Last Thursday, the 16th of November, the Colegio Oficial de Ingenieros de Telecomunicación del País Vasco (the Official Association of Telecommunication Engineers of the Basque Country) started the celebration of the 50 years of the Association with an event at street level, none other than at the Zubiarte Shopping Centre, in Bilbao.
There I was to support them, mainly because I know “a little” their dean, Álvaro Ubierna, of whom I have told you before. For me, without any doubt, an E.P.
I have to admit that, the fact that the Official Association of Engineers was celebrating their anniversary in a space reserved for fashion supresied me. I have to tell you the night was getting better by the minute. Do you want to know what this type of event has to do with a blog about entrepreneurship? I encourage you to keep reading.
Apart from supporting Álvaro and the Association, as soon as I knew Borja Elorza, from CID FCA Comunicación, was the one who, together with his partner Jon Marín, organized the event I thought it was going to be a good moment to say hello and see what he did this time. Thank goodness, I went. I love seeing what Borja and Jon can do, but, above all, I love contrasting in first hand the effort there is behind (the backstage) of an outcome like the one of that day. Because that’s what I talked to you about last week, do you remember? Entrepreneurship in its pure state. With Jon, who I didn’t know personally, I talked about financial support, hard work, the importance of dedicating a lot of time to what we do so everything goes well and achieve the awaited results, team work, uncertainties… of course, everything with a big smile. Thank you for your time, Jon.
Besides Borja and Jon, I also met Mónica Deprit. The truth is that it made me excited to see a friendly face there. I found myself more comfortable. At the same time, it surprised me, I found it a bit weird to see her at Zubiarte when I knew that on that day they opened Design Pop Up de Bilbao (of which I’ll tell you about soon). Well, it turns out that Mónica is currently the stylist of the Zubiarte Shopping Centre of Bilbao. How was she not going to be there! And even more important, she has a wonderful blog about technology applied to fashion in monicadeprit.com. How was she not going to be there? That’s one of her great passions and she shows it when you talk with her. Not in vain, that allowed her to enter the list of the 100 most influential people who spread about this topic. Mónica, it’s about time we set a date to have a drink. Of course, it goes without saying that I consider Mónica a more than entrepreneur. When I talk to you about her you won’t have any doubts about it.
Just if you were wondering, there were many engineers at that event. Today I want to dedicate a few lines to some promising young people (E.P.). This is their story in a very reduced way: in 2016 a group of classmates of Telecommunication Engineering of the UPV/EHU interested in design and new technologies decided to create an association: Bilbao Dynamics. Their goal was to collaborate on the spreading technology and create a space of digital production inside the university environment where students with concerns could propose new ideas, collaborate in existing projects or even develop personal projects. But Bilbao Dynamics is reaching further because they have crossed the university walls. With their way of communicating and interacting, they promote team work, overcoming, creativity, interest, curiosity and self-learning. Competences and values to the day. Their appearances are more and more usual, and they have already won the name of E.P. I’m sure we’ll see each other soon.
I have to admit that the discovery of the night was Joaquina Trinidad, the general manager and PR of the Zubiarte Shopping Centre. I didn’t need much time to connect with her. Her illusion to achieve the Shopping Centre to be more than “other” shopping centre, her desire to see it as a referent for the people from Bilbao and her willingness so entrepreneurial people, among others, of Basque universities see it as a space to give themselves visibility are just a few of the ideas, many of them already a reality, that we shared that afternoon. Joaquina, be prepared, please, because I will call you in a few days.
By the way, I also had the pleasure to talk to, among other people, Javier Barroeta (a pleasure to meet you in person, Javier), Gaizka Martínez, photographer who works with Borja y Jon (the pictures from this post are from him, so this goes to you, Gaizka), Txema Villate (you always make me smile, thank you, Txema), Juanma López Garde (it’s incredible that we both work at the University of Deusto and we see each other so little), Zaloa Campillo (a huge signing of the Association whose role as a technical secretary goes further than expected) and Maja, other interesting entrepreneur of whom I will talk about in a few weeks, but I recommend you take a look at her web.
What would have been of this post if I never went to the even!
Thank you, Álvaro, for the invitation, and thank all of you for being there every week.
Have a wonderful week.
Translated by María Ubierna Quintanilla and supervised by Arantza Arruti.