Carolina Afonso, ISEG University Professor Today, 00:06 True mission-driven innovation, true progress requires a long-term commitment and the courage to invest in what is not yet popular. We live in an age when innovation is celebrated as a spectacle. Media headlines are filled with revolutionary promises - generative artificial intelligence, autonomous cars, augmented reality - and we are led to believe that the future is shaped by the technologies we can see and touch. What if the innovations that are most transforming the economy were precisely those that go unnoticed? While the mass market is fascinated by what is visible, a more profound revolution is taking place away from the spotlight. Behind the scenes in logistics chains, data infrastructures, financing instruments and regulatory standards. New ways of thinking and operating are reconfiguring entire sectors. It is invisible innovation - silent, technical, often complex - that redefines the foundation on which the most visible advances are built. Take the logistics sector, for example. Maersk and DHL have invested in machine learning algorithms that anticipate disruptions before they even occur. These tools not only prevent considerable losses but also keep global supply chains up and running - an invisible innovation, but one with great impact. The same is true of so-called green bonds, which channel many millions of euros into sustainable projects through financial structures that ordinary people rarely see or understand, but which profoundly change the course of global investment. In Portugal, examples such as the sandbox regulation programs promoted by the Bank of Portugal and the CMVM allow financial innovations to be tested in controlled environments, promoting legal certainty without hindering experimentation. These spaces, although discreet, create the conditions for pioneering solutions to flourish responsibly. True mission-driven innovation, true progress, requires a long-term commitment and the courage to invest in what is not yet popular. The problem is that this invisible innovation rarely receives attention. It's not Instagrammable, it doesn't generate likes, it doesn't feed easy narratives. But it is precisely in these invisible layers that the basis of future competitiveness lies. Investing in data interoperability in public services, for example, may seem arid, but it is essential to guarantee a modern, transparent and citizen-centered administration. The same logic applies to data sharing platforms in healthcare or the silent modernization of national cloud infrastructures. If we want to build a more resilient, sustainable and robust economy, we need to shift the focus. True leadership in innovation begins when we look where no one else is looking. When we stop confusing innovation with spectacle, and start recognizing it as a structural transformation - often invisible, but always essential. Carolina Afonso, ISEG University Professor Today, 00:06 Carolina Afonso, ISEG University Professor