Isabel Díaz Ayuso, President of the Community of Madrid: ‘the region has more than 2,500 startups that generate around 50,000 jobs, with €775M of investment last year’

• The President of the Community of Madrid stated that the region is the leader in female technological employment in Spain and encouraged young entrepreneurs to ‘grow up in the region that is the most open to innovation, investment and latest global trends. On Monday we will present a new Youth Employment Plan of the Regional Executive, on of the strongest ever promoted by an Administration, where we will place special emphasis on digital talent’.

• The second day of #SouthSummit24 was also marked by the visit of Mateo Salvatto, CEO and founder of Asteroid Techs, who at just 18 years old founded a startup that assists more than 400,000 people with disabilities.

• Co-organised by IE University, South Summit Madrid 2024 will bring together the key players in the global entrepreneurial ecosystem, from startups and 24 unicorns to investors and more than 500 national and international speakers.

• Download all the information and pictures of South Summit here.

Madrid, 6 June 2024. South Summit, co-organised by IE University, the leading event for the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem worldwide, held today the second day of its thirteenth edition at La Nave in Madrid. #SouthSummit24 has the institutional support of the Secretary of State for Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence, the Community of Madrid and the Madrid City Council, as well as Mutua Madrileña, Google for Startups, BBVA Spark, Endesa, Wayra – Telefónica Innovation and BStartup of Banco Sabadell.

This morning #SouthSummit24 was visited by Isabel Díaz Ayuso, President of the Community of Madrid, who praised the impact of South Summit and Madrid’s entrepreneurial ecosystem on the economy: ‘The spirit of South Summit helps making Madrid the place to embark on the wonderful job creating adventure. I encourage young entrepreneurs to grow up in the region that is the most open to innovation, investment and latest global trends. On Monday we will present a new Youth Employment Plan of the Regional Executive, on of the strongest ever promoted by an Administration, where we will place special emphasis on digital talent’.

The President of Madrid pointed out that Madrid outperforms all major Spanish cities in terms of entrepreneurship. In addition to leading female technological employment in Spain, the region is the second centre in the EU in terms of proliferation of accelerators, academic institutions and work centres, and the main pole of attraction for investment in startups in Spain. Thanks to this, ‘the region has more than 2,500 startups that generate around 50,000 jobs with 775 million euros in investments last year’.

María Benjumea, President and founder of South Summit, welcomed the President of the region with the following words: ‘It is no coincidence that South Summit was born in a region like Madrid. Madrid is a land of freedom and tolerance and this spirit has been key to the ecosystem. Madrid is an attractive place for innovators and entrepreneurs from all over the world, this dynamic environment creates the perfect setting’.

One of the main speakers of the morning was Mateo Salvatto, CEO and founder of Asteroid Techs, who at just 18 years old founded a startup that assists more than 400,000 people with disabilities. ‘We discovered a way of creating a business model with a high social impact that consists of making other agents responsible for and involved in this accessibility’, said Salvatto during his speech focused on the use of innovation to help people.

In this sense, Salvatto has declared that ‘the idea of changing the world doesn’t have to be about making millions of dollars, or creating huge companies, or working in Silicon Valley. For me, it’s more about people making a real difference and making changes that directly benefit those in need´.

Other highlights of the morning included Rachel Thomas, co-founder of Lean In; Sarah Harmon, executive board member of Singlar; Kathryn Minshew, founder and CEO of The Muse; and Mar Hurtado, Vice President of Global Recruitment and Marketing at IE University. All of them shared with the audience their experiences of gender bias, the importance of promoting diversity and inclusion, and the keys that will mark the future of women in the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

In this sense, Hurtado lamented that ‘only 25% of technology startups are founded by women’, while Thomas assured that ‘it is important to count on men to reduce the gender gap. Women make up 50% of the population, so if we don’t all work together, we won’t get anywhere´. Some of the proposals put forward by these female directors to break this glass ceiling include ‘making unconventional decisions and not sticking to the established rules’, in the case of Harmon, or ‘not letting anyone decide for you’, in the words of Minshew. ‘Before I got funding I had numerous rejections, but I knew the idea was good and I never let the “no’s” stop me’, concluded the American entrepreneur.

Europe as a key player in change and innovation

In addition to the visit of the president of the Community of Madrid, it is worth mentioning the participation of Carme Artigas, co-chair of the European Union’s AI Advisory Council, who praised the role of the EU in matching the United States as an innovation hub. ‘In Europe we had different pieces of legislation in each country, but that has changed towards a single digital market, thanks to regulations such as the GRPD or the creation of the European AI Office’.

Artigas was accompanied in her speech by Ikhlaq Sidhu, Dean of the Faculty of Science at IE University, and Michael Baum, co-founder and CEO of Splunk, who said that ‘although in the United States we are better at marketing, in Europe there are many examples of technology startups that are doing incredible things, especially in sectors like Deep Tech’.

The morning of the second day of #SouthSummit24 continued with the talk chaired by Irene Gómez, CEO of Wayra, in which she explored the evolution of the entrepreneurial ecosystem over the last 13 years, together with other big names in innovation. ‘For me, the success of startups and the Spanish entrepreneurial ecosystem is based on education’, said Gómez, while in the same talk Sofía Benjumea, director of Google for Startups, stressed the importance of ‘access to talent, something that helps startups to grow and that will be much more achievable as technological changes evolve’.

South Summit Madrid 24 ends tomorrow with a keynote by Uri Levine, co-founder of the unicorn Waze, and the election of the global winner of the Startup Competition. A jury made up of the world’s leading experts will evaluate the projects, the founding teams and scalability, among many other factors, and will choose the winning startup of this edition. Awards will also be presented to the most disruptive, scalable, sustainable startup and the one with the best team, as well as the winners of the South Summit Kids Competition, which recognises the best entrepreneurial projects from schools across Spain.