• A delegation headed by the Mayor of Barcelona and the Executive Vice President of the Mobile World Capital explained in New York the technological opportunities that Barcelona offers to citizens and businesses in the coming years.

Barcelona, May 17, 2013- The New York headquarters of IESE Business School hosted today the Mobile World Capital Barcelona official launch in the U.S. The event, with more than a hundred attendees, filled the capacity of the conference room. The presentation was headed by Xavier Trias, Mayor of Barcelona and Agustí Cordón, one of the two Executive Vice Presidents of the Mobile World Capital Barcelona (also CEO of Fira de Barcelona). Representatives of large companies in the telecommunications sector (such as Time Warner Cable and AT&) and the banking sector (such as Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan) attended the event to learn about the technological opportunities that the Mobile World Capital Barcelona has to offer.

“We are not talking about any particular sector: the unlimited opportunities offered by technology, particularly those related to mobility, generate benefits for the whole industry ecosystem with no exception”, highlighted Agustí Cordón.

Juan Manuel Barrionuevo, Strategy Director of the Mobile World Capital Barcelona, wanted to deepen the vision of this worldwide event.  He introduced Barbara Mallinson and Pau Sabrià General Managers of Obami and Olapic, respectively. Both companies are a clear example of how technology has revolutionized the world of business. Obami uses the social network to connect students, teachers and parents to provide them with educational resources, while Olapic is an application that allows any brand to interact with their customers through photography.

Until Sunday, the residents and visitors of New York that connect to Internet trough the public free WiFi network will receive a message on their screen with information about the Mobile World Capital Barcelona, thanks to an agreement with Gowex, a spanish company specialized in free WiFi network management, such as the one in New York, which has 20 million users.

About the Mobile World Capital Barcelona

From now on, Barcelona is the world’s capital of mobile, successfully leading companies to take advantage of mobile technology´s limitless opportunity.

Taking advantage of these opportunities requires a global vision, one that goes beyond “business as usual”, and the resources of each company.

The aim of the Mobile World Capital is:

TO RADICALLY ACCELERATE THE GLOBAL GROWTH OF MOBILE

In addition to the Mobile World Congress, the Capital comprises three other unique channels:

The Mobile World Hub, focused on the design and management of key projects that will transform the world’s mobile economy

The Mobile World Centre, an open platform and exhibition showroom where citizens are able to understand and experience how mobile is enhancing our lives

The Mobile World Festival, inviting citizens to celebrate the mobile lifestyle through a series of creative leisure and entertainment events.

Given both its dimension and the support of the public institutions, Mobile World Capital Barcelona offers optimal conditions as a global showcase for innovation.

It is time to pull our strengths together.

We encourage you to take part in this new collaborative effort.

An exciting new journey, Happening now, Be a part of it.

For further information:

Andreu Castellano acastellano@mobileworldcapital.com

+34 935 157 359 / +34 661 247 679

Laura Arévalo l.arevalo@romanyasociados.es

+34 934 142 340 / +34 661 23 49 28

Download this press release in English

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Barcelona, 14 May 2013

The Mayor of Barcelona, Xavier Trias, accompanied by the executive vice-president of the Mobile World Capital, Agustí Cordón (also CEO of Fira de Barcelona), will present the programme of initiatives being promoted in the Catalan capital to speed up the global growth of mobile technologies and applications this Friday at the New York headquarters of the IESE business school.

In the presence of representatives of civil society in New York, the Catalan delegation will place special emphasis on establishing contacts and securing new partners for the project. For companies and business people from the technology sector, Barcelona will be an essential reference point over the next few years. Projects will be developed in the city seeking real applications for mobile technology and solutions in areas like health, tourism, payment systems and smart cities, while a commitment will be made to involving companies, institutions and the public in finding out about the new tools and using them.

Barcelona as capital on Wi-Fi

The Catalan presence in New York will not be restricted to an institutional presentation: everyone living in the American city will be involved. Throughout the whole week, residents and visitors to New York who connect to the net using public Wi-Fi will receive a message on their screens informing them that Barcelona is the mobile world capital.

This action is the result of an agreement between Mobile World Capital Barcelona and the Madrid company Gowex, a specialist in managing free Wi-Fi networks like the one in New York, which has 20 million users.

