Barcelona was crowded with Tech Spirit
In spite of the MWC cancellation, Barcelona didn’t accept a no for an answer and the tech ecosystem players gathered to keep on working on tech industry’s improvement. More than fifteen thousand people attended Tech Spirit Barcelona and the expectations were far surpassed.
Although the Mobile World Congress was canceled a few days before its opening, public and private administrations didn’t keep their arms crossed. They got associated and made the necessary steps to have a place where to encourage IT industry’s growth, like every year. In just ten days, a new event was going on and thousands of people were registered.
Barcelona, known as one of the most innovative cities in the world, was the perfect place. Tech Spirit convention was celebrated from Tuesday 23th to Thursday 27th of February, with 45 activities that took place at the Llotja de Mar of the Chamber of Commerce of Barcelona and 108 events all around the city. Not only important companies, such as Microsoft, or unicorns, like Glovo, ElBulli and eDreams, gathered here, also entrepreneurs and startups.
Close to 60 local and international speakers and more than a hundred venture capital investors were present, and contributed altogether to create synergy among all ecosystem players.
Tech Spirit Barcelona was created as an alternative from MWC and the 4FYN, lead by Barcelona Tech City. Besides that, many other activities also kept their schedules and took place during previous days in order to start warming up the tech industry’s engines.
Main issues: Blockchain, Mobility and Industry 4.0
After Mobile World Congress’ (MWC) cancellation due to coronavirus concerns, efforts were put to work in order to give the tech industry an event to share and showcase current situation in tech, and diverse debates.
There’s no doubt the efforts made contributed to boost creativity, internationalization and entrepreneurial spirit, once again.
The energy flowed across the city in a key week for the digital and technological ecosystem, and turned the city into a great entrepreneurship party for five days. Central program of activities took place at Llotja de Mar building, while many proposals were set at the Pier01 spaces by other organizations and other spaces.
Blockchain for culture, creativity and tech fields panel was one of the first activities in the program and the one that got my mind blown. Toni Mateos (Freeverse), Jordi Puy (Unison) and Alex Lopez (Seven Row), moderated by Montse Guardia Güell (Alastria), talked about the transformation that’s happening bit by bit inside the entertainment industry, was the perfect conference to start this Tech Spirit Barcelona journey.
Then I got interested in the debate about how to take action and work in order to bridge the gender gap and boost female entrepreneurship. Other keynotes that caught my attention were about:
- Open innovation challenges for pharmaceutical companies and the multilateral collaboration demanded by today’s open world.
- The paths taken by old economy sectors to transform their companies and fulfil this age needs.
- The keys to success in Latin America, shared by five entrepreneurs and investors.
- Artificial Intelligence and Big Data would bring a more sustainable mobility, and how this may impact the automotive industry.
A whole program called Blockchain Spirit was set on Thursday to present the diverse treatments blockchain is being given, and also to debate what its future will be like. There are so many different ways in which companies are making use of this tech that, if I could, I wouldn’t have missed any of the keynotes. With a naked eye, the outlook ahead is very promising, for sure.
How blockchain can help the recruiting process and discover the greatest talents, and as a tech that can accelerate fair data economy, there were two of the outstanding keynotes, in my opinion. The large amount of presentations offered made the whole program really astonishing.
“We have to look for new ways to do stuff, not new tech to do the same things”
Alex Puig
The speed dating system set helped digital talent get in touch with technology companies for a twenty minute conversation to find investors, partners or customers, gain visibility and open new markets. In addition, if you didn’t have enough time or didn’t match with the partner you were hoping for, a specific area was available for chilling and networking all day long.
Finally, the closing party was extraordinary. The relaxing environment allowed a new possibility to link up.
Tech Spirit was in the air
I had the opportunity to attend not only to the activities scheduled into the Tech Spirit Barcelona program, but also to some offered during previous days with recognized personalities.
Mobile Sunday was one of the events I couldn’t miss. De Kai, the Google AI advisor, presented the instance in which artificial intelligence development is, and Cecilia Tham gave a keynote speech about the future of commerce.
“AIs are shaping our cultures: whose ideas you hear, what attitudes are rewarded, which memes are spread.”
De Kai
On Monday I travelled around town visiting a wide variety of events. The Imagine Express 2020, where the winning projects from the entrepreneurs contest were presented, was the first stop in the road. The Deep Tech Meetup, where the Deep Tech ecosystem in Spain and investment opportunities were presented, announced the end of the day.
Thank you very much to everyone involved in the organization, for welcome me and BeeReal and let us get in touch with great personalities. Very interesting keynotes treated themes in the current agenda and introduced new ones to think about for future debates.
Regardless the little time available, the outcome was a total success.
