IBM unveils its first technological innovation centre in Catalonia prioritising local talent

Reus (ACN).- On Wednesday, IBM unveiled its first Technological Innovation Centre in Catalonia, opened by Insa, a company which is part of the North-American group. The software development centre is located in Reus, a city in Southern Catalonia near the Costa Daurada and Tarragona. The new centre will initially employ 50 highly-qualified professionals, 90% of them graduates from the local Rovira Virgili University. However, the plan is to reach 100 workers in one year’s time and 250 in two years. The company envisages they might even end up employing up to 450 people in Reus, but they have refused to make any commitment on such an ambitious target. Insa (Ingeniería de Software Avanzado) decided to open its fourth Technological Innovation Centre (CENIT) in Spain in Reus, with an initial investment of 700,000 euros. The centre will be located in the city’s Tecnoparc building and will eventually occupy 1,200 square metres: 600 square metres host the current 50-strong team and the rest is kept for a future enlargement. The centre’s main client is currently the Catalan Government, since IBM-Insa will develop software specialised in socio-healthcare management. However, the centre will develop solutions for other public institutions and private companies.

Most of the initial 50 workers at the IBM-Insa centre were educated at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), which has campuses in Tarragona and Reus. “It makes us proud to prioritise local talent in IBM’s global centres”, stated the General Director of IBM Global Services in Spain, Marta Martínez. “IBM feeds itself out of professionals who graduated from the URV. If we did not have a university so integrated within the territory, probably this Wednesday’s inauguration event would not have been possible”, underlined the Mayor of Reus, Carles Pellicer.

The Catalan Government is the centre’s main client at the moment

In the Reus centre, the first one that IBM has set up in Catalonia and in the Mediterranean region, engineers are developing software for the Catalan Government for a total amount of €66.61 million. Last July, the Catalan Executive allocated IBM-Insa a contract to develop and maintain 113 applications in the areas of health and social affairs for the next 6 years.

The Technological Innovation Centre of Reus is to be added to a network of centres set up by Insa in Spain since October 2006. The first centre was built in Cáceres (Extremadura). Recently the centres of Aldeatejada in Salamanca (Castilla-León) and Ourense (Galicia) opened their doors. With the Reus facility, the four centres already employ 700 professionals, although the figure might significantly increase after the enlargement of Reus. Besides the contracts with public institutions, IBM manages and develops technological processes for companies such as Banc Sabadell and Iberdrola.