After fire comes air; after the spark comes momentum. Once a flame is lit, it must be kept alive. And after the spark and the courage to set an idea in motion comes the decision to give it air, movement and direction so it can move forward. And so, with this transition between two elements—from fire to air—AIJEC turned the Palau de la Música into the setting for a night dedicated to entrepreneurship and to those who dare to take their ideas further. Among them was the night’s main award winner, Adrià Argemí, CEO of Pangea Propulsion, a company that develops engines for space and takes this idea of moving forward what was once just a spark all the way to the stars: “engines born in Barcelona that will fly all over the world.”
After celebrating AIJEC’s 40th anniversary last year by looking back at its own history and highlighting some of the most recent recipients of the Young Entrepreneur Award, this year the association chose to shift its perspective and look to the future. It did so in one of Catalonia’s most emblematic venues, the Palau de la Música Catalana, which yesterday hosted a gathering bringing together business leaders, entrepreneurs and representatives from Catalonia’s economic and institutional spheres. The picture, however, was marked by some absences: an event held yesterday by the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, at the Museu Marítim de Barcelona to mark two years in office meant that some institutional representatives were unable to attend the gala or arrived later.
“Many thanks to those of you who are here today.” With these words, AIJEC president Vicenç del Mar alluded to the institutional absences of the evening before moving into a speech that went far beyond the presentation of the awards. Del Mar stressed the need for young business leaders to have role models and called for success to cease to be an uncomfortable concept. Above all, however, he defended the role the new generation of business leaders should play in building the country: "It's time to raise our hand".
The president of AIJEC asked political leaders for responsibility, but also a different way of understanding public debate: "We don't need to make those who think differently the enemy." Instead of polarizing, he defended the need to mind one's manners and to build together, through collaboration between the public and private sectors. And he put another demand on the table: if there is so much talk about retaining and attracting young talent, it is also necessary to want to listen to their voice; and in this sense, AIJEC wants to be "useful, and not feel used," its president defended.
And this demand for voice and space found continuity in the speech of the President of the Parliament, Josep Rull, who picked up on the metaphor that had guided the night to speak, precisely, of trust. Rull recalled that when AIJEC was founded in 1985, it was the only employers' association for young entrepreneurs and that then, as now, "everything was yet to be done." An idea that, he argued, continues to challenge a generation that must understand what kind of country it is and, above all, what kind of country it wants to be.
In a setting like the Palau de la Música, which Rull claimed as a space that "is driven by the people" and that symbolizes "a modernism with no more limits than those of creating beauty," the President of the Parliament made an explicit defense of the figure of the entrepreneur and the capacity for initiative. "Entrepreneurship is not a euphemism for the businessman," he warned, claiming a capacity for initiative that, he said, Catalonia has traditionally had. And he took the night's metaphor even further: "the air that Catalonia needs is trust." Trust in those who undertake, who take risks, and who commit to generating prosperity.
Because trusting does not mean ceasing to regulate, but regulating better: "We need to regulate well, but to debureaucratize better," summarized Rull, who warned that bureaucratization can end up jeopardizing precisely what the night's air claimed: the capacity to take initiative.
Contaminated air?
But not all the air surrounding business is as clean as that evoked by the night's metaphor. If air is what allows progress, there are also factors that make it harder to breathe. And three voices from the business world put on the table some of the main obstacles that entrepreneurs and business owners face today: regulation, taxation they consider suffocating, and a still negative perception of the figure of the entrepreneur.
Antonio Magraner, president of the Spanish Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs (CEAJE), spoke of a true cocktail of difficulties. He pointed out that in Europe, regulation is five times higher than in the United States, a burden that forces entrepreneurs to be aware of new regulations and to constantly allocate resources to understand and comply with them. To this regulatory pressure, he added a taxation that he described as suffocating and another more intangible but equally important difficulty: the image projected of the figure of the entrepreneur. Magraner claimed that companies are the ones that generate prosperity and progress, while admitting that a negative perception still persists around those who undertake.
In the same vein, Lorenzo Amor, president of ATA, denounced the difficult economic situation many self-employed workers are experiencing due to tax pressure. And Àngela de Miguel, president of Cepyme, pointed out that, although Spanish SMEs have improved in productivity, a large part of this increase has ended up being eaten by labor costs.
Adrià Argemí and the impulse towards space
And amidst this air laden with difficulties, the gala also focused on those who have managed to advance their ideas. The great recognition of the night went to Adrià Argemí, co-founder and CEO of Pangea Propulsion, who won the XXXIII Young Entrepreneur Award for his career at the helm of a company born in Barcelona that develops advanced space propulsion systems. Pangea designs engines and propulsion systems for launchers, satellites, and spacecraft with a clear idea: to make space missions more efficient, competitive, and sustainable, and to contribute to making our industry "more autonomous and competitive."
For Argemí, entrepreneurship is, above all, "daring": converting ideas into real projects and pursuing objectives that, in Pangea's case, literally point towards space. The awarded entrepreneur also claimed that, from Barcelona, very rooted companies can be created, but also "competitive and global", and he resorted to the poet Miquel Martí i Pol to summarize the spirit of the project: "Everything is yet to be done and everything is possible." A phrase that, in Pangea's case, takes on an almost literal dimension: "Everything is yet to be done, but at Pangea we are already doing it." A declaration of intentions that fits with the spirit of a night that precisely invited this: to give air to ideas so that they can gain momentum and go further.
But Pangea was not the only project recognized during the night. The Award for Best Business Initiative went to Aurax Technology, a Barcelona-based deep-tech startup that develops assistive technology to expand people's digital autonomy. Its main development, MouthX, allows controlling computers, smartphones, and other digital devices without the need to use hands.
The night also recognized trajectories and projects that understand business from other perspectives. Jaume Alsina, founder and honorary president of BonÀrea, received the Recognition for Business Trajectory, an award collected by his son, Ramon Alsina, on behalf of the family. "It's not just creating business, it's transforming realities," he claimed, before encouraging young entrepreneurs to "think big" without losing their roots in the territory.
The Recognition for Business Linguistic Quality went to L2S 1001 – Les Mil i Una, while Arkeobots received the Recognition for Social Entrepreneurship, with a proposal that advocates a way of understanding business with "business vocation" but also "social vocation".
Finally, the Recognition for Future Company distinguished FEEL-IT, a project developed by students from the Jesús i Maria Sant Gervasi School within the framework of the Junior Achievement program, as a sample of the entrepreneurial talent of new generations.
"They succeeded because they didn't know it was impossible". Adrià Argemí, Aurax Technology, Jaume Alsina, Les Mil i Una, Arkeobots, FEEL-IT and many other entrepreneurs were yesterday the protagonists of a night that precisely vindicated this: the drive of those who dare to try. With this phrase, attributed to the playwright Jean Cocteau, Josep Rull put words to the spirit of a gala that, under the common thread of air, praised for the 33rd time the transformative capacity of the young businessmen and businesswomen of our country.