For further information:

Laura Arévalo l.arevalo@romanyasociados.es

+34 934 142 340 / +34 661 23 49 28

Andreu Castellano press@mobileworldcapital.com

+34 935 157 359 / +34 661 247 679

Download this press release in English

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Barcelona hosts the Mobile World Congress since 2006, the biggest mobile B2B event in the World, and recently it has been elected the world’s capital of mobile technology, successfully leading companies to take advantage of mobile technology’s limitless opportunity.

On Friday May 17^th, the Mayor of Barcelona Xavier Trias, and one of the two Executive Vice Presidents of Barcelona MWCapital Foundation, Agustín Cordon, also Managing Director of Fira-Barcelona, will present at IESE’s New York Center all these initiatives that are being developed to boost mobile entrepreneurs and firms worldwide.  If you want to join us you are invited to check the program and participate at the event.

In this presentation to New Yorkers, Barcelona Mobile world Capital has joined efforts with GOWEX, the global WIFI operator. GOWEX offers free internet in over 70 cities worldwide, with offices in Madrid, Paris, London, Buenos Aires, and Shanghai. Since May 2013, GOWEX offers free internet to 20 million people in New York, with 1953 Smart WiFi zones, creating the biggest public WiFi network in the world.

You can reed more info in the press release.

From today and until April 23^rd, the Mobile World Centre Espacio Movistar, the world’s first permanent exhibition and interaction space featuring mobile technology, is urging citizens to take part in any of three set categories: Short Stories, with a maximum of 500 characters; Micro Poetry, with a maximum of 140; and Humour, also with a maximum of 140 and be part of the online literature event.

Curated by the writer Guillermina Royo-Villanova, the contest will end on April 23^rd with an event in the Mobile World Centre Espacio Movistar auditorium, in which the judges will announce the winners of each category. The awards ceremony, which can be followed live on the centre’s website, will be attended by the writer Lay Loriga, who will present a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 to the winner of the Short Story category; Lucía Camón, will award a Blackberry 7 to the winner of Micro Poetry; and, lastly, Guillermina Royo will present a Nokia Lumia 820 for the Humorous Quotes category. Participants will also be able to read their texts in one of the open Micro sessions, which will be held all day in the auditorium, and compete for a Sony e-reader that will go to the best performer.

Throughout the day, the Mobile World Centre Espacio Movistar will be a meeting point for writers and readers on occasion of this avant-garde online literature event. By means of a QR code, visitors will also be able to download and share with other users the complete collection of ten electronic books given by Espacio Movistar to celebrate St. Jordi 2013 and to promote digital bookcrossing. Book signings, performances and video creations by musicians such as Luis Lasso, Borja Barrueta and Joan Martorell, the singer Judit Neddermann and poets such as Lucía Camón, Pura Salceda, Jesús Camargo and Guillem D’Efak will also be featured in this first online literature contest.

Located in Plaza Catalunya, the Mobile World Centre Espacio Movistar aims to turn the heart of Barcelona into an international benchmark in technology with the largest ever showcase of mobile telephony. The space, occupying 1,800 square metres on three floors, is a unique place to promote the use of new information and communication technologies to citizens, a chance to experiment with these technologies and show the potential of mobile communications to different segments of the population. The Mobile World Centre Espacio Movistar also aims to promote business opportunities for companies in this sector.

The Mobile World Centre Espacio Movistar is, together with the Mobile World Hub, the Mobile World Festival and the Mobile World Congress, one of the four pillars of the Mobile World Capital Barcelona, a project awarded to the city in 2011 after competing with over 30 other cities around the world in a tender opened by GSMA, the association that represents the interests of over 800 companies in the mobile ecosystem – repeated below.

About Mobile World Capital Barcelona

Mobile World Capital Barcelona is an initiative designed to make the city the permanent global centre of mobile technologies, where people, companies and institutions work together to take full advantage of mobile technologies to transform daily life and create new business opportunities.

Promoted by Spain’s Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism, the Generalitat de Catalunya, the Barcelona City Council and GSMA, the project is based on four pillars: the MWHub and MWCongress, concerned with industrial and business development, the MWCentre and MWFestival with more social and civic impact. An Executive Committee is headed by Executive Vice Presidents John Hoffman and Agustín Cordón, and Managing Director Ginés Alarcón, who is in charge of implementing the project.

