Fundación Valenciaport, a national and international benchmark in port innovation, celebrates its 20th anniversary

The director general of the Fundación Valenciaport highlighted the nearly 400 innovation projects developed in this period with the aim of “helping the Port of Valencia to be more competitive and more sustainable”. “We are a national, European and international benchmark in port innovation”
During the Gala, awards were presented to the former presidents and the first director general of Fundación Valenciaport
The President of the Port Authority of Valencia, Mar Chao, urged the entire team of Fundación Valenciaport “not to stop pedalling to continue to be leaders in innovation together with the port community”.

Valencia, 1st December 2023. – Yesterday afternoon saw the 20th Anniversary Gala of Fundación Valenciaport, an event held in the emblematic Veles e Vents building, which brought together around 300 executives from the national and international port logistics sector as well as institutional representatives.

The event, which was led by the comedian and presenter Mr Corrales, began with an interview with the general director of Fundación Valenciaport, Antonio Torregrosa, who reviewed the achievements of the last 20 years in the field of innovation and port logistics training.

“We started with projects of the National R&D&I Plan, then we faced the challenge of coordinating European projects, until we came to lead large consortia, and today we collaborate with more than 500 organisations and companies from 65 different countries, we have developed nearly 400 innovation projects that have resulted in 37 industrial prototypes, 130 software solutions and 15 hardware, among other milestones”. “We currently have 50 innovation projects underway, in key areas to help the Port of Valencia to be more competitive and more sustainable, and we offer quality training fully oriented and adapted to the needs of the sector”. “In short, we are a national, European and international benchmark in port innovation”, he added.

During his speech, Torregrosa also highlighted two of the organisation’s latest initiatives. “A few months ago we launched IMARPORT, our Office for the Promotion and Financing of Innovation in the Maritime Port Cluster, through which we will articulate the work we have been doing for more than a decade to promote companies in the sector to join innovation projects and get funding for it”. She also underlined that “for its innovative nature, its scope and its future impact on the competitiveness of the port, I would highlight OPENTOP, without doubt the most powerful open innovation project in the Spanish port system”.

At the end of the interview, the president of the Port Authority of Valencia, Mar Chao, took to the stage to present the awards for their excellent work and promotion of Fundación Valenciaport to the former presidents of the organisation, Rafael del Moral, Rafael Aznar and Aurelio Martínez, as well as to its first director general, Leandro García.

During her speech, Mar Chao urged the entire team of Fundación Valenciaport “not to stop pedalling in order to continue to be leaders in innovation alongside the port community”.

She was followed by the guest speaker, Miguel Ángel Sánchez Valero, Director of Strategy and Business Transformation for companies such as Walmart, Nike and McKinsey & Company, who gave a keynote speech on challenges and opportunities for the port community.

This was followed by the guest speaker, Miguel Ángel Sánchez Valero, Director of Strategy and Business Transformation for companies such as Walmart, Nike and McKinsey & Company, who gave a keynote speech on challenges and opportunities for the supply chains of the future.
The Gala ended with a speech by Lorena Ballester, third vice-president of Propeller Valencia, who addressed the audience as a representative of the port logistics cluster. Lorena Ballester reviewed the many projects in which her company had collaborated over the last 20 years with Fundación Valenciaport and stressed that the Master’s Degree in Port Management and Intermodal Transport, of which she was first a student and then a teacher, “marked my professional career”.