Cinco Días hosts the Business Innovation Awards 2010

Innovative companies were honored once again last night for another year running, as business and finance daily Cinco Días hosted the third edition of its Business Innovation Awards, at Madrid's Círculo de Bellas Artes. The awards, sponsored by La Caixa and Repsol, brought together leading figures from the worlds of politics, economics and business to applaud the endeavors of 2010's winners: BBVA, Panda Security and Saft Baterias.

"These awards seek to highlight the commitment of companies to society, to new technologies and, this aspect is particularly relevant, to the university sector," said Ignacio Polanco, president of PRISA, as he opened the ceremony. "The success of this event reflects not only that these principles are absolutely rooted in the Spanish business fabric, but also that they emerge in day to day business, whatever the company's size, as a tool to help us through these most difficult moments," he added.

The winning companies were chosen from among around one hundred nominees by a jury composed of Emilio Ontiveros, founder and President of Analistas Financieros Internacionales; Joaquín Estefanía, Director of the School of Journalism UAM / El País; Jorge Rivera, Editor-in-Chief of Cinco Dias, and the heads of the winning companies from last year's awards: Baldomero Falcones, Chairman of FCC; Javier Nadal, Executive Vice President of the Fundación Telefónica and Jose Cañas, founding partner of Teams, a spin-off company of the University of Seville.

The gala was presented, as on the previous two occasions, by journalist Javier Ruiz, who anchors Cuatro's evening news bulletin. For the first time, the Minister for Science and Innovation addressed the audience to highlight the importance of innovation policies for enterprises: "The newspaper could not have chosen a better moment to create this award. Innovation, which is essential in times of economic boom, has become, in the wake of the economic crisis, a matter of survival in times such as these". The minister explained that innovation is one of the biggest challenges facing a society and young democracy such as Spain's. "Every little contribution counts". She added that companies and entrepreneurs are the true agents of change in the current model of production.

After the minister's speech, Jorge Rivera gave the first prize of the evening to Gregorio Panadero, head of BBVA's corporate brand and communications department, in the category of most innovative business initiative in the field of corporate social responsibility. The bank has an investment commitment of 26 million euros between 2009 and 2011 aimed at fostering business and finance education among more than 500,000 people in Spain, Europe and the US. Panadero said he was grateful for the award and stressed the importance of people being equipped to make informed decisions on issues such as saving or entrepreneurship. "For us, innovation is all about learning," he said.

Immediately afterwards, Ignacio Manrique, Deputy CEO of Panda Security, took the podium to collect the commemorative plaque by sculptor Cristina Iglesias, winning in the category of most innovative business initiative in the field of new technologies. He accepted the award from Begoña Elices, head of Repsol's corporate communication directorate. Representing the anti-virus firm, Manrique said that his company's commitment to innovation had enabled it to launch a whole package of new technologies. "This is known as collective intelligence, a technology developed in our country that has also served to create employment in Spain". Panda, founded in 1990 in Bilbao, received the award, specifically, for its cloud security project, which allows them to provide, on the Internet, programs to respond to malicious software.

Next to take the podium was Juan Carlos Gallego, executive director of La Caixa in Madrid, to hand out the award to Joaquín Chacón, MD of Saft Baterias, for the most innovative business initiative in partnership with a university. The Spanish subsidiary of a French multinational has developed, together with the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, new tools to facilitate industrial storage of electricity, including energy derived from alternative sources. "Spain has a lot to contribute to the field of alternative energy, and Spanish companies have shown they have a high dose of creativity," said Chacón. He thanked the university for their collaboration and understanding, which has led to great success for the company. Finally, Javier Ruiz gave way to Enrique Dans, professor of Information Systems at IE Business School and an expert in the field of new technologies. Closing the event, he stressed the importance of innovation and insisted that there was no need to fear change in an organization. In order to innovate successfully, he said, we require three factors: "First, an idea, and second, people capable of seeing the innovation through, and third, money".

After the awards ceremony, guests mingled at a cocktail party. Among those present were Valeriano Gómez, Minister of Labor; Juan Luis Cebrián, CEO of Grupo PRISA; Manuel Polanco, President of PRISA TV; Emiliano Martinez, President of Santillana; Juan Soto, former President of Hewlett-Packard and current President of Oracle Iberia's advisory board; Emilio Ontiveros, President of AFI; Jose Medina, CEO of Odgers Berndtson; José Antonio Martín Pallín, Supreme Court Justice; Jose Manuel Lorenzo, Boomerang TV producer; José Terceiro, CEO of PRISA; Cayo Lara, General coordinator of IU; and Manuel Castello, President of Cross Road.