Indra supports its intra-entrepreneurs’ ideas for safe transportation and effective online learning

Recent winner of the National Innovation Award, Indra, one of the world's leading global technology and consulting companies, continues to seek and support the most disruptive ideas with the greatest positive impact wherever they occur, including among its own professionals, whom it challenges each year with its intra-entrepreneurship and innovation initiative: Innovators. 

It will thus support the three winning proposals submitted during the fourth call for ideas, addressed to its employees around the world through Indraventures, the company’s corporate vehicle that promotes its open innovation model. The first prize went to a virtual crisis room that improves emergency care in tunnels and other infrastructures, “because it’s applicable to customers in different markets and it’s a perfect fit with Indra’s and Minsait’s technological strategy”.

The second prize went to a tool to guarantee social distancing on the subway, “because it meets one of the challenges that Covid-19 has placed on the table and it has developed part of its code on the Onesait Platform, Minsait’s open source device. The third prize went to a facial recognition solution that uses Artificial Intelligence to measure an audience's level of attention and the quality and effectiveness of remote communication and training. 

After selecting the ten finalists, Indra’s Innovation Committee, made up of representatives of the corporate units, the directors of all the business units and technical experts, chose these three proposals as winners from among the 331 that were submitted this year, geared towards sustainability and post-Covid solutions and involving nearly 11,000 employees from 40 different countries. It should also be highlighted that a dozen of the ideas submitted have become full prototypes with code developments on the Onesait Platform of Minsait, an Indra company.

The ten finalists had the opportunity to submit their proposals by means of a one-minute elevator pitch, in the style of the investment rounds for startups, at a virtual event held on December 10, to which Indra professionals from all over the world connected. By means of Minsait’s Onesite Democracy Election Online electronic voting solution, the employees who followed the event live were also able to choose the idea whose author delivered the best pitch, which turned out to be a device designed to improve the inclusion of people with visual disabilities. The idea received a fourth award, together with the proposals selected by the jury. 

In addition to a prize of €5,000 and a positive assessment in their professional evaluation, the winners of Innovators will have the opportunity to devote 10% of their work time over three months to the development of a business plan in partnership with the relevant division of Indra’s business area to which their idea is related. Indraventures will also take part in this acceleration program, set to culminate with the presentation of the business plan to the investment committee, which will analyze it and, if approved, provide the chosen initiatives with the resources required for their development until the idea becomes a real Indra product.

Innovation Day at Indra

The final Innovators event has become the celebration of Indra’s Innovation Day. This year it was 100% virtual and welcomed a number of Indra professionals who have excelled with their charitable and innovative ideas, such as one in Brazil who taught himself to develop a ventilator to provide help during the toughest months of Covid-19.

One of the winners of Innovators 2019, a woman from Peru, also shared her experience, involving the materialization of her idea for a solution to guarantee medical supplies to hospitals, a factor which has been crucial in Peru during the pandemic. As a result of winning Innovators, she has won a scholarship at Singularity University, an institution in Silicon Valley, and given several talks to encourage young Peruvians to go into business.

The event also featured Jordi Ros, CEO of Labdoo, who outlined the lines of business of this non-profit organization that delivers disused laptops to schools around the world.

With Innovators Indra seeks to consolidate its innovative culture in order to continue transforming the company, mobilizing all the available talent and promoting the generation of ideas across the organization. The ultimate goal is for them to crystallize into new Indra solutions that reinforce its technological leadership and its positive impact on society, thus contributing to sustainable development by means of technology.

In the course of its existence, nearly 2,000 innovative ideas have been submitted to Innovators and some of the winning proposals have given rise to new Indra products that now form part of the company’s portfolio and value chain.

A pillar of the innovation ecosystem

Innovators, launched through Indraventures, Indra’s corporate innovation vehicle, forms part of its model to broaden and enhance its connection with the global technological innovation ecosystems (startups, entrepreneurs and research groups from universities) that are experimenting with emerging technologies and the company’s own professionals, who are shaping a multi-disciplinary network of experts from around the world.

Through Indraventures, Indra also analyzes around a thousand startups a year, reaches partnership agreements with dozens of SMEs and invests in many others so as to speed up their projects with digital business models.

Indra thus plays the role of the driving force behind R+D+I through its cooperation with universities, technological centers and other knowledge and innovation institutions and stimulates the intra-entrepreneurship of its own professionals.

About Indra

Indra (www.indracompany.com) is one of the leading global technology and consulting companies and the technological partner for core business operations of its customers world-wide. It is a world-leader in providing proprietary solutions in specific segments in Transport and Defence markets, and a leading firm in Digital Transformation Consultancy and Information Technologies in Spain and Latin America through its affiliate Minsait. Its business model is based on a comprehensive range of proprietary products, with a high-value focus and with a high innovation component. In the 2019 financial year, Indra achieved revenue of €3,204 billion, with more than 49,000 employees, a local presence in 46 countries and business operations in over 140 countries.