Cementos Argos has started construction of a new Argos Innovation Centre, in Medellín, Colombia. The project is being developed alongside EAFIT University and will become a new meeting place for Argos’ employees, researchers, academics and the community, focussed on the fundamental goal of contributing to the cement and concrete industry’s technological and sustainable development.
 
This innovation centre will work on the cement and construction industry’s biggest challenges, under two main axes of innovation - experimental development and research. The first axis features new material and product technologies - the development of new materials with better characteristics in terms of performance, quality, esthetics, functions, eco-efficiency and sustainability. The second axis will focus on new process technologies - better production processes aimed at reducing energy consumption, increasing productivity and improving environmental performance.
 
Thus, the centre’s activities will cover different fields of knowledge, across the following of the industry’s key processes: chemical and physical processes, thermal processes, biotechnological processes, energy processes, experimenting processes, materials tests and applications, the development of construction systems, knowledge management, the technical supervising and monitoring of innovation systems and incubation processes and the development of technology-based businesses. For this, it will be able to count on a variety of teams with highly-developed analytical skills and the most advanced technology for the different labs and each of the key processes previously mentioned, such as electronic field emission microscopes, x-ray diffractometers and an x-ray fluorescence testers, among other equipment used for materials analysis.
 
"The Argos Innovation Centre will be a meeting place for academics, scientists, engineers, students and society in general, where they can present everyday challenges and problems for these to become the main input for its innovation process. The building will be a milestone without precedent, as for the first time in Colombia, a cement company, in coordination with a university, is committing itself to open innovation and applied research with a project of such characteristics," according to the company.
 
Even though the project will be located on the main campus of EAFIT University, it will be open to the complete innovation ecosystem, setting a precedent for the development of the relationship between universities, companies and the state in Colombia.