Spain’s King Felipe and Queen Letizia met with young Spanish talents at Zarzuela Palace in Madrid on Thursday, 28 May.
Their Majesties, clad in surgical masks, sat six feet apart from the eight young talents from research, technology, business, culture and social action. The group had an open dialogue for two hours about how COVID-19 is impacting Spanish society and their visions for the future.
The King stressed that what young people are doing to help Spain during the pandemic needs to be valued.
“We are still in the thick of the battle and trying to regain a life as normal as possible. In this situation we have to look forward, we have to not only internalize recover, stand up again and not lose hope and, in this, but there is also undoubtedly a very important role that is to highlight and push everything you are doing young people in many areas in our country,” His Majesty said.
He went on to add: “There is a strength that we must put much more value, there is a need for engagement and new messages and I believe that youth, with your preparation and willingness, are one of the fundamental elements for this new recovery and energy that we need.”
One participant spoke about the impact the virus has had on talent. Pablo González Ruiz de la Torre remarked: “Talent is very affected by this crisis. Nothing goes without energy and enthusiasm and our country is a world champion in energy, we often lack confidence, the vision and union. What I love is the people, of this country, if it is a leader, is for its people. One of the projects I have is to place Madrid as the world capital of talent, so that they see this country as a place in to grow, work, develop. The year 2020 is the opportunity to start again, it is neither bad nor good, and here young people have a very important mission.”
Those in attendance were born between 1984 and 1994; there were four men and four women who were invited.
Those participating were CSIC National Biotechnology Center researcher, Francisco Javier Gutierrez Álvarez; Telecommunications Engineer from the Polytechnic University of Madrid, Teresa Arroyo Gallego; Lucia Zhu; Arancha Martínez Fernández; CEO and co-founder and CEO of Grow.ly, Mireia Badía; Founder of Cox Energy, Enrique Riquelme Vives; Founder and CEO of Trivu, Pablo González Ruiz de la Torre; and Co-founder of Vertical Robot, Norman Schaar Orive.
