Barcelona - Day 2

My morning appointment was with Barcelona Activa and as I am in a hotel close by, the walk was brisk and fresh. It was good to be in the heart of 22@ and it is interesting to see how vibrant the streets are. There is activity everywhere as the area, which clearly was a strongly industrial part of town not too long ago, is being torn down and modern buildings are erected to house businesses like T Systems. There are at least two universities / training centres that I saw and a number of upmarket coffee shops etc. Architecturally the upliftment is done quite well in that some old "icons" are kept and deftly incorporated into the new modern structures.

The beach is a 15 minute walk away and beautiful with modern artworks popping up everywhere.

I was fully briefed on the model (like you all have) by Marc Sans, who works with Anna, Elena and Montse. He is very knowledgeable and so excited about their programme. What was interesting was to see how Spain's acceptance into the European Union boosted employment rates and economic growth. They have clearly developed models of support and integrate this carefully with training programmes and job placement programmes. About 40 people per day receive their introductory "brief" and in total 1500 companies are coached through the startup phase and 3 years beyond.

What I found interesting is that their incubator space, which currently houses 50 businesses, and I must say, is quite beautiful, has 10 full time coaches / advisors available at all times. Entrepreneurs are not assigned a specific mentor / advisor / coach, but simply "pop down" to speak to whoever is available. This is different to our TSiBA model, but interestingly so and potentially quite a useful way of transferring the onus of responsibility to the entrepreneur and "forcing" the entrepreneur to think clearly about what the question is and where to get the answer. Our model relies more on the building of individual mentoring relationships as we believe this is more needed at the early stages of a business. Who knows? Certainly interesting to consider alternatives.

My second visit was to "SURT" - Foundation for the integration of socially marginalised women. This group focusses more on integrating vulnerable women into the workplace and tuning in on the need for social services to be involved where necessary. Sex workers who want to change profession are also encouraged to join their re-training programmes as well as women over 45 (eek!!), "housewives", immigrants and women who might be highly qualified, but who need to reskill to be marketable.

What was impressive was their resources to do research - they have published several books and large works. They also have efficient connections with government and their seamless integration with other services is impressive.

Signing out until Colombia,