The Mobile World Congress has come of age in 2024. In this framework, the Esade business school repeats for the eighth consecutive year its presence as an official academic collaborator at 4YFN, the space within the Mobile World Congress (MWC) that focuses on the future of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. In this edition, under the motto ‘Connected Minds. Leaders of Green Futures’, Esade leads the GreenTech vertical of the event, in which it discussed sustainability and technology.
During the fair, Esade held several sessions around the ‘Connected Minds’ concept. Leaders of Green Futures’. In them, issues related to the future of sustainability were debated from various points of view, such as the profiles that the industry is looking for and will be looking for to fulfill the sustainable purpose that is already a reality. “Resilience, flexibility, empathy, motivation,” is how Maja Tampe, professor at Esade’s Department of Society, Politics and Sustainability and academic director of the Master of Science in Sustainability Management, summarized the profile that companies desire.
Asked whether sustainability will be fully integrated in the short or medium term into our society in a completely organic way, Maja Tampe had no doubts about the importance of this task in education. She influenced sustainability education from a holistic point of view at an early age, but also in the business lever in terms of reviewing its purposes, as well as in legislation and the way of applying it so that it is respected.
Tampe, during her participation in the panel ‘Sustainable futures: linking the values ??of talent with business success’, was hopeful about the personal experiences she lives in the classrooms. “I see students coming up to me and telling me that they want to apply sustainability in their family businesses,” she explains.
Regarding the profile of professionals with sustainability as a differential value in their resumes, Tampe personally highlighted the need for them to have “a lot of curiosity and a lot of will” to understand the problems that today’s society faces. In addition to a hybrid profile that combines technical capabilities with the ability to work with other highly technical professionals.
Borja Segura, Director of Sustainability at ClimatePartner, who also participated in the same panel, changed his life for vocation. “You see that you have 30 more years of your life to work and you want to give meaning beyond a profit to a certain company,” he details about his transition from a professional linked to marketing to his current position as an environmental consultant specialized in decarbonization.
Segura, a former Esade student, confirmed that sustainability is often pursued solely due to legal imperative. Although “large industries are the ones that understand the benefits of sustainability the most, because there are them and they are innumerable, small companies are more reactive and continue to come for specific customer requests,” reflects the consultant. Segura tries to raise awareness among the most skeptical through the cost of inaction.
When asked if there are challenges and a future for anyone who wants to train in sustainability in any of its aspects, in his opinion, “we are on day 1. We must reach 2030 having reduced emissions by 55% and by 2050 with 90%. %. We have practically done nothing, so the journey that all of this has is enormous.” Consequently, it encourages potential students in the subject for whom it promises a great horizon. “Tomorrow any company is going to need a sustainability department.”
Without a doubt, artificial intelligence in all its forms and applications has been present in an almost holistic way in the celebration of this MWC. The ubiquitous technology has infiltrated all spaces, from the most personal to the most technical uses. The round table moderated by Irene Unceta, professor at the Department of Operations, Innovation and Data Sciences at Esade and academic director of the Bachelor in Artificial Intelligence for Business at Esade, under the title ‘How to make machine learning sustainable?’, focused on this issue.
The professor, who has an extensive history working in and with artificial intelligence, more specifically, with machine learning, the most developed subbranch of AI in the industrial world, explained that machine learning is based on Identify patterns in the data and build models that allow them to be actioned.
The exponential growth of AI in the industry has come at the dawn of advances in computing power, the design of more advanced algorithms, and the ubiquity of data. Precisely due to this growth, Unceta realized the need to assess whether the benefits of its use exceed the environmental costs it produces.
Sustainability is a non-negotiable aspect in the technological future for Unceta, which urged the need to assess whether it is a sustainable technology in itself since it is a non-negotiable aspect for the future.
Esade’s collaboration in the GreenTech vertical of 4YFN responds to the school’s commitment to inspiring future leaders with a clear vocation for social impact. The intention is for them to be aware and capable of transforming society and companies, taking advantage of all the potential offered by artificial intelligence and new technological advances as tools at the service of the common good and progress.
This vocation translates into the evolution of academic programs and the creation of new degrees, such as the Bachelor in Artificial Intelligence for Business, the Degree in Transformative Leadership and Social Impact, the Master of Science in Sustainability Management or the Sustainable Management Program and Agenda 2030 from Esade Executive Education. Proposals whose common objective is to train professionals capable of generating impact, both in the creation of new companies and in the transformation of existing ones, and to effectively address the constantly evolving challenges of the labor market. In addition, existing academic programs have also been adapted to incorporate the dimension of sustainability in a transversal manner and more subjects have been deployed that address different dimensions in this area.
