Tuesday, September 22, 2026 - 16:30
- The Director of Igape, Covadonga Toca, takes part in Al-Andalus Innovation Venture in Seville, highlighting the public sector’s role as a facilitator, connecting start-ups, businesses, technology, finance and markets
- She highlights Galicia’s Business Factories model, developed in partnership with leading companies to address real challenges in strategic sectors and help bring innovative solutions into the wider business community
- She notes that one of the major challenges is to support projects beyond their early stages so they can secure customers, attract investment, expand internationally and scale up
- Seville, 22 September 2026
- The Director of Igape, Covadonga Toca, today highlighted the Xunta’s commitment to ‘industrialising innovation’, helping turn new technological solutions into business activity, investment, growth and jobs. She was speaking at Al-Andalus Innovation Venture in Seville, during the panel discussion ‘The importance of public administration in regional ecosystems’, where she addressed the role public authorities should play in supporting the development of innovative projects.
- In this context, Toca Carús advocated a public sector that acts as an ecosystem facilitator, connecting existing capabilities and supporting businesses throughout the different stages of their development. She stressed that the challenge is not simply to encourage new projects to emerge, but to ensure that those showing potential can find the customers, funding and market opportunities they need to grow.
- ‘We have talent, knowledge, start-ups, businesses, technology centres and funding. The next leap forward involves connecting all these capabilities ever more effectively around real business projects,’ said the Director, pointing to the importance of linking technology with business needs so that innovation has a tangible impact on the economy.
- In this regard, she highlighted Galicia’s network of Business Factories, accelerators specialising in strategic sectors and developed in collaboration with the business community itself. This model enables start-ups to work on real industry challenges from the outset and connect with companies that can serve as testing grounds, technology partners, first customers or gateways to the market.
- Building on this, Toca Carús stressed the need to measure the success of innovative entrepreneurship programmes beyond the number of participating projects, focusing on their ability to secure customers, attract investment, introduce their solutions into industry and grow. ‘Acceleration is not the end goal; the aim is to move from pilot to market, and from start-up to a business with the capacity to grow,’ she emphasised.
- The Director of Igape concluded that Galicia already has talent, knowledge, businesses, technology and funding, so the next step is to connect these capabilities ever more effectively around real business projects. ‘Rather than adding new pieces to the ecosystem, we need to ensure that the ones we already have work ever better together,’ she said, highlighting the connection between innovation, industry, finance and markets as the key to enabling more projects to scale up.
Category:
