying criteria that enable growth potential to be assessed.

Companies selected in 2014 include Bimba y Lola, BQ, Cristian Lay, CT Engineering Group, Danobat, El Ganso, Eurofragance, Industrial Farmacéutica de Cantabria, Chocolates Lacasa,
MTorres, Megalab, Nagares, Noel Alimentaria, Prosol and Salto Systems.

The Bankinter Foundation for Innovation intends to share the path to success with these companies
and to generate a reference framework that will serve other companies that follow so that they can benefit from the knowledge acquired by their predecessors when confronting certain problems or opportunities.

Cre100do.es intends to attain its objective by combining ideas, resources and talent, with the help of leading companies who will show the best practices, with renowned professionals to whom normally only the major corporates have access. At the time of the launch, participants included Accenture, AFI, Amadeus, AT Kearney, Bankinter, Deloitte, ESADE, Garrigues, IBM, IESE, McKinsey, Ramón y Cajal and Telefónica. However, the initiative is open to participation by other companies and foundations, and to professionals and experts, both Spanish and foreign.

Go to cre100do website