Gonzalo Pascual, Island Council of La Palma: “Start-ups should focus here on offering great added value, aimed at a foreign global market”

Gonzalo Pascual Perea is Regional Planning and Digital Transformation Councillor of the Island Council of La Palma. In the interview he highlights the role of the public sector in the development of innovation. “From the Innovation area at the Island Council of La Palma, we have always been committed to start-ups. Innovation is a bit of that, right? trial and error. The innovative attitude implies that sometimes you have to carry out pilots, you have to test ideas that, if they are not promoted by the public administration, are unlikely to come out in the private market”.

“I give an example of this, which are air quality meters. We started working with a few companies that offered ideas and we developed and deployed air quality meters, a series of prototypes from various lines. Some were successful, others failed, but from trial and error, well, the company has been forming and has been improving its products and, in some way, we have been a partner in that growth. We continue betting on this type of ideas, which would not have a place in the market and that in some way have to be endorsed by the administration”, says Pascual.

Regarding the new Law for the Promotion of the Ecosystem of Emerging Companies (known as the “Start-ups Law”), the Minister of Digital Transformation of the Island Council of La Palma considers that “it is a law that in some way gives a name to everything that we have already known since many years ago, but now gives it a legal fit. It is time to recognize this type of innovative initiatives, from all that great ecosystem that has been generated”.

Beginning of a hatching of ZEC companies in La Palma?

Gonzalo Pascual values ​​that in the first quarter of 2022 there have already been three companies established within the Canary Islands Special Zone (ZEC). “Hopefully the trend continues. The truth is that this emergence, even if it is only of three companies, can be maintained, because, what better place than La Palma, where there is a great quality of life? And in the end, what people like is having a healthier lifestyle and if you can work in a place where you have everything you really need, which is connectivity, low implementation costs and your production does not need to be localized, what better place than the island of La Palma?”

Regarding the type of viable start-ups, Gonzalo Pascual recommends “always work on excellence and everything related to the digital economy, such as studies, programming…, everything that does not require input of raw materials. It can be an architecture start-up, or a Big Data analysis centre, these types of approaches can be carried out perfectly on La Palma because they have great added value and can contribute abroad. With a more industrial component, it must be a segment of quality and excellence that does not have to compete in volume, but really in added value and quality”.

Digital nomads and the connectivity challenge

For Pascual, “digital nomads are a reality, but the problem in non-capital islands is connectivity. A person can come to live on the island of La Palma and find great connectivity with low latency to be able to work remotely. But I couldn't go to municipalities far from large population groups because they don't have that connectivity and unfortunately there, the administrations can do little, since we have vetoed the deployment of fibre for individuals, they have to be only the big operators”.

“The liberalization of the market -continues Pascual- based on the European directive and its transposition into Spanish law meant that the public administration could not provide something as essential as connectivity. Let us hope that one day the legislation will be able to change and that it will only be a criterion of economic profitability that will allow the democratization of computing and access to networks, which today is already a fourth generation right that I believe is not only in the hands of the big operators.

In this sense, adds Gonzalo Pascual, “we are working on three sides with the Ministry and the IAC to see if we can have not only terrestrial but also submarine redundancy. The volcanological episodes that live in La Palma, the great fires that we have also had have affected the fibre laying of one of the main scientific poles that exist on our planet, which is the IAC, with the Roque de Los Muchachos Astrophysical Observatory. In the end, this also contributes to the development of FTTH and fibre on the island of La Palma. We have proposed a ring that will initially close the island of Santa Cruz de La Palma on the west side to Garafía and we also have another approach, which is to go from Santa Cruz de La Palma to Garafía, but from the northeast side”, says Pascual.