The event has concluded with great public success and very interesting presentations, although it has been marked by mourning due to the Toledo railway tragedy, which has led to suspensions and modifications to the original agenda.
The athlete shared her experience of improvement in Cádiz and recalled that she returned from the Paris Games with a medal of love and support from Spanish society.
The fourth edition of the Blue Zone Forum consolidates Cádiz as a reference for the Blue Economy and an ecosystem model that can be replicated internationally
The last day hosted the Blue Women Forum, which appealed to the need for female talent to take advantage of all future opportunities related to marine knowledge on an equal basis.
Today's day has put the culmination of a week of great importance for the Cádiz Free Zone, with the celebration of the XXIX Conference of Ibero-American Free Zones as well.
The presentation by the Olympic athlete Carolina Marín has put the final touch on the last day of the Blue Zone Forum Innovazul 2026, the great event and benchmark of the Blue Economy at a national and international level, which this year celebrated its fourth edition with great success among the public and presentations of great interest and level.
The tragic train accident that occurred on Wednesday, the opening day of the event, and the pain and solidarity with the victims and their families has marked this year's Blue Zone Forum and has made Zona Franca and UCA, organizers of the forum, decide to suspend part of the scheduled activities, setting a strictly academic profile.
Today's day has put the culmination of a week of great importance for the Cádiz Free Zone, which began on Monday with the visit of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, Jose Manuel Albares, to receive the participants in the XXIX Conference of Ibero-American Free Zones in the Cádiz tax center, which was held in the capital of Cádiz from October 26 to 28.
The State delegate in the Cádiz Free Zone, Fran González, has highlighted the positive balance of the Blue Zone Forum Innovazul 2026, pointing out the great success of participation and also linking it to the celebration of the XXIX Conference of Free Zones of Ibero-America. “It has been a high-level event, both in participation, much higher than previous editions, and in the debates, presentations and conclusions that have been seen in the tables and presentations, and that strengthen Cádiz within the framework of the Blue Economy.
González had a memory for the victims of the train accident, pointing out that “I do not want to fail to mention the tragedy experienced and I send our condolences and a big hug to the families who are going through this difficult moment.”
Leadership and improvement
The Olympic badminton champion Carolina Marín starred this Friday in the last of the Blue Zone Forum InnovAzul 2026 talks, where she shared with the public, with a young majority, the experiences that have marked her sporting and personal career. The Huelva athlete has defended the importance of perseverance, confidence in one's own abilities and mental strength to face difficulties and achieve goals.
Marín recalled that her career began almost by chance, when she was eight years old and a friend invited her to practice a sport that was practically unknown in Spain. Since then, his career has been marked by overcoming barriers and winning international titles. “One of the things I am most proud of is having been able to put what badminton is in the mouths of many people in Spain,” she stated, before highlighting the satisfaction she gets from seeing families currently practicing this sport in parks and public spaces.
The Olympic champion has insisted on the importance of having the support of the family and professional environment, especially in the early stages of life. He recalled that when he was only 14 years old he had to leave Huelva to move to the Madrid High Performance Center, a decision that changed his future. "My parents have never forced me or said no to anything. On the contrary, they have given me the opportunity to do what I have always wanted," he explained. In this sense, he has encouraged families to respect the vocations of their sons and daughters and to allow them to choose their own path.
One of the most emotional moments of her speech came when she remembered the serious injuries she has suffered during her career and, especially, the broken knee that forced her to abandon the semifinals of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Marín has acknowledged that that experience made her feel that life was being unfair to her, after having overcome other injuries and the loss of her father. However, he explained that he managed to transform that frustration into learning: "I came back from Paris with a medal. Not the one I had worked for and the one I wanted, but with a better medal. A medal in the form of affection, love and a lot of support and empathy from all the people, from all of Spanish society, and I keep that medal in my heart and no one can take it away from me."
The athlete has also shared with the public one of the principles that have guided her career: “I can because I think I can.” Marín explained that mental strength is as important as physical preparation and recalled how he faced the Olympic final in Rio de Janeiro 2016, when he lost the first set and had to come back to win the gold medal. “My head at all times, point by point, thought: I can because I think I can,” she said, convinced that maintaining a positive attitude was decisive in achieving that victory.
In his message to the new generations, Marín has compared the achievement of dreams to a ladder with ten steps, in which each step represents a realistic objective that allows progress towards a greater goal. “When you are on the eighth or ninth step and you only have one or two steps left to be very close to that great dream, there you can see and you can be aware that objectives can be achieved, and dreams above all, can come true,” he explained. The champion has defended that small daily efforts also contribute to getting closer to big personal and professional goals.
Finally, Marín has expressed his satisfaction at participating in a meeting held in Andalusia and dedicated to the Blue Economy, an area that he has related to his own childhood memories in Huelva. The athlete recalled the fishing days she shared with her father and defended the need to preserve traditions linked to the sea and transmit them to new generations. “When we talk about sustainability, it is super important to talk about the sea,” he stated, while also highlighting the holding of forums that contribute to maintaining that link and raising awareness among young people about the importance of its conservation.
