Spain accelerates the path of learning new technologies

If the pandemic has made one thing very clear, it is that digitalisation and technification go hand in hand and that they are driving forces, not in search, but in response to the imminent challenges of today's and tomorrow's society. In Spain, this roadmap has been taken very seriously in both the public and private sectors, creating a series of initiatives to prevent part of the population from succumbing to the Digital Age.  

There is a healthy obsession in the Iberian country to become a great digital hub, to create digital and technological development poles that include as much of the population as possible. There is a claim to break the generation gap that the irruption of the Internet, social networks and new technologies have caused in the generations prior to the emergence of the "millennial" cohort.  

In reality, the ambition is to detonate a European-style Silicon Valley, or rather a Spanish-style Silicon Valley, and for Madrid not to be the only pole of attraction for being the capital; in fact, cities such as Barcelona, Valencia and Malaga are competing for the leadership.  

And this competition is palpable when it comes to obtaining part of the funds granted by the European Council, known as Next Generation EU, for the 27 member countries for a total of 750,000 million euros.  Spain is earmarked 140 billion euros, of which 72.7 billion are non-refundable. Read that correctly, it does not have to pay it back to Brussels.  

Each of the 17 Autonomous Communities have presented their own plans to the government of the socialist Pedro Sánchez to benefit from this spill-over.  

Part of the money is intended to be used for R&D&I projects and the digital transition in an inclusive way, allowing anyone, of any age, to put their ideas into action.  

Some of these projects are aimed at breaking the gender gap. Precisely, the US multinational Oracle Spain is developing the free Oracle4Girls workshop aimed at inspiring "girls to study science and technology careers" in a country where only 13% of women have a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) degree and where there is a clear female deficit in this respect in the business world.  

The workshop, aimed at girls from 4 to 16 years of age, rotates throughout practically the entire Iberian Peninsula and in each city where it is implemented, registrations cascade.  

Gloria Lorenzo, director of the Oracle Women's Leadership programme, told RTVE at the time that in Spain there is "a great talent crisis" and that companies are having a hard time finding female engineers, which is why they have decided to start working from the bottom up... on girls.

A few days ago, I had the opportunity to attend one of these workshops in Malaga, a city that is experiencing a real revolution to attract technology companies and that has created great initiatives to promote the startup environment, digital poles and hubs.

The University of Malaga provided Oracle4Girls with its facilities at the Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería Telecomunicación e Informática (ETSI) to carry out a series of workshops from 10am to 1pm, divided by age and different dynamics. The Pink Route (4 to 6 years old) was led by professionals, the theme of discovering programming and children's robotics workshop as well as the ecological city, my first robotics project; the Yellow Route (7 to 10 years old) experimented with programmable music, a technological creativity workshop, the ecological city and robotics to improve our environment; the Blue and Lilac Route (7 to 10 years old) with programmable music, technological creativity workshop and Oracle Academy with Alice; and the Green Route (11 to 16 years old) with video game oriented programming, educational robotics and practical application of robotics.  

"We do this programme all over Spain and we have already had more than 2,000 girls in workshops like this. This year the idea is to reach more girls, we have an exciting project", says Sofía Schneider. 

In the opinion of the director of the Oracle Malaga office, the intention is to show girls that studying a STEM career is not a strange world and that their talent is necessary to solve today's challenges.  

For Schneider, part of the deficit arises because girls do not have inspirational references, and there are many cases that should be remembered such as Mae Jamison, the first African-American woman to go into space; Radia Perlman, considered the mother of the Internet and Margarita Salas, discoverer of a system to duplicate DNA; among others.  

How did the seed of Oracle4 Girls begin? It started with the Oracle Women's Leadership group because women and their abilities are encouraged within the company so that female talent can grow.  

"In Malaga there is a lot of interest, more than we think. It is the future is what I see, worldwide at Oracle we are 142,000 employees and only 30% of us are women. For a company to innovate and be inclusive, it must have diverse talent and the most important population in terms of diversity is women," says Schneider.  

Why is there so little female talent in a STEM career? 

-It seems to me that women only take the plunge if they are 100% sure they can do it, whereas a man sees it and applies himself. We are more afraid to take the plunge and mathematics should not hold anyone back, we just have to work harder and gain self-confidence.  

