The Teknopolis programme, produced by Elhuyar and Euskal Telebista, is 25 years old. To celebrate this anniversary, an event will take place on 5 March at the Multibox Hall of the EITB headquarters in Bilbao. In addition, there will be a special programme on the weekend of 10 March, as Teknopolis has put both eyes and feet in space to make the anniversary programme.

Teknopolis has pioneered bringing science to Basque television, incorporating a gender perspective and reflecting the richness of diversity. Now, on its twenty-fifth anniversary, it remains a pioneer because it has visited the European Space Agency (ESA), where scientific missions are controlled, at the ESOC centre of the German city of Darmastadt.

ESA has as its main mission the exploration of the universe, and several Basque scientists work in it. Teknopolis has gathered her experiences in the 25th anniversary special.

Ignacio Tanco Rossetta came to the European Space Agency to participate in the work of launching the mission. Rossetta has been one of the most successful missions. He is now responsible for the Juice mission. The Juice probe was launched in April 2023 and will investigate Jupiter's icy moons in hopes of finding water under the ice.

Libe Jauregi and Ander Martínez from Albéniz calculate the trajectories of the missions; that is, they decide where the satellites launched should move so that they do not get lost in the breadth of space and make the most of the fuel they carry. Teamwork will enable Juice to reach its target at approximately 590 million kilometres of the Earth.

Mikel Catania works at EUMETSAT, also at Darmstadt. In the European organisation dedicated to meteorology, climate and the environment, Catania runs satellites around the Earth, such as those of the constellation of Sentinel. They are satellites of the Copernicus programme whose mission is to observe the Earth.

Besides knowing the work of these leading Basque scientists, in the weekend program we will see how they see the future: on Saturdays at 13:30 in ETB1 and on Sundays at 12:00 in ETB2.

25 years of Teknopolis

Teknopolis was first broadcast in the Basque Country in February 1999. It started with a program dedicated to space exploration, and after 25 years, it keeps looking at space, because looking at space is looking at the future.

Over the past 25 years many more topics have been addressed in the programme. It has been up to him to explain what the Internet is, how GPS works, cloning, the problem of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, lindane, how cancer treatments have been improved and, of course, issues related to the coronavirus pandemic. During all these years, electric cars have evolved enormously and we see them on the street, we have a cell phone in our pocket without which we cannot live… and what about climate change! It was a probability extracted from research data, it seemed a mere prediction and we have already begun to see its consequences.

Science, research and scientists are the foundation of Teknopolis. Over these 25 years, the program has had about 3,000 Basque researchers and researchers, more than 750 programs have been issued (in fact, more than 1,500 programs because there is one in Basque and another in Spanish per week). Teknopolis has collected part of the history of science, collected in 42,000 minutes; it can therefore be said that it is a huge scientific library.

Nor have there been few prizes he has won. In 2010 he received the Popular Science TV Award from Euroscience Foundation. In 2012, he received the first prize from the Asebio-Genoma Competition with the report When life begins in the laboratory. In addition, he has been awarded twice with the Basque Country Environmental Journalism Award, and in recent years special mentions and awards have increased even more. For example, he received the 2022 Accenture Prize and has been a finalist several times at the Boehringer-Inggelheim Awards and in which he organizes the Transfer Forum.

The collaboration between Elhuyar and EITB has made it possible to enjoy Teknopolis for 25 years on the screen. It is therefore necessary to highlight this long collaboration, as well as that of all the sponsoring and collaborating entities, which have been many over the years. At the moment, our sponsors are in particular the following: Department of Economic Development, Sustainability and Environment and Department of Education of the Basque Government, University of the Basque Country, Mondragon Unibertsitatea, TKNIKA Centre for Applied Research and Innovation in Vocational Training and BRTA, the Basque Alliance for R & D.