Reflections on Mobile World Congress: Aira, AT&T Partnership Draw Excitement

By Suman Kanuganti, Aira CEO

Introducing CNN to Aira Technology: CNN tech reporter tries on Aira smart glasses while flanked (on right) by Turner Chairman & CEO John Martin and other CNN team members at Mobile World Congress.

Quality and efficiency of our mobile network is paramount to Aira in giving users the best possible service and assistive experiences. This will become even more important as we scale our partnership with AT&T, a collaboration in which AT&T is providing enhanced wireless connectivity to support our platform and assistive devices, especially during times of network congestion.

At the recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain — the world’s largest exhibition and gathering for the mobile telecommunications industry — we joined with AT&T team members to showcase our technology and partnership, which drew wide attention, including Aira being nominated for MWC´s Best Tech Award, and garnering news coverage from the Wall Street Journal, CNN and others. At the event, Aira also gained invaluable insight from other cutting-edge mobile network technologies on display, and forged further key relationships within the mobile industry.

Here are my brief reflections from our busy and exciting multiple-day experience at Mobile World Congress:

Day 1, February 27

This global conference is impressive, with lots of amazing mobile innovations and competitions — all showcased in giant beautiful booths.

The AT&T Exhibit area where Aira´s technology was showcased.

Aira smart glasses are displayed in AT&T´s Internet of Things (IoT) Section. Multiple people were intrigued with the concept of Aira AR in an unconstrained environment applied to the blind and visually impaired. The AT&T booth itself is a huge space with multiple displays.

We meet and spend considerable time with members of the AT&T team, including Thaddeus Arroyo, AT&T´s CEO of Business Solutions & International, and Chris Penrose, AT&T´s Senior Vice President of IoT on our future plan at such events.

Suman Kanuganti (far right) with ATT&T´s Chris Penrose (left) and Thaddeus Arroyo (middle).

I was able to make brief but effective contact with ONCE (Spain’s national blind foundation ) and with MWC representative Luis Palomares and José Antonio Muñoz to discuss doing a beta trial in Spanish with Aira, via our agent Sergio.

Suman with members of ONCE, Spain´s Foundation for the Blind.

We also met Carina Lopes, Digital Transformation Manager of Mobile World Capital, who manages a MWC-funded program called d-Lab that explores using mobile technologies to solve societal challenges with considerable scale and relevance. She expressed an interest in possibly funding Aira pilots in Spain through d-Lab if we are selected.

Day 2, February 28

Aira is nominated by MWC´s Groupe Speciale Mobile Association (GSMA) for the ¨Best New Tech¨ award at the event, which brought excitement to everyone at the AT&T booth and prompted a rush of interview and news coverage requests from media.

To handle the considerable media response, I with Kevin Phelan, Aira VP of Communications, divided up our time for interviews. Aira garnered coverage from such prominent outlets as the Wall Street Journal, CNN (both in the U.S and Spain, and later, multiple airings in the U.S ), and Britain´s Daily Mail. These stories, which can be viewed at timeline.aira.io, serve to further spotlight Aira as a leading startup on the national and international scene.