The application process for the Eighth Generation of Celera, the first talent accelerator in Spain, is already underway. Each year, Celera selects 10 young individuals with exceptional talent to provide them with the tools necessary to enhance their personal and professional skills to thus fully leverage their potential through a new acceleration model focused on people, which builds long-term careers and projects.

When you hear the testimony of Sofía Taibo and Santi Jiménez, two young people who took part in previous generations of Celera, you realise the immense talent that this country has and that is also part of the programme. We had the opportunity to chat to them to get to know their experience in Celera and the impact that the programme had in their lives.

Sofía has a degree in Advertising and Public Relations, and while working at Telefónica, she discovered her passion for developing digital products and digital businesses. It was at that time when she started to look for more information and get trained in digital innovation. Currently, she combines corporate projects with social projects, applying innovation, product and digital business methodologies in projects from entrepreneurs in vulnerable environments.

Santi has always been very linked to entrepreneurship and technology. He decided to study architecture because it allowed him to combine the more technical and engineering aspects with design, the arts and humanities. Throughout his professional career, he has used this training in areas such as innovation, business development, social impact and sustainability. Currently, his main project is Liight, a startup aimed at motivating people, institutions and large companies be more sustainable in their daily activities.

They both decided to participate in Celera because they were at a vital time in their lives when they were looking for new professional challenges. Santi explains: “I knew that becoming part of a community such as this one would help me to focus on new professional goals. However, it was also a pleasant surprise on the personal level, to discover things that, to me, at that point, were almost non-existent in terms of importance and emotional management”.

Sofía’s interest in the programme arose from the recommendation of her friend Martín, who had been part of a previous generation of Celera. “What caught my attention was how much he differentiated this programme from others we knew, and how happy he was with the impact it had on his life”, says Sofía.

The Celera programme works on two main pillars: the first one is focused on working socio-emotional skills such as intrapersonal intelligence, interpersonal skills and the definition of an essential purpose. The second pillar is focused on promoting the relational capital of participants with their area of interest, through mentoring sessions, access to big national and international opportunities and the development of a programme focused on innovation, entrepreneurship and leadership, among others, and in which intimate conversations are possible with our country’s main role models.

Beyond the tools provided throughout the programme, Sofía and Santi mention the friendship they established with fellow participants. Sofía shares with us that “What has stayed with me the most are the people I met during the programme, from the psychologists, my mentor to my fellow participants, who are now friends”.

Santi recalls that the most intense and special challenge he faced thanks to Celera is the development of “The Open Ventilator”, an automatic breathing device created together with other multidisciplinary professionals from the Celera ecosystem and developed in record time during the worst time of the pandemic, which has saved lives in both Spain and Latin America. “In a totally altruistic and self-managed manner, we put aside our more personal projects, jobs and so on, to work together, with doctors, engineers, designers, entrepreneurs. A great experience that I will always remember with much love”, says Santi.

When we asked them if they would recommend Celera, they have a very clear answer. “Of course, in fact, every time I meet brilliant, talented, inquisitive and good-hearted individuals, I always tell them to apply”. Celera is a great opportunity; it has a unique configuration working the individual from various perspectives which is not very frequent in other areas in which we normally work. Of course, it is an extremely enriching opportunity and being able to form part of this community is, as I said at the beginning, a great gift, a privilege”, Santi points out. Meanwhile, Sofía wants to highlight the friendships made during the programme: “It is called a ‘Talent Accelerator’, but with some perspective you see that it is more like a family or a healthy group of friends”.

If you want to form part of Celera’s community of young talent, you have until 6 November to apply for its 9^th Edition. You can submit your application through the form available on the programme’s website.

From the Banco Sabadell Foundation, we will pay close attention to the progress made by each Celera participant and we look forward to meeting the next generation that will be part of the programme.