The pandemic has brought people closer to technological solutions, such as videoconferencing, which already existed, but were not widely used. People with a mobile device have seen the need to learn how to use various tools that, before the pandemic, they did not even know existed, and some hospitals have even activated a streaming service to monitor various patients.  

In schools and universities, managers, teachers and students alike have had to resort to technology to continue with their respective academic courses.  And ordinary people, to stay in touch with their loved ones, have learned to download apps and use social networks.  

All this technology, its current presence in people's lives is very noticeable, says Manuel Enciso, even in times when the world is heading towards a recession, technology companies have projects for new customers and the creation of more products.  

In the opinion of the director of the School of Engineering, Telecommunications and Computer Science (ETSI) of the University of Malaga, companies maintain a high demand for jobs related to engineering and new technologies.  

"We have something incredible every week there are one or two events presenting congresses, seminars and meetings related to technology," he says.  

The manager recalls the "boom" in the massive arrival of companies at the Technology Park: "Every week we receive one or two companies that are either already collaborating with us and want to approach the students or that are looking to find out about the academic offer we have". 

Popularly known as Málaga TechPark, it is a business park specialising in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector located in the Campanillas district of Málaga and has 621 companies that have become an important source of employment with more than 20,000 workers. 

There is also the big bet of the businessman Bernardo Quintero with Google that has produced an explosion of companies related to cybersecurity. The American company will have a centre of excellence specialised in cybersecurity that will have an investment of close to 300 million euros, of the 530 million that will be invested in Spain; and the French company Vodafone will invest in a European centre for the development of new technologies, after analysing various options in five countries. 

"Spain has a long tradition in cybersecurity and is one of the great powers in Europe in terms of cybersecurity. Not only on the business side, but also on the academic and institutional side; let's say it is a priority and we are on our way to becoming a cybersecurity hub not only in Malaga, but also in Andalusia and Spain in general," Enciso assures us.  

The invasion in Ukraine itself is leading the way? 

-Yes, absolutely. There are very good cybersecurity professionals in Spain and that is noticeable, we have a cybersecurity culture and many people come from many places with various profiles. Security is an aspect that requires collaboration and I give this example, because it is strategic for the EU, you only have to look at the attacks in Ukraine at a virtual level... the war is not only on the ground with all its unfortunate effects, but also in the digital area.  

Why do you think there are few women in STEM? 

-When I studied computer science there wasn't such a separation between men and women, practically those who studied computer science or mathematics were half of the class, and that has been deteriorating. And only in the last 3 or 4 years have we seen a certain improvement... this event is very important, because it bears fruit over the years; here in the School of Computer Science we have gone from 10 or 12% in our classrooms to 15%, there is still a lot of work to be done.  

Where does this work need to be done? 

-In demystifying engineering as something obscure, as something geeky and that isolates you from society, and the opposite is true. If we manage to get the message across that this discipline is not a closed discipline, but open to the rest, it will be easier to interest girls, because we have a very big gap... we lack women in the classroom.  

That is why, says Enciso, events such as Oracle4 Girls make the potential of engineering visible and the challenge is to transmit this taste for technology that can be used in various disciplines to solve problems in tourism, law, telecommunications, health; practically in everyday life.  

Getting people to lose their fear of new technologies is a priority and we are seeing more and more initiatives of all kinds to reach unemployed people, people over fifty who are looking for a new job opportunity, and even retired people.  

An area has been created for young people, the unemployed and anyone who wants to learn - starting from scratch - about new technologies with very interesting courses such as Metaverso or learning to program in different languages; learning to program video games or making web pages or applications. Digital courses cover practically all disciplines. 

Most training programmes are free or subsidised. This is complemented by the arrival of Fundación Telefónica's Málaga 42, whose aim is for everyone to learn to program; everyone of any age and free of charge. And not only that, they also provide training to become experts in cybersecurity, one of the most in-demand specialisations in the job market. 

In a few more days, a two-month course in digital marketing - free and subsidised with resources from the European Social Fund - will begin, aimed at unemployed people of all ages and carried out by the company Red. Something is moving in Spain on the eve of the imminent technological tsunami.