Gorka Espiau: "It's not about counting the jobs you create, but about knowing if you are changing lives"

Gorka Espiau is the director of the Agirre Lehendakaria Center (EHU), an advisor to the European Commission, and the scientific director of Work4Progress, a program of the International Area of the "la Caixa" Foundation, which contributes to the creation of quality jobs in rural areas of Colombia, India, Mozambique, and Peru for women and young people. This PhD in social sciences advocates a different way of addressing development challenges. Real innovation, local participation, and collaborative learning are key, and he rejects the implementation of isolated pilot programs in favor of "interconnected innovation experiences."

For Espiau, everything hinges on a different response, one that moves away from the reductionist view that focuses solely on the technological or business sphere. "What interests us is how societies learn to respond collectively to complex problems. The innovation we are interested in goes to the root of the problem; it does not seek quick results or start-ups not just success, but a real impact."

Projects like the cooperative in India that offers a taxi service designed exclusively for women – with vehiclesrickshawselectric–To avoid unsafe situations on their commutes to work, they are one example. In Peru, the formation of a network of agricultural producers supplies Michelin-starred chefs and improves their production processes.

Connecting with people is fundamental to understanding their problems, aspirations, and opportunities. "This allows us to know if an initiative is aligned with the community's perceptions," because reality is socially constructed.

The challenge now lies in digitalization and the application of artificial intelligence to streamline all this information. Work4Progress is already working with a program capable of predicting whether, for example, the specific aspirations of young women in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India, make sense to them or in specific areas, such as the Andean regions of Peru. "It's not about replacing human work, but about complementing it and improving decision-making," says Gorka Espiau.

A more modern cooperation

Traditional cooperation is becoming outdated due to a lack of resources, obsolete funding models, and competition between entities that hinders collaboration. That's why, Espiau explains, "issues such as cooperation, social innovation, competitiveness, and resilience must be addressed at the same table." Espiau asserts that the archetype of funding based on the Silicon Valley myth must be questioned. "It's an extractive model that concentrates resources and generates inequality. Philanthropy, like that of the "la Caixa" Foundation, is key, but insufficient on its own. I believe that in the coming years we will see connections between the public, private, and community sectors." Work4Progress was launched as a pilot project, "but the results have been very positive, and that compels us to be more rigorous in how we work and how we share knowledge." Impact is the program's main objective. As Espiau says, "counting jobs is fine, but what matters is understanding whether those jobs change lives."