Awards Ceremony for the CINCO DÍAS Awards For Business Innovation 2011

Dedicating efforts and resources to innovatation is no easy task. The business and finance newspaper Cinco Días has once again honored innovation and publicly recognized the best projects in the area at a gala awards ceremony held at the Prado Museum, attended by leading figures from the business, political and academic worlds. This year's winners were Danone, Ecopapel and Matarromera.

"Over the past five years there has been a real shift in the global economy that is teaching us valuable lessons, and is giving new meaning to these awards" said Cristina Garmendia, Minister of Science and Innovation, who gave a brief speech at the awards ceremony. "Innovation is no longer a gamble, it is a requisite. What's truly risky today is to not innovate," she said, before congratulating Cinco Días for having "made innovation a hallmark of their identity."

This is the fourth edition of the Cinco Días Awards, sponsored by La Caixa and Repsol, and instituted in 2008 to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the newspaper. The ceremony was hosted by journalist Montserrat Domínguez, who anchors the SER radio network's program A Vivir Que Son Dos Dias.

The winners were chosen from over a hundred candidates, by a jury, chaired by Joaquín Estefanía, director of the UAM/EL PAÍS School of Journalism, and composed of Emilio Ontiveros, founder and president of Analistas Financieros Internacionales; Ignacio Manrique, deputy CEO of Panda Security; Joaquin Chacon, CEO of Saft Batteries; Gregorio Panadero, Director of Communications and Brand at BBVA and Jorge Rivera, Editor-in-Chief of Cinco Días. The three winners were presented with a print by the sculptor Cristina Iglesias, National Arts Prize winner and creator of the new doors for the Prado Museum extension.

First to collect an award was Danone, in the category for Most Innovative Business Initiative in the field of Corporate Social Responsibility. Javier Robles, president of Danone, said he was grateful for the prize and explained that innovation "has been in Danone's DNA for 90 years, over the course of which we have remained faithful to our vision: to contribute to peoples' health through food."

Danone was honoured for the initiative Danone Nations Cup, an international mixed Sub-12 football league that uses sport as a universal language and involving 2.5 million children around the world, 25,000 schools and 20,000 clubs. The league, now in its twelfth edition, boasts former football star Zidane as honorary godfather.

Carlos Moro, president of Matarromera, next  took the podium to collect the award for Most Innovative Business Initiative in the field of New Technologies:from Arianna Huffington. This publisher and EL PAÍS board member, founded the Huffington Post, a global benchmark for new exclusively online digital media. She kindly accepted to give the evening's keynote speech.

Picking up the award, the president of the Matarromera winery revealed that his firm is currently involved in 30 research projects, including three involving Cenit. Matarromera won the most innovative business project in the field of new technologies for their Emina Zer0.0 alcohol-free wine. Previously, the winery had already developed a low-alcohol wine, Emina Sin. The company spends more than 20% of its revenues on R&D, and also develops cosmetics products.

In the category for Most Innovative Business Initiative in association with a university the winner was Ecopapel and general manager Manuel Mora collected the award. "We have managed to make paper without cutting down trees, our team's dream for many years," he said. Ecopapel won, for their joint research project with the University of Cordoba to industrially produce cellulose pulp using agricultural waste as raw material (wheat straw). Handing out the prize was José María Sanz, the rector of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM).

Previous years' winners include  Indra, FCC, Fundación Telefónica, Emprendedores TV (Banesto Foundation), BBVA, Panda Security and three small companies in the category of initiatives in association with a university: Saft Baterías, Teams and Alquimia Soluciones Ambientales

This year, readers can add to the list of winners for the first time by voting for their favorite innovative project by going online to www.cincodias.com before 1st November and choosing one of the five runners-up: LGN Tech Design, Feve, Mutua Madrileña, Oritia & Boreas, a Universidad de Granada spin-off, and Acciona.

PRISA Group CEO, Juan Luis Cebrián, introduced Arianna Huffington as "the most influential journalist in the US. Cebrián said that having Huffington on the editorial board of EL PAÍS is "a privilege" for the paper and "demonstrates our commitment to new technologies".

More information

Photo gallery of the CINCO DIAS Awards for Business Innovation 2011