At December.s 22@ Update Breakfast, Vigyan Singhal presented the Elastix Corporation, which he is President and CEO of. This is the first company to establish an R&D center in the 22@Barcelona district, with help from the Landing Program.

Elastix is based in Silicon Valley, California, and was created by European and American entrepreneurs. They specialize in creating CI (competitive intelligence) design tools .with automatization. which are later used by the main manufacturers of semiconductors all over the world in high performance, low consumption microchips. Some of their clients include American companies like Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments; European companies like ST Microelectronics, NXP, Infineon and ARM); and Asian companies like Panasonic, Samsung, Renesas and Canon.

Although it.s true that there aren.t any microchip production companies in Barcelona, Elastix is creating technology here that facilitates microchip design. The reason for this can be found in their business profile: innovation and a product directed toward a global market, for which they need talent that also has these characteristics.

As Innovator of the Month, Francesc Solé i Parellada, director and promoter of the UPC.s Innovate Program, presented the Landing Program, led by the business departments of two important technological universities: La Salle Innovation Park and UPC. Moreover, it has the support of 22@Barcelona.

Francesc Solé based his explanation on three main concepts:

• Companies can be created from knowledge. So, universities play a key role.

•  All opportunities are not equal, so it.s necessary to focus on the feasibility of a project.

• The competitiveness of the global market makes it necessary to be well positioned.
  

In this way, the Landing Program aims to find specialized talent in order to make innovation more competitive in Catalonia. However, above all, it.s a co-incubation project that intends not only to help foreign companies establish themselves in Barcelona, but also to help Spanish companies move abroad. The most important thing is to connect innovation magnets worldwide, putting the knowledge that comes out of university R&D centers at the disposal of global business initiatives. .Our entrepreneurs are born to be global., says Francesc Solé. And for this reason the program offers a strategy for companies to internationalize, helping them from foundation through consolidation. .Basically what we have is paper, trials, and our program moves those ideas from paper to opportunity,. says the director, emphasizing above all the need for resources in order to maintain the structure that turns this paper into a business.

To close December.s breakfast, Josep Miquel Piqué, managing director of 22@Barcelona, noted that, of the 925 companies in the district, 47 % have been newly created and 53.73 % belong to one of the four clusters (ICT, Media, Biotech and Energy). He also pointed out that 32,000 new jobs have been created since the project began.

In many cases they are publicly sponsored projects aimed toward creating new businesses in a specific geographic area. They help new business people with the management .business plan, finances, marketing. as well as giving them access to facilities and resources in order to minimize the risk involved. 

In the case of privately sponsored incubators, beyond helping with services, consulting and facilities, new businesses receive financial support in the form of capital investment.

The incubation period depends on the project, but can range from twelve to eighteen months. If the company survives this period successfully they move into the growth phase, which requires additional funding.