Barcelona, 16^th April 2013

All videos, high resolution images and documentation about the Mobile World Centre are available in different formats on the website: http://www.welcomemobile.mobi/press 

Info for the public is available on: http://www.mobileworldcentre.com

Download this press release in PDF

The Hub’s mission is to develop a new industrial sector around mobility and transform Barcelona into the world’s leading mobile city.

Joan Cornet, at the head of mHealth

Joan Cornet (@jcornetp) will be the new Director of the mHealth competence centre and, therefore, of all its initiatives. Cornet has had a long career in healthcare. For the last six years, he has been Executive President of the TicSalut Foundation. He was Secretary General of the Generalitat’s Department of Health, the first President of the Hospital Consortium of Catalonia and also a high-ranking official of the European Commission with various responsibilities in the areas of cooperation and aid to developing countries. He is an industrial engineer, has a degree in Psychology and was Mayor of Manresa between 1979 and 1987.

Cornet’s main objective will be the growth of the mHealth competence centre. This centre is one of the pillars of the Hub, Mobile World Capital Barcelona’s industrial project, in which various lines of work have been set in motion: the creation of personal health folders allowing personal access to the portability and internationalisation of patient data; the promotion of health and healthy habits by means of mobile devices and the improvement of medical treatment of chronic patients, whereby a two-way channel between patients and the healthcare system is made possible.

Since its creation, mHealth has brought together over 40 participants from the medical field (including mobile phone operators, institutions, medical services, technology and companies related to safety and personal data protection services). 

The m4all and mCluster projects are launched

Mobile World Capital Barcelona has also appointed, as head of mCluster, Ernest Pérez-Mas (@eperezmas),telecommunications engineer with broad experience in sectors related to technology.  Pérez-Mas has been Director for Southern Europe of Shoretel and held positions of responsibility in companies such as Avaya Communications, Lucent Technologies, Witness Systems and Alcatel.

Pérez-Mas’s incorporation marks the start of the mCluster project, included in the Hub. mCluster is one of the various services that, from the Hub, will be provided in the different competence centres, in order for them to have an impact on the territory. The goal of mCluster is to detect different types of agents from industry, academia and professional associations related to the mobile sector to promote alliances between companies and the creation of mobile solutions.

Another addition to the Mobile World Capital Barcelona team is Lluís Miret (@lluismiret), who will head up the  m4all Centre. This initiative is committed to making mobile technologies and solutions available to people and will act as a cross-over platform for all of the Hub’s competence centres.

Lluís Miret is an industrial engineer with broad experience in management and development of non-profit organisations. Since 2009, Miret has been Director of the Foundation for the Dignity of Africa and had previously collaborated with the UBUNTU Foundation, chaired by Federico Mayor Zaragoza, ex director general de la UNESCO.

Mobile World Hub

The Hub is a physical space that incorporates all the capabilities and infrastructures related to the development of Mobile World Capital mobile solutions. The Hub will be situated in the MediaTIC building in the 22@ Barcelona technological district, and will be the headquarters of the Mobile World Capital, as well as GSMA in Barcelona from the second quarter of 2013.

Barcelona Mobile World Capital

Mobile World Capital Barcelona is an initiative designed to make the city the permanent global centre of mobile technologies, where people, companies and institutions work together to take full advantage of mobile technologies to transform daily life and create new business opportunities.

Mobile World Capital Barcelona has four pillars: MWHub and MWCongress, concerned with industrial and business development, MWCentre and MWFestival, the aim of which is to involve citizens and integrate all forms of leisure in the field of mobile trends. Mobile World Capital Barcelona is an initiative promoted by the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism, the Generalitat de Catalunya, the Barcelona City Council, Fira de Barcelona and GSMA, which represents the interests of over 800 mobile phone operators worldwide and over 2000 companies in the mobile ecosystem.

English press release in PDF

Nota de premsa en Català en PDF

Nota de prensa en Castellano en PDF

On April 2013 the Centre will offer 3 events, where over 30 selected short movies will be exhibited. All shows are free and will start at 19h sharp. Each day will be dedicated to one different area:

• USA: Thursday April 4th (including videos from IndieFone and iPhone Film Festival)
• Asia: Thursday April 11th (Hong Kong Mobile Film Festival)
• Europe: Thursday April 18th (Cinephone, iPhone Popup Film Festival, Mobil Film Festival)

Check the facebook event page for more details and some selected previews. There you can find a few more of videos to be shown, such as this stop motion animated ‘Dot’ from Sumo Science:

Damm will contribute 1 million Euros to the MWCapital Foundation during 2013. The aim of the collaboration is to help implement ideas and initiatives in the field of mobile technologies and solutions that offer great potential for the food and beverage industry.

