César Alierta spent his last years as a Chairman of both Fundación Telefónica and Fundación Profuturo struggling to achieve a better, more fair, more caring and a more inclusive world. He also focused on reducing the educational gap and defended equal opportunities for all. It has not only been a professional matter, but also personal. He strongly believed that education was the key for the progress and fought tooth and nail for it. Therefore, he focused on improving education of millions of vulnerable children to offer them an opportunity to have a better future. Just as he said: ‘education is the cornerstone to achieve social change and social inclusion’. This is the message he would always give to all those who wanted to join his cause and has been his task for his last years. His contribution for both Fundación Telefónica and Fundación ProFuturo has given both entities a high level of excellence and has helped change people’s lives leaving an unequalled legacy.
Through the different social, educational and cultural projects carried out by Profuturo, a programme promoted by Fundación Telefónica and Fundación “la Caixa”, Alierta was willing to make the world more human by focusing on an inclusive digitalization. Profuturo was born in Angola in 2016 and, since then, it has not stopped growing and has expanded to new continents and countries while strengthening in the most vulnerable environments of Latin America, Africa and Asia through education. Alierta claimed: ‘We are convinced that we have a unique opportunity to use technology and accelerate progress and social welfare through digital education’.
Furthermore, during his 16 years in Telefónica, education was one of his priorities. He constantly made it clear by showing his unconditional support to Proniño, a Telefónica programme founded in 1988 and run by Fundación Telefónica. This programme was focused on eradicating child labour through education in Latin America. As the Chairman and CEO of Telefónica, he never stopped travelling to Latin America to firmly support the most vulnerable people. In 2016, he took a step forward once his chairmanship came to an end. He then became Chairman of Fundación Telefónica and created Profuturo, a personal project in which he broke his back to improve education though technology in the most remote and disadvantaged environments.
Alierta has left his mark on wherever he has been. Besides his career as the Chairman of the top telecommunications companies in Spain, which has made him one of the most important businessman of this country, he will always be remembered by his employees and friends as a hardworking person, a great strategist, a reliable friend, faithful, committed and generous. He was completely in love with the city he was born in, Zaragoza. That is how all of us, who have worked with him and have shared his struggle for a better world, will always remember him.
