They have presented the event today and thus redouble their commitment to the Blue Economy to turn Cádiz once again into the nerve center of the sector
The Blue Zone Forum-Innovazul 2024, which will be held at the Congress Palace from November 20 to 22, will have two itineraries, one focused on scientific dissemination hand in hand with the UCA and CEI·Mar and another aimed at the entrepreneurial and business public in charge of the Free Trade Zone
In addition to prestigious speakers, conferences and expert workshops, this edition will have a space featuring exclusively women, the Blue Women Forum, and another dedicated to Biotechnology.
Cádiz will once again be a center of reflection and knowledge around the Blue Economy with the Blue Zone Forum-Innovazul 2024, an event that will be held from November 20 to 22 at the Cádiz Congress Center organized by the Cádiz Free Zone, the University of Cádiz and the Campus of Global International Excellence of the Sea (CEI·Mar), which this year join their efforts to once again turn the capital of Cádiz into the great forum of the sector.
In this context, the rector of the University of Cádiz and president of the CEI·mar Foundation, Casimiro Mantell, and the State delegate for the Free Zone, Fran González, presented the event this morning at the UCA Rectorate and have detailed the development of the conference, where great figures linked to the Blue Economy will meet and which will bring together entrepreneurs, companies, institutions, experts, the scientific community and lecturers in Cádiz. In addition, in this edition there will be a stand area where you can attend live demonstrations of the different startups and exhibiting companies.
The State delegate in the Free Trade Zone, Fran González, has invited people to participate in these sessions, “in which knowledge and experience will be shared by great experts. From here I encourage everyone who has an idea or is just curious about exploring the Blue Economy and the entire wide range of activities that surround it to take advantage of this opportunity. Both the UCA and the Free Trade Zone have put all our hope and effort into at least arousing the interest of the last edition, in which more than 1,000 people gathered."
For his part, the rector of the UCA has recognized that with top-level events like this “Cádiz once again becomes the epicenter of the Blue Economy. A space for meeting and collaboration - he stressed - that we have built with a lot of effort and dedication and where universities, administrations, companies and institutions meet. “All united by a common objective: to promote innovation and sustainable development in the marine-maritime sectors.” Finally, he specified that “InnovAzul is the result of a long path that we began with the creation of the CEI·Mar and that, after two editions (2018 and 2022) organized by the Center of Excellence and the UCA, this year we take a step further by joining forces with the Cádiz Free Trade Zone to create 'Blue Zone Forum-InnovAzul 2024'. “This is a strategic alliance that expands our capabilities and allows us to offer an even more complete and ambitious program.”
Today's presentation has shown that Blue Zone Forum-Innovazul will bring together in the same event international, national and local speakers who will present good practices and debate the needs and solutions in each of the large blocks in which focuses the programming, which will have two differentiated legs. The first of them, led by the University of Cádiz and CEI·Mar, will be focused on scientific dissemination, while the second will be aimed at an entrepreneurial and business audience and will be directed by Zona Franca.
Cádiz will, therefore, become a forum for reflection on the transition towards a more sustainable socioeconomic model based, mainly, on the oceans and seas as a great opportunity for the future of the planet and the latest technological and scientific advances will be shown, in an environment of collaboration and innovation to think, learn, share and build from all points of view contributed to advance the circular economy.
As a novelty for this 2024 edition, Blue Zone Forum-Innovazul will have a space starring exclusively women, the Blue Women Forum, which will be a reflection of the important role that women are playing in the scientific world and in the Economic sector. Blue. In this space, they will have a presence from traditional activities, in which women's work has been and continues to be fundamental, to oceanographers and scientists who are currently developing important projects at an international level, passing through the impulse that since the 90s has There has been a female presence in jobs linked to the sea that were usually held by men.
Zona Franca, UCA and CEI·Mar have highlighted the commitment and collaboration model with which this event is being prepared, for which they have united their work and efforts by redoubling their commitment to the Blue Economy, technology, research, innovation and the transfer of knowledge to society. In fact, one of the spaces in this edition will be reserved for Biotechnology, which will have specific programming on the agenda.
In addition, Blue Zone Forum-Innovazul 2024 will have Colombia as a guest country, after the recent participation of Zona Franca, University of Cádiz and CEi·Mar in Innovazul Caribe, held at the University of Magdalena (in Colombia) where the delegate of the Zona Franca, Fran González, and the vice-rector of Entrepreneurship and Employability of the UCA, Carmen Camelo, presented the main lines of the acceleration program of the Incubazul incubator and the new industrial model developed by the Cádiz Consortium, as well as the leadership of the UCA in the launch of the platform for the Blue Economy in Andalusia and the cutting-edge research carried out by the scientific community of UCA and CEI·MAR in different areas related to marine-maritime studies.
Last year, the Free Trade Zone of Cádiz put the city in the national and international focus of the sector in the development of the first edition of the Blue Zone Forum, held in November, where a total of 38 speakers also met for two days. , distributed in 12 talks, 3 conferences by relevant personalities (Gunter Pauli, Ángel León and Theresa Zabell), 5 expert workshops and 3 networking events, distributed in sectors such as gastronomy, renewable energies, primary sector, coastal tourism and maritime transport. In parallel, some central technological verticals were developed based on the Internet of Things (IOT), metaverse, blockchain and Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Blue Zone Forum-Innovazul 2024, which for three days will become the epicenter of the Blue Economy, is aimed at companies, startups, associations and institutions linked to the sector, companies and entrepreneurs, investors, educational entities, media and citizens in general and aims to raise awareness, as was done last year, about the Blue Economy and the improvement of the sector through technological innovation; promote and encourage entrepreneurship, mainly among young talent; and support the business network and scientific dissemination.
In this edition, within the Blue Zone Forum-InnovAzul 2024, a top-level scientific event will be integrated: ThinkinAzul Andalucía, which plans to have the presence of researchers who are developing projects of maximum innovation and transfer within the Complementary Plan in Marine Sciences of Andalusia (coordinated by CEI·Mar) and the National Plan. Thus, this unique program promotes the generation of a research, innovation and transfer network on the marine and coastal environment of Spain.
You can access all the information about the event, the conference agenda and register at the following link: https://www.somoseconomiaazul.es/