Xavier Trias, Mayor of Barcelona and President of the MWCapital Foundation, is pleased that a prestigious group such as Damm is supporting this initiative. “I am grateful for this collaboration that we at Mobile World Capital are starting today with Damm. In Barcelona, we have undertaken the challenge of leading the great social transformation that will come about worldwide thanks to mobile technologies, and we, institutions and companies, wish to do it together. The involvement of a non-technological company like Damm is very important for us because it shows the growing interest that all sectors in our economy have in mobile technology”, said Mayor Trias.

Estrella Damm is again investing in a very important international event for the city, as the CEO of Damm, Enric Crous, stated: “Damm has always supported all global events that have been held in Barcelona, such as the ‘92 Barcelona Olympics, the 2004 Forum and the Barcelona World Race, among others, and that give us a great amount of international exposure”.

Since its foundation in 1876, Estrella Damm has been rooted in Barcelona, its city of origin, as well as its values and traditions. Moreover, in its resolve to become an internationally recognised brand, Estrella Damm wishes to take advantage of this opportunity with Mobile World Capital.

The agreement reconfirms Estrella Damm’s bond with the city of Barcelona, as well as the importance of continuing to work on the international exposure of a brand that can be found in 43 countries.

Mobile World Capital Barcelona

Mobile World Capital Barcelona is an initiative designed to make the city the permanent global centre of mobile technologies, where people, companies and institutions work together to take full advantage of mobile technologies to transform daily life and create new business opportunities.

Promoted by the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism, the Generalitat de Catalunya, the Barcelona City Council, Fira de Barcelona and GSMA – that represents the interests of over 800 mobile phone operators worldwide and over 2000 companies in the mobile ecosystem –, is based on four pillars: MWHub and MWCongress, concerned with industrial and business development, MWCentre and MWFestival, the aim of which is to involve citizens and integrate all forms of leisure in the field of mobile trends.

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Located in Plaza Catalunya, the Mobile World Centre Espacio Movistar wants to turn the heart of Barcelona into an international benchmark in technology with the largest ever showcase of mobile telephony. The space, occupying 1,800 square metres on three floors, is a unique place to promote the use of new information and communication technologies to citizens, a chance to experiment with these technologies and show the potential of mobile communications to different segments of the population. In addition, the Mobile World Centre Espacio Movistar also aims to promote business opportunities for companies in this sector.

The Mobile World Centre Espacio Movistar, along with the Mobile World Hub, Mobile World Festival and the Mobile World Congress, is one of the four pillars of the Mobile World Capital Barcelona, a project awarded to the city in 2011 after competing with over 30 cities from around the world in a competition organized by GSMA, the association representing the interests of more than 800 companies in the mobile ecosystem.

The president of the Autonomous Regional Government of Catalonia, Artur Mas, will inaugurate the new facility this afternoon accompanied by the Mayor of Barcelona and President of the Mobile World Capital Barcelona Foundation, Xavier Trias, the Secretary of State for Telecommunications and the Information Society, Victor Calvo-Sotelo and the Vice President of the Foundation and President of Telefónica, César Alierta, and the Managing Director of GSMA, Anne Bouverot, and the President of Fira de Barcelona, Josep Lluís Bonet.

The opening ceremony will also be attended, among others, by the Executive Vice President of the Mobile World Capital, Agustín Cordón, and its Managing Director, Ginés Alarcón, as well as the CEO of GSMA Ltd, John Hoffman, and the Managing Director of Telefónica in Catalonia, Kim Faura .

mWorld, a citizen-orientated centre for the world of mobiles

The Mobile World Centre Espacio Movistar houses a permanent exhibition space that is open to the public and free to go inside, where you can see and experience the latest technology, applications and innovations in the area of mobility. Called mWorld, this space is located on the first floor, and it’s a constantly evolving area designed to be the hub of mobile telephony. It’s a place to discover the next generation of tablets with three-dimensional images and permanently network connected mobile devices, the so-called Internet of things.

mWorld is made up of 4 large interactive areas. The first, mHistory, is a walk through the history of mobile telephony since 1973, when the first phone call was made from a mobile device. The mWorld Speed area is made up by a series of dynamic screens that show visitors data about mobile phone penetration, its evolution over the years and its social impact in different countries and continents. The third area, called mWorld Definition, is a space that, thanks to interactive screens and multimedia applications, delves deeper into the capabilities that mobile technology offers to transform our lives.