Foro Blue Women
The last day of 'Blue Zone Forum InnovAzul' included the 'Blue Women' forum. The table has had the participation of different professionals who, from the perspective of their own career and career, have contributed their vision on the need and public responsibility for the inclusion of female talent in everything related to the promotion of the Blue Economy. From the institutional space, the rector of the University of Cádiz, Casimiro Mantell, the delegate of the Cádiz Free Zone, Fran González, and the General Director of Equality of the UCA, Paqui Bernal, attended.
In this way, the meeting, organized by the University of Cádiz and led by Canal Sur journalist, Soco López, was attended by Sara Oliveira, head of COEX Green Energies at Navantia Seanergies; Ana Pilar Valerga, professor and deputy director of Relations with Business and Society at the UCA Higher School of Engineering and scientist specialized in additive manufacturing; and Carmen García Martínez, Scientific Director of the Oceanographic Center of Málaga (first woman to direct this center in its more than one hundred years of history).
In this sense, the forum has debated the need to increase the enrollment of women in scientific and engineering careers as a prelude to the subsequent incorporation of female intelligence and leadership in the blue economy. Historically, sectors linked to the sea, such as fishing, maritime transport, engineering or energy, have been strongly masculinized, so the example of the participants is key to overcoming this paradigm.
In this context, innovation and scientific knowledge related to the opportunities and sustainability of our oceans require the use of all available talent. Female intelligence is driving crucial advances in marine biotechnology, marine renewable energy or engineering in these fields. In this way, limiting the access and recognition of scientists and technologists in this field slows down the planet's global scientific progress and establishes a blue gender gap, since only 37% of scientists in the world in marine sciences are women, for example. A figure that decreases significantly in the case of project management and research groups.
According to the latest reports from UN Women, full equality, following the current pace of events, would not be achieved for another 136 years. Consequently, the story of the experiences and scientific projects led by the three participants in the Blue Women forum highlight the growing role of female talent and the effort, work and intelligence of women to multiply the possibilities of growth of everything related to the Blue Economy and the need to continue working to reduce the differences.
I Workshop 'Connecting university talent and industrial leadership'
Likewise, within the parallel activities of the programming, the I RED Co-creation Workshop of Engineers 'Connecting university talent and industrial leadership' was held, promoted by the professor of Business Organization, Cristina Sierra, with the support of the Equality unit of the UCA, the Institute of Marine Sciences INMAR and the Higher School of Engineering.
The UCA Engineers' Network is, as Cristina Sierra has highlighted, "an initiative born on March 8 that unites women from the 11 technical specialties together with the Marine Sciences area and the Equality unit. The fundamental purpose of this project is to make female technical talent visible in the province of Cádiz, creating a meeting point focused on coexistence and innovation." The promoters chose the InnovAzul event to plan their activities this year, “an ideal space to promote our Network, considering that the blue economy leads the economic development of the area.”
The director of Equality at the UCA, Paqui Bernal, explained that "the equality unit of the University of Cádiz has promoted a new forum to establish a working group focused on creating a network dedicated to female engineers. This initiative, led by professor Cristina Sierra, arises directly from the conclusions of the Third Equality Plan of the UCA, where we have detected in the corresponding diagnosis that there are few women studying these technical disciplines." The project “seeks to make female talent visible and encourage the incorporation of more women in these academic fields.”
The deputy director of Relations with Business and Society of the Higher School of Engineering of the University of Cádiz, Ana Pilar Valerga, recalled that they are in this forum today to present the Network that we have formed, "in which we want to promote all the talent that exists in our university, so that they do not feel alone and, well, try to achieve equality as far as possible in this world that is still hypermasculized."
The Network is made up of students, professors and researchers from the university and industrial professionals from the province of Cádiz. The organization has announced that there are also requests from other universities, including international ones, that have been interested in this network, but this step will not be considered until June of next year. Specifically, the challenge posed today is to draw up the 2026-2027 action plan of the network of female engineers, which they have called "Flight Plan", that is, "from here we plan to take off and open ourselves to all those who want to come and work together. We are not institutions, nor companies, it is us, individually, who commit to participate and work together as a community to promote the female technical talent of our university."
Consolidation of the Cádiz Free Trade Zone ecosystem
The celebration of the fourth edition of the Blue Zone Forum innovazul 2026 has demonstrated the consolidation of the Blue Economy ecosystem of the Cádiz Free Zone, which is already a benchmark in the sector and a model that can be extrapolated to other countries and which this year has been reinforced with a greater international presence.
This year the event has had a record number of attendees, which have exceeded 2,000, also registering a strong international presence. In fact, the interest that the entrepreneurship, innovation and Blue Economy model arouses in other countries, especially in Colombia where the incubation model carried out in Cádiz is being replicated, has been joined by the fact that the XXIX Conference of Ibero-American Free Zones has brought to the Cadiz capital a large audience from other countries also interested in the Blue Economy ecosystem.
The Blue Zone Forum InnovAzul 2026 is part of the ZF Blue Core-Business Incubator 4.0 project, 85% financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) within the Pluriregional Operational Program of Spain FEDER 2021-2027, through the INCYDE Foundation.