“Girls with leadership skills cannot be labeled” Mandonas “” “

Alicia Asín is co -founder and CEO of Laadium, a company that designs and produces wireless sensors for the so -driven ‘Internet of Things’. This engineer has a master’s degree in systems and computer science engineering of the Polytechnic Center of the University of Zaragoza and graduated by Cambridge Judge Business School and Esades and has been awarded several times for his business merits and technological innovation. Young, engineer, entrepreneur and wife, it seems sad that it is a ‘rare letters who feel at ease in the role of role model that in which girls can be inspired to bet on technical studies for their professional career. In this interview we assess your professional career and future expectations.

– 11 years ago that was his company. What balance does this tour do?

– Entrepreneurship is full of sacrifices and constant efforts to achieve the balance between curves and obstacles to overcome daily. The balance is very positive because the hard moments that we have to overcome, such as the fire of our facilities in 2014 or the adverse financial results, are compensated with satisfaction that a source of generation of wealth and employment has been built in Spain. I have learned that nothing takes forever, nor the gaps are impassable, nor the successes enable you to relax, you must have emotional stability when a company is led.

– How did Lebelium come about? What has been the simplest and most complicated of this adventure?

-Sencillo has not been. When my partner, David Gascón, and I were students we were set up this start-up and we were not yet aware of the process we had for us. The sensor networks offered countless applications and based on that potential we decided to bet on the design of hardware devices when everyone told us that the key was in the software and no one knew what is now called ‘the internet of things’. What is proud has succeeded in designing a sensor platform that is compatible with all the large multinationals such as IBM, Microsoft, Ericsson, Telit, Indra and therefore up to 54 cloud partners who are able to connect an internet sensor through any wireless communication protocol. With this we have succeeded in improving cocoa pass in Indonesia, to predict the activity of volcanoes in Nicaragua, to follow the water quality in Asian fish farms or to control pollution in large European and American cities.

– He has received many prizes, such as Jaime I in the entrepreneurial category, and she was the first woman to receive the Ceeje Award, is called the National Business Award. It is recently recognized as one of the best innovative women in the EU. What are all these prices? Help them? Do you stay with one of them?

– All prices are important for me and for defamation. Not only for the recognition of our work or for the economic donation they hold, but for the impact we have achieved thanks to them, so that libeling is known within and outside our borders. Moreover, at every price we feel the responsibility to continue to grow and improve our results to match the entities that grant us. When they give you a prize, you are grateful to demonstrate forever.

– The majority of the defamation company is international. Is it difficult to do international affairs from Spain?

– The origin of reproach on the threshold of the crisis led us to an international calling. From the start we are planning the entire structure of the company and the documentation of our products for the international market. We have customers in more than 120 countries and have a network of 37 distributors in the five continents that contribute to the fact that our technology is present in large projects in which the experience of a local partner is needed. Moreover, our internet positioning has enabled us to reach various customer typologies, from universities who want to equip their laboratories with our devices, to large system integrators that display sensor networks in Smart Cities projects worldwide.

– There is a lot of talk about the absence of women in the technological sector. You are an engineer, entrepreneur, young and woman. Do you feel ‘role model’?

–I, I would like to be the mirror, so that young women who have to choose their professional future see an inspiration model to achieve everything they propose. If we want to achieve salary equality, women have to opt for positions of greater responsibility at companies and that is achieved more easily to study engineering and scientific technical careers in this world that are becoming increasingly digital. The figure of women in artistic professions is much promoted and when they are small, they want teachers, nurses, hairdressers or actresses. What needs to be achieved is that girls who show skills for leadership are not branded as ‘Mandonas’ because it is a quality that must be taken and cultivated as it is promoted between them.

– Is this type of figures necessary? How can we get more girls interested in voice?

– I have never been to parity quotas and it bothers me a lot when the condition of women stands out when I receive a prize because they don’t give it to be a woman, but for the merits achieved. However, I think it is necessary to promote equality for future generations to see in the technological sector and their project platform in scientific and mathematical studies. For this it is also necessary that the education sector promotes the figure of large professional teachers such as mathematics, physical or chemistry that are the basis that consolidate the basis of the students. Many flee from these disciplines as a result of having a bad teacher in their teenageodium. And that has long opted for future studies. Also by universities it is necessary to bring young people to those professions of the future to introduce themselves in their professional lives. Everyone knows what a doctor, a firefighter or a lawyer does, but few people imagine the varied professional outputs of an engineer.

– Where is it in 5 years? What purpose or challenge would you like to achieve?

– In our sector, a year has long been to predict what will happen. My future project is to continue to grow defamation to position it in the first position of the IoT technology in the world.