Presentation by Cinta Arasa on Barcelona Activa. Presentation given at the Experience exchange event in Warsaw, October 2009

1. Barcelona Activa
The Local Development Agency
of the Barcelona City Council
Warsaw, October 2009

2. Barcelona 2009
A city with 1,605,602 inhabitants
A metropolitan area of 4,841,365 inhabitants
84,3% of the workforce employed in the services sector
13,6% Unemployment rate*
68,2% Employment rate*
86% companies employ less than 10 employees
50,000 employees ITC sector (6% total employed)
206,000 students in the 8 Universities**
+ than 12 million tourist overnights in 2008
•Data of 1rst term 2009, source: Active Population Survey (E.P.A.)
** Data of academic year 2005-2006, source: Department of Innovation, Universities
and Businesses of the Government of Catalonia

3. Barcelona’s Transformation
2009 80s and 90s
Unemployment rate 13.6 % 1986: 21%
Industrial employment 10.4%** 1981: 41%
Employment in services 84.3%** 1981: 52%
Attractive European City 4th *** 1990: 11th
Tourism Economic Weight 14% 1991: 4%
** Data 1rst term 2009 Active Population Survey (E.P.A.)
*** According to Cushman & Wakefield European Cities Monitor 2009

4. Barcelona Activa’s mission
To foster the transformation of Barcelona through
entrepreneurship, business growth, innovation, human
capital, professional opportunities & quality employment.

5. Barcelona Activa’s Activities T
r
Digital a
culture n
Activity areas s
v
e
Promotion of
r
Innovation & s
Creativity a
l
Business
Access to
creation Business Management
A
Growth quality of Human
employment x
Capital
i
s

6. Main figures 2008
162,856 overall participants in Barcelona Activa activities
19,387 participants in activities for business creation
1,379 business projects coached
116 innovative start-ups based in the Incubator and Tech Park
711 companies members of Xarxactiva network
350 companies coached in business growth programs
48,120 participants in the Amenity for the Development of Human Capital
31,806 participants in the employment and training programmes

7. Impact
60,6% business creation rate = 720 companies created
31.2% of entrepreneurs promoting coached business projects are foreign
2.7 employees per created company = 1.800 employments created
84% business survival rate in the business incubator at 4th year
900.000€ average turnover of incubated companies at 4th year
9.8 average workers per incubated company at 4th year
11% of foreign entrepreneurs in the business incubator
74% of the participants in employment programmes achieve labour insertion

8. Space of New Occupations
A reference centre about new occupations and emerging and transforming sectors
The amenity is designed as an open free-access space, aimed at people looking for new
jobs, opportunities, employment orientation or orientation about the future professional
evolution.
Barcelona Món
Activities’ rooms
730 new professional profiles Visual
analysed in depth through 12 Spaces
multimedia interactive
applications and 150 visuals
Books and
publications Information
50.000 pages of digital contents and internet
Complemented with personal Multimedia
advice and a twice monthly Platform
Personal Advice
activities’ programme

9. 22,
Porta 22, Space of New Occupations
Is the Barcelona Activa’s amenity for new occupations
Porta22 is a new facility designed to offer information about new occupations and
emergent economic sectors. It also offers assessment, training, and information
about job seeking to orientate people with professional worries (they could be
unemployed or employed people who are looking for a job, or even students).
Porta22 means “Gate twenty-two”, because it symbolises the gateway to District
22@, in which the amenity is located. The Barcelona’s City Council is currently
developing a project to transform the old industrial district of Poblenou into
the city’s Innovation District. A place for the development of new types of
productive activities related with the New Economy and the Knowledge Society

10. The users of Porta22, Space of New Occupations are all ages from 15 years old
an all educational levels. The only condition required is to be able to use to be
able to use internet at a user level. Students who need Orientation, from high
school education to university, workers (unemployed or not) who need
re-orientation and information about the new occupations, professional
associations and colleges come to visit the digital platform of the Space of New
occupations.

11. Name of the activity: Training the creative glance
Framework : first Innovation Festival (IF), an initiative by the European
Commission (in the framework of the PRO INNO Europe initiative) and organized
by BCD Barcelona Design Centre),
IF BARCELONA targets society through lectures, workshops, conferences,
exhibitions, awards or itineraries, activities to be carried out with the participation
and co-operation of various city’s stakeholders and organizations. One of the main
objectives of the IF BARCELONA is to raise awareness of the vital role played by
creativity, design and innovation in the development and progress of society,
as a key factor for business competitiveness in the economy

12. Activity: Training the creative glance
Origins: A dictionary of basic competences for work was developed by
Barcelona Activa. 21 basic skills were described and a training path for
10 of them was developed. One of them was CREATIVITY.

13. CREATIVITY was defined as the ability to identify, plan and solve problems
in an original and diverse way. It is the ability to establish new knowledge
linkages, set new questions and provide original answers.
Creative people:
1. Have an open mind to new perspectives.
- Are open to new ideas generated by others.
- Accept innovative ideas that involve some risk.
- Are closed to everything related to innovation and new ideas without
blocking other people.
- Are flexible to new proposals for the environment.
2. Question the conventional work methodology.
- Are ready to try new and different solutions and to keep an unorthodox
approach.
- Generate solutions to various problems.
- Can leave the conventional methodology, although it involves a risk.
- Are prepared to see beyond the available information and their own
knowledge to find solutions.

14. 3. Demonstrate sensitivity and create new concepts within the environment.
- Provide innovative and creative new solutions.
- Find new ways of doing things and propose alternatives to current problems.
- Consider radical or unconventional possibilities even they would take risks.
Exceed pre-established models and think beyond available information.
4. Build a creative environment in their area and / or organization
- Go further the established framework when identifying problems and new
solutions.
- Combine synergic techniques or lateral thinking, among others.
- Encourage new ideas to their work team.
- Build models that facilitate analysis and overcome troubles of the other
people in their team.

15. As CREATIVITY is a core skill for companies and
employees, a specific training path was created in
order to foster creativity among population, and
concretely among workers in creative industries.

16. Objectives:
- Discover the value added by creativity to our own
background,
- Raise awareness about creativity as a skill that we can
develop,
- Learn simple techniques to develop creative thinking.

17. Description:
Our creative glance is the capacity that allows us to face
the daily problems as an opportunity to explore the
environment and a Challenge to ourselves. Many times we
think that we are not creative and we do things driven by
routine. Luckily we can train this creative glance with
simple proposals that help to face our personal, academic
and professional challenges and add a new value to our
capacities.

18. Contents:
• What is creativity?
• Am I a creative person?
• Techniques to train the creative glance.

19. Methodology: The session has a practical approach.
The use of games and group dynamics allows participants
to discover the concepts that they are working on and
enables them to elaborate a plan to train their creative
glance.
Just done: the first session is starting on the 26th of
October.

20. Find out more about Barcelona Activa
at these websites
www.barcelonactiva.cat
www.barcelonanetactiva.com
doitinbcn.barcelonactiva.cat
www.porta22.com