In the first part of his talk, Xavier Serra, director of the Music Technology Group of the university Pompeu Fabra, presented the project Vocaloid, a software designed to imitate the human voice, especially while singing songs. The software was a big success in Asian markets. In the second part, Xavier explained how this technology has had a big impact in social networks. Fans of the technology created new content (mainly music videos uploaded to Youtube) in collaboration. Xavier talked of “music 3.0”, music produced by an online community using various production tools and content databases.

The young Pau Gracia Milà surprised the public with his interesting presentation of EyeOS, an open-source web-based desktop which – in the line of cloud computing – uses the web to store files and applications. From any web-connected device (PC, phone, etc) using only a web browser it is possible to use these applications and files. In his talk he told us how he and his friend Marc Cercós at first (six years ago) did not even think of an enterprise but wanted just to solve a problem for them: how to share files over long distances. With the age of 16, they started to develop some tools for themselves. When they improved their tools in order to offer them to the market they had to face many problems and received a lot of criticism but due to their passion, vision and effort they withstand all of it and finally the project became a huge success. EyeOS received the prize “Premio Nacional de Comunicaciones 2009” because of its innovative character and its various applications, especially in the educational sector.

In their speech, Santiago Pellicer and Jordi Espuny presented their complex project Visión Médica Virtual (VMV 3D), an online tool which helps in visualizing, presenting and understanding the human anatomy. Currently, various teachers and students in different universities are using it. The VMV is an anatomic visualizer which is able to present 350 parts of the human body together with their corresponding definitions using an interactive interface. It is accessible from the internet using a standard web browser. Moreover, VMV allows making custom designed x-rays and the visualizer allows rotating and enlarging the different elements, all using a web browser, something totally impossible until now in the field of medicine. This allows scientists to analyze the human body with much more detail and ease than before.

Aniceto Jiménez, founder of Pita Barcelona, a company producing mechanical watches showed how passion is a key factor in making a project a success. From the very beginning, he was passionate about watches and this led him to repair all kind of watches in his hometown. Later, he founded his own company which is now an international brand. Together with his son he is now leading Pita Barcelona and whenever they create new products they try to create unique and tangible products and which also create emotions. Following the idea of crowdsourcing, customers are even able to participate in the design of a product which helps them to identify themselves with it. Besides passion, other important elements in order to differentiate themselves from their competition and gain new customers are: differentiation, surprise and innovation.

The tutors Isabel Gargallo and Roser Reynal from the institute IES Milà y Fontanals explained to the public DiversiTAC. DiversiTAC is an initiative which tries to respond to the educational challenges in a multicultural centre in a suburb of Barcelona where 64% of the students are foreigners and only 36% locals. After registering a huge increase in inscriptions at the centre and a variation in the student profile (the students came from 28 different countries), the tutors realized that they had to adapt their methods to the different students. They lowered their goals and initiated new lines of work. As a result, they changed the organization of the centre, modified the content and the methods of teaching and they redesigned the classrooms in order to be able to adapt themselves to the different learning curves of each pupil. As a common language catalan is used, the point of union in between the 20 languages of the centre.

Alfons Cornella closed the event summarizing the different previous speeches with his speech Wicked problems. Using a smartboard, the founder of Infonomia analyzed the difficulties which we will be facing in the future and synthesized them in various drawings. Cornella emphasized that the problems which will come are much more complex, not only because it is more difficult to resolve them but also because they are more difficult to define. These wicked problems can’t be resolved anymore with an algorithm but using a deduction of more or less practical rules (heuristic, using trial and error). Moreover, the solution of these problems requires collaboration of a group of people whose interest tends to fragment in a centrifugal form. There is no solution of wicked problems possible without a shared vision of it and an agreement regarding the optimal form to confront it.