It was on March 23 when Ana Aranzabe, director of the Technology Unit and Deputy Director of Tekniker, participated in a forum hosted by Grupo Noticias to discuss the Science, Technology, and Innovation plan of the Basque Country (PCTI). Aranzabe explained the challenges the industrial sector will have to face to achieve the goals set by the plan by 2023. 

She focused on five challenges related to materials leaving a zero footprint and no environmental impacts; smart and connected machines; sustainable production processes; smart products and, finally, boosting new businesses based on data. 

The first challenge refers to how materials and products should be designed from the sustainability perspective. Aranzabe said that “we have to design knowing that we must recycle, that we must use secondary raw materials and process them differently, because that is where the main challenge lies”.  

The second challenge is that machines must be able to operate in an autonomous and sustainable manner, i.e., take decisions as a function of how the tasks they perform vary. All of this has to be done placing the human being in the centre. The Deputy Director of Tekniker also stated that “the interaction between machines and human beings must be facilitated”.  

Industries should also advance towards “smarter and more interactive products” adding that if “we manage to get products to learn from what they are doing, the process will improve”.  

Finally, she also underscored the large number of data acquired in manufacturing processes and the opportunity this offers with regard “to generating new business and service models”. An opportunity that Basque industries should make the most of.   

Aranzabe participated in the forum together with, among others, Cristina Uriarte, the person representing the Basque Government; Carlos García, from the Higher Polytechnic School of Mondragon Unibertsitatea and Leire Bilbao, director general of the Basque Innovation Agency, Innobasque.