The Economic Promotion Agency of Gran Canaria (SPEGC) is launching, through its Marine–Maritime High Technology Incubator, the “Gran Canaria Challenge”, a new intensive working-event concept designed to spark innovation from within the island’s own talent and entrepreneurial community and channel it towards industry. This is a practical, results-oriented format aimed at turning ideas into viable projects within a real collaborative environment.
“Gran Canaria Challenge” is conceived as an umbrella brand for future sector-specific challenges, and it kicks off with a theme of strategic importance for the island: the port and maritime sector, one of Gran Canaria’s main economic drivers. The first edition, co-organised by the SPEGC, the Canary Islands Maritime Cluster, and the Las Palmas Port Authority, will take place on 10 February and aligns with the current opportunity window of the national Ports 4.0 fund call (Ideas category), which is currently open. In this context, the main objective of this first event is to promote and build strong proposals that can be submitted with guarantees before the March deadline, while also energising the island’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Participants, organised into multidisciplinary teams, will experience a real-world entrepreneurial process, as they will be required to validate a business solution in a single morning. Teams will be formed on site, bringing together vocational training and university students, startups, and port-sector professionals, who will collaborate to solve specific challenges.
The work will be carried out through sprints—rapid phases of ideation, validation, and prototyping—with guidance from industry professionals. The approach is practical and hands-on, aligned with real challenges faced by the port industry. In addition, proposals will be fast-tracked for validation by port companies, allowing ideas to be tested against the market from the earliest stages of development.
This initiative is part of SPEGC’s broader strategy to support innovative projects and is the result of years of collaborative work and alignment with the Canary Islands Maritime Cluster (CMC) and the Las Palmas Port Authority, which participate as co-organisers of the event.
Participation requires prior registration, with a limited capacity of 60 places. Thanks to the Las Palmas Ports Foundation, which actively collaborates with the event, the best idea will receive a €1,500 cash prize, awarded directly to the winning project by the Foundation.
In addition, the top projects will receive specialised consultancy throughout February as part of the SPEGC Business Support Service and the Marine–Maritime Incubator, with the aim of supporting them in the preparation and submission of their applications to the national Ports 4.0 call
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