Silvia Leal: "The Window Building is an edifice that has it all: lighting, windows, gardens ... It is inspiring and invites innovation "

The scientific communicator Silvia Leal accompanied us on March 28 at the opening of The Window Building, a unique space born from the union of Colonial and Utopicus. With her lecture “Towards a 4.0 ecosystem", she showed the audience how to adapt workers and companies to new working formats, and left interesting reflections confirming that companies need to invest on innovation and technology.

Question. The fourth revolution is already a reality in many labour sectors, how does the arrival of the machines affect positions traditionally occupied by the human being?

Reply. Nowadays, only a quarter of the jobs that existed a century ago, have managed to survive due to technological revolutions. This situation will happen again, since according to the TOC, 80% of the jobs we know today are in danger of extinction, however 85% of the jobs that we will be performing in a decade do not exist yet, and thus we are immersed in a renovation favoured by the integration of machines.

Q. How do you think the future is set out? Will the fourth revolution promote man - machine coexistence?

R. The future arises with the need to create a cohabitation based on the mixture between the traditional and the new. It is necessary to innovate, but there are aspects of the traditional world that work, so you have to have enough intelligence to achieve big but also small innovations that add value.

Q. What would be your recommendation to face this new labour market?

R. My recommendation usually goes in three lines. First of all, we must learn to sharpen our wits and generate innovative ecosystems with light or nature that are able to inspire. Secondly, we need passionate people, people who are motivated by their jobs and by the innovation process; and lastly, it is necessary to understand that technology is an opportunity and that we have to make an effort to live with it.

Q. From your point of view, would The Window Building be a good example of a worked environment adapted to the needs of the market?

R. To this day, the Window Building has it all, you just have to look at the lighting, the windows… and you get immediate inspiration from the outside whilst you let out the one you have inside. In addition to this, we must talk about the gardens; we have seen how many technological and non-technological innovations come precisely from nature. And then, there are, of course, all the networking spaces in which different generations coexist, people with different professions, who are able to get inspiration from all the innovations we are talking about. This is an advantage not only for a company at their own, but also for those people that are to come and that will transform the business market and the whole professional environment, as well.

Q. If you had to give advice to companies and workers to achieve success what would it be?

A. What I would say is that you have to preach by example. It is important to generate an ecosystem and to have leaders who understand this whole process of innovation to initiate it first. I would also add that those leaders must sharp their wits and learn how to recruit talent and, most of all, that they have to be passionate about all the changes that are coming, which in my opinion are very positive.