Relevant information
Date: 23 March, 2026
Place: Board Room of the E.T.S.I. de Telecomunicación (Telecommunication Technical School)
Timetable: 11:00-14:30 (see programme below)
Free attendance until full capacity is reached
Students who so request will be issued with a certificate of participation for curricular purposes.
Objective of the day
When we talk about resources, we usually think of water, energy or raw materials. But a city like Malaga manages much more than that: it manages the space we walk through, the heritage we inherit, the talent we train in its universities, the data we generate every time we move and the social links that sustain life in common. They are all resources. And they are all under increasing pressure.
This year, the Telefónica-UMA Chair proposes to broaden the notion of resource management. 81 % of the Spanish population already lives in urban environments where land is finite, mobility is congested, cultural heritage competes with tourist pressure and the digital empowerment of citizens determines who participates in the society of the future and who is left out. In this context, new generation technologies - 5G, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, extended reality - are not an end in themselves, but tools at the service of an essential question: How can we do more and better with what we already have?
Managing resources means optimising a water distribution network, yes, but also redistributing the flow of visitors so that the historic centre does not become exhausted; it means training thousands of people in digital skills so that talent is not an exported resource but reverts to the territory; it means opening up public data so that evidence, and not intuition, guides collective decisions.
And there is a tension running through this whole debate: every sensor that measures, every server that processes, every device that connects will, sooner or later, become waste. The same technology that allows us to better manage resources generates a material footprint of its own - electronic components, critical minerals, data centre energy consumption - that will double in less than a decade. Recognising this paradox is not an obstacle, but the starting point for truly responsible management: simulate before building, virtualise before manufacturing, reuse data before extracting new data, extend the life of what already exists.
This edition of Agora Day invites institutional decision-makers, researchers, students and technology professionals to think together about how new generation technologies can become allies of a smarter, fairer and more aware of their own limits resource management.
We will be visited by
Joaquín Sánchez
Group researcher MobileNet of the TELMA Institute at the University of Malaga, a leader in research on the management of mobile and aerospace communications networks using artificial intelligence, with a special focus on 5G and 6G technologies. tensa His work covers the application of AI to satellite networks, robotic platforms and solutions for health and social welfare.
Elena Gómez-Cambronero Gutiérrez de Cabiedes
Product Manager at Telefónica Tech since 2023, with a background in Law and Business Analytics from Universidad Pontificia Comillas (ICADE) and previous experience in IoT and Big Data projects in the same company. He leads the development of products aimed at smart spaces, combining advanced connectivity, data analytics and Internet of Things to transform physical environments into more efficient, safe and sustainable spaces. Your profile combines strategic business vision with technical knowledge applied to the digital transformation of cities and buildings.
IAPH - Andalusian Historical Heritage Institute
The Andalusian Historical Heritage Institute is a public institution attached to the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport of the Regional Government of Andalusia, dedicated to cultural heritage since its foundation in 1989 and accredited as a research institute since 2011. Its activity comprehensively covers research, documentation, conservation, restoration, training and dissemination of Andalusian cultural heritage. With its headquarters in the Cartuja Monastery in Seville, the IAPH is a national and international benchmark in the application of advanced technologies to the study and preservation of historical and cultural heritage.
Andrés Martínez Vidal
CEO and co-founder of iUrban, Malaga startup specialising in artificial intelligence applied to tourism and urban destination management. An architect by training, he has been leading a project for a decade that was born out of a passion for travel and technology. iUrban has created Cicerone, the first tourist destination platform certified by Microsoft as GPT, and is currently working with more than 400 tourist destinations in Spain, Brazil and Portugal. The company has raised more than 700,000 euros in investment rounds and is a benchmark in the application of generative AI to the intelligent management of tourist and urban resources.
Javier Hormigo Aguilar and Francisco Castro Payán
Javier Hormigo Aguilar is University Professor in the Department of Computer Architecture at the University of Malaga since 2020, PhD in Telecommunications Engineering and specialist in hardware architectures and advanced numerical formats for efficient computing systems.
Next to Francisco Castro Payán, a researcher at the University Institute for Research in Mechatronics and Cyber-Physical Systems (IMECH.UMA), is leading the REACT4GRAINS project, the only project awarded to the UMA in the national call for Research Projects in Artificial Intelligence 2025. The project has a funding of 353,750 euros and has a duration of three years, with the aim of designing customised numerical formats and reconfigurable hardware architectures capable of significantly reducing the energy consumption of artificial intelligence systems.
Prototypes and immersive reality projects
Mobilenet (Mobile & Aerospace Networks Lab) is a research unit of the University Institute of Telecommunication Research of the University of Malaga (‘TELMA’) focused on the application of AI to mobile, aerospace and IoT network management, as well as the development of solutions for health and social welfare. In this session we will explore applications of AI for the intelligent management of satellite networks, robotic platforms and health, through the use of general purpose equipment to provide communication and computational capabilities, while reducing energy consumption.
Radicular is a mixed reality and immersive experience that invites the visitor to feel, from the body, what it means to exist in connection. The piece proposes a sensorial experience of the interdependence between forms of plant, artificial and human intelligence. In the context of this conference, Radicular speaks of another form of resource management based on the recognition of interdependencies. Radicular speaks of what is lost when the relationships between the technological, the human and the living break down. Faced with the logic of extraction and fragmentation, this experience affirms another possibility: a future where all forms of existence recognise, communicate with and care for each other.
Radicular is part of a transmedia narrative based on the speculative fiction novel. Membrane (Jorge Carrión, 2021) and the exhibition project From them (humans) to us (AIs), The project, produced by Art History students at the University of Malaga in 2025 as part of a collaboration between the Telefónica-UMA Chair and the Vice-rectorate for Culture of the University of Malaga.
Radicular is a project of the Telefónica-UMA Chair and XRC Experiencias Inmersivas.
Activities
DATA CULTURE: navigating the complexity of cultural systemsDecember 6, 2025 - 17:26
The Year of the Serpent, an expanded theatrical experience21 July, 2025 - 19:18
STEAM-H debate. Does technology have the capacity to perfect the human species?7 May 2025 - 10:30 a.m.