Like all European countries, Catalonia has a roadmap aligned with Europe’s Digital Decade for 2030 programme, which adopts measures to promote a digital environment focused on people, safe and environmentally sustainable, on overcoming the digital divide and on guaranteeing the digital sovereignty of the countries and states that comprise it the European Union.

In Catalonia, this roadmap began twenty years ago with the birth of the i2CAT Foundation, a CERCA centre that, from the beginning, has integrated research, innovation and disruption in advanced digital technologies into its DNA. Since its inception, i2CAT has been a pioneering digital research and innovation centre that has worked to advance the present technologies and lay the foundations for those of the future, always intending to contribute to a more just and prosperous society, leaving no one behind.

Thanks to these first 20 years of work paving the way, we face this digital future with a solid and consolidated foundation, but it is necessary to continue walking. The culture of innovation, the basis of digital technologies, must extend to different social systems. It is essential to promote the transformation of our society and move towards a mature digital society with diverse, fair talent, prepared to take on the new challenges that will come. For this reason, the value that i2CAT offers and its contribution to the development of the digital transformation of Catalonia in these twenty years is incalculable.

As president of the Foundation, I would like to congratulate the i2CAT team for the work done all this time and invite them to continue designing the future of our country together with the rest of the research and innovation ecosystem.

Here’s to many more years!

Laura Vilagrà
President of the i2CAT Foundation, 
Vicepresident of the Government of Catalonia