We have experienced an era in the world of innovation where the stars have been the entrepreneurs. Small startups or even individuals were able to turn their ideas into big business and, in many cases, overcome large companies with a long tradition in the market. This trend was magnified by the low capital requirements needed by Internet companies to start their activity. Today, large companies begin to absorb the best principles of the entrepreneurial world and we can see clear parallelisms between the way startups and some large companies operate, especially those that are most advanced in the use of intra-entrepreneurship in their innovation processes. In the next wave of innovation the “garages” of the startups will compete with the “corporate garages” of large companies.

About David del Val Latorre

David del Val Latorre is President & CEO at Telefonica Research and Development and Director Product Innovation at Telefonica He oversees the team responsible for creating the new services developed internally in the Telefónica Group

He spent 6 years in the United States where he co-founded VXtreme, a technology company based in Silicon Valley, which he later sold to Microsoft. After forming part of Microsoft for some time, he returned to Spain and founded Tech Foundries, where he served as vice-president until 2008.

David is a Telecommunications Engineer from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, has a Master’s Degree in Computer Science from Stanford University and Executive Certificate in Management and Leadership from M.I.T.

He is a co-founder of 9 technological companies and holds 16 patents in Europe, the United States and Japan. He is also a member of the General Foundation of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and of IMDEA Networks, and regularly collaborates with the Instituto de Empresa giving lectures in the area of business creation.

Personal site

This event will be conducted in English