Suara Cooperativa has officially presented this Tuesday the Social Digital Lab. This project redefines the model of accompanying people by exploring innovative and technological solutions.
One of the pillars of Suara Cooperativa is intercooperation, so the Social Digital Lab is also committed to generating spaces for co-creation and research, where they work together with start-ups, universities, as well as the community and real-life environments.
The event, which was attended by a hundred people from the social, innovation, entrepreneurship, universities and business sectors, began with the intervention of the co-director general, Tomàs Llompart, who highlighted Suara Cooperativa's desire to respond to current social challenges with innovative solutions. With this objective, the Social Digital Lab wants to respond to this mission of the cooperative to transform the social environment, improve the reality and well-being of people, as well as offer services rooted in the territory.
"Our great challenge is how to find solutions that respond to the needs of people and that these are sustainable for the administrations, for the families of the people served and dignified for the professionals," said Llompart.
The event was also attended by Jordi Amblàs, director of Integrated Social and Health Care of the Department of Health, who referred to the appearance this morning at a press conference of the Health Minister, Manel Balcells, and the Social Rights Minister, Carles Campuzano, who announced that, from now on, primary care specialists in areas such as medicine, nursing and social work, among others, will move to the residences to care for the elderly. Amblàs has specified that one of the objectives of this measure is to offer a model of integrated social and health care to the residences, a look that already include social entities such as Suara Coooperativa or professionals in the sector.
Amblàs also spoke about Suara Cooperativa's commitment to innovation and technology in the fields of health, care or welfare through the Social Digital Lab. "It sounds a music that is very consistent with what is being worked from the administrations: the need to innovate, to learn, of professional leaderships and derived learning".
For her part, Marta Segura, Director General for Personal Autonomy and Disability of the Department of Social Rights of the Generalitat de Catalunya, argued that care should be at the center of all policies. "If only the Department of Health and Social Rights takes care of care, we will not succeed," said Segura, who added that the current model in this area must also be changed in order to, among other things, apply innovation and technology.
Also speaking at the event was Liliana Arroyo, Director General of Digital Society of the Department of Enterprise and Labor, who said that Suara Cooperativa "is a benchmark in social innovation". According to Arroyo, the presentation of the Social Digital Lab "is not a beginning, but a milestone in the journey", of which she highlighted the cooperative's way of doing throughout this process. "We need the values of the social economy to permeate social and digital innovation," he said.
The event also included a round table with different people linked to the Social Digital Lab, with the participation of: Núria Infiesta, CEO and founder of YASYT Robotics SL; Guillem Alenya, director and researcher at the Institute of Robotics and Industrial Informatics of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC); Anna Simón, Manager of Disruption and International Connection of ACCIÓN; and Antònia Moreno, one of the participants of the Casal Online project of Suara Cooperativa.
Afterwards, those attending the event were able to take a tour of the Social Digital Lab facilities, where the tour guide was a robot. Precisely, one of the projects of this innovation space is to explore how robotics can improve people's lives. Finally, the day ended with a netwoking space.
The Social Digital Lab, a space of more than 1,000 m2 located in the 22@ technology district in Barcelona, consists of different initiatives designed to be a benchmark for social innovation. It follows the model of the European Living Labs concept, making it an innovation laboratory for social transformation. In this context, it emerges as a novel concept for research, technological development and innovation, which involves the people it accompanies in all phases of the process. Therefore, it generates a very high potential when it comes to both finding and offering customized solutions to the needs and realities of each one.
According to the director of innovation, Jordi Picas, this initiative "allows the development of digital projects and services in the field of people care, strengthening intrapreneurship and the start-up ecosystem, as well as bringing innovation to all the organization's projects".
Have a look at the photo gallery of the inauguration HERE.
