Alicia Asín
Smart cities, precision agriculture and environmental programmes all run on the same commitment: that data will be used to improve institutional decisions, not to weaken accountability. Most IoT conversations at board level treat the technology as purely operational. They rarely grapple with the governance question underneath. The CEOs who deploy the hardware at scale are usually the ones with the sharpest view of that question.
Alicia Asín is the co-founder and CEO of Libelium, a multi-award-winning Spanish IoT hardware company, who helps leaders use sensor data to strengthen institutional accountability, not erode it.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Alicia Asín
- She runs Libelium, the Spanish IoT company behind the Waspmote wireless sensor platform, deployed across smart cities, precision agriculture and environmental monitoring projects worldwide. Audiences get a working founder-CEO view, not a technology commentator.
- She was the first woman to receive Spain’s National Young Entrepreneurs Award (2014) and received the Rey Jaime I Award for Entrepreneurship in 2017, a prize whose jury includes Nobel laureates. These are sovereign-level, externally adjudicated credentials.
- Second position in the 2018 European Commission Prize for Women Innovators reinforces the EU-level recognition.
- Her “Datacracy” argument, that data should strengthen democratic accountability rather than erode it, gives public-sector, smart-city and ESG audiences a specific vocabulary for the governance layer of IoT and AI deployment.
- She works in English and Spanish, which makes her directly useful for pan-European, Iberian and Latin American corporate and public-sector events.
Biography highlights
- Co-founder and CEO, Libelium; creator of the Waspmote IoT sensor platform
- First woman to receive Spain’s National Young Entrepreneurs Award (2014)
- Rey Jaime I Award for Entrepreneurship, 2017
- Runner-up, European Commission Prize for Women Innovators, 2018
- World Economic Forum Young Global Leader
- Named “Spanish with Talent” by Marca España; 2016 National Computer Science Prize
Biography
Sensors are the quietest part of the technology stack and the one that will most shape the next decade of public-sector decision-making. Alicia Asín co-founded Libelium in Zaragoza and has spent the intervening period building Waspmote, the company’s open-source IoT hardware platform, into a reference product for smart cities, precision agriculture and environmental monitoring deployments worldwide.
The recognition record is sovereign-level. She was the first woman to receive Spain’s National Young Entrepreneurs Award (2014). In 2017 she received the Rey Jaime I Award for Entrepreneurship, one of the most prestigious prizes in Spain, whose jury includes Nobel laureates. In 2018 she was named runner-up in the European Commission Prize for Women Innovators. She is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader.
The argument she brings to senior audiences is governance, not hardware. “Datacracy” is her shorthand for the idea that IoT and AI should strengthen institutional accountability, in cities, in food systems and in public services, rather than weaken it. That framing gives public-sector, smart-city and ESG audiences a specific lens on procurement, data ownership and the design of monitoring systems that people will actually trust.
For technology leadership, smart cities, sustainability and European public-sector audiences, Asín offers the working view of a multi-award-winning founder who is still running the company. She speaks in English and Spanish, which makes her directly useful across Iberian, pan-European and Latin American programming.
Key speaking topics
- Internet of Things and the Waspmote platform in practice
- Smart cities, precision agriculture and environmental monitoring at scale
- Datacracy: data, transparency and institutional accountability
- Women in technology and STEM education under AI
- Founder-CEO experience of scaling a European hardware company
Ideal for
- Technology leadership, innovation and R&D audiences at European corporates
- Smart-city, public-sector and urban-policy conferences
- Sustainability, agri-food and environmental programmes evaluating IoT deployments
- Women-in-tech and leadership events at pan-European and Latin American programmes
Audience outcomes
- A working founder-CEO view of IoT deployment in cities and food systems
- A vocabulary (“Datacracy”) for the governance layer of IoT and AI adoption
- Specific examples drawn from Libelium deployments in smart cities and precision agriculture
- A pan-European perspective on the policy and procurement context for sensor-led programmes
Talks
A session on how sensor data is reshaping institutional decisions in cities, agriculture and the environment.
Key takeaways:
- Where IoT data is already changing public-sector decisions
- What gets missed when organisations treat IoT as purely operational
- Practical design questions for anyone procuring sensor programmes
A session on using data deployment to strengthen, rather than weaken, institutional accountability.
Key takeaways:
- The governance principles behind the Datacracy argument
- Specific cases where sensor-led programmes have improved public-service accountability
- Design choices that decide whether a programme builds or erodes trust
A session on the real obstacles to smart-city deployment at scale.
Key takeaways:
- Why smart-city pilots routinely fail to scale
- How procurement, data ownership and interoperability shape outcomes
- What city leaders should demand from their IoT partners