The fourth showcase area, called mWorld Experience, is one of the central elements of the Mobile World Centre Espacio Movistar. Here we find interactive and augmented reality screens, where we can discover stories and movies created for mobiles, and cultural applications and a sample of projects from Barcelona and the rest of the world. The screens also show short films about the transforming role that mobile technologies have on global society. These include stories about how a German fisherman can sell his salmon at auction before actually making a catch thanks to a mobile application.

This space also shows different initiatives in the fields of health, business and knowledge society, like the Smart Grid project designed to optimize energy consumption. It also presents prototype products and services to be launched in the future, a selection of the latest mobile applications and a tour of the main initiatives related to mobility undertaken in Barcelona.

On the second floor, the Mobile World Centre Espacio Movistar has a multi-purpose area designed for temporary exhibitions and conferences, where we will see various celebrities and personalities from the fields of culture, cuisine, music and technology.

Espacio Movistar

On the ground floor we find the Espacio Movistar, a cutting edge shopping area where we can find the latest services available on display as well as the new technological innovations that Telefónica is developing in the digital world.

Upon entering the Espacio Movistar area, we find audiovisual panels presenting the centre, with real-time information on activities being carried out on the other two floors.

Audiovisuals around the sides provide a backdrop to the shop area with mWorld introductory content and commercial offers from Telefónica Movistar, while a giant 13-meter screen shows mWorld content and information about events, news, concerts and news.

The shopping area is made up of interactive tables, where you can get to know the latest offers from Movistar and Imagenio, and their products and devices will be on show so the public can try them out.

In the interactive area, there are another twelve screens arranged like a totem pole with information from Telefónica’s mWorld focused on innovation, services for citizens as part of the SmartCity solutions project and everything related to the M2M and the internet of things.

Espacio Movistar also has a lounge area and an area for technical customer services for mobile terminal repairs and where customers can ask questions about their devices to a team of Movistar experts.

About the Mobile World Capital Barcelona

The Mobile World Capital Barcelona is an initiative designed to make the city of Barcelona the permanent centre of global mobile technologies, where people, companies and institutions work together to take full advantage of mobile technologies to transform daily life and create new business opportunities.

Promoted by Spain’s Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism, the Autonomous Regional Government of Catalonia, the city of Barcelona, Fira de Barcelona, and GSMA – which represents the interests of 800 mobile operators worldwide and more than 200 companies in the mobile ecosystem – the project is based on four pillars: the MWHub and MWCongress, focusing on industrial and business development, the MWCentre and MWFestival with a higher social and civic impact. An Executive Committee, headed by John Hoffman and Agustín Cordón, in their role as Executive Vice Presidents, and Ginés Alarcón as Managing Director, is responsible for delivering the implementation of the project.

Barcelona, 14^th of February, 2013

For years we have seen multiple examples of open government projects that show voting data in real time . Even TVs and newspapers have been feeding of fresh info sent by institutions and broadcasting it. In the last years media groups and other companies have issued apps to follow the campaigns and results, like this selection prepared by cnet during the last Presidential Elections in United States on November 2012.

The Generalitat however, wanted to go beyond and directly offered the real time results. In 2006 the Government started pilot projects to make data gathering from all voting centers faster and safer using PDAs at the same time as the traditional call centre systems:

In only 6 weeks, and in cooperation with private companies, a research team in the CTTI (the Information Technologies and Telecom Center of Generalitat) developed a new app to  increase the speed of results data processing. The Government usually sends every few minutes a report with the latest data to all media, but this app feeds from the database where PDAs are sending the data to, thus creating an near real time system. Users of the app could see more accurate results than TV viewers a few minutes earlier, avoiding human errors and creating a viral broadcast of the results via social networks.

Catalonia has over 7.5 million inhabitants, 5.4 million oh which were called to vote to 8130 different polling stations in 947 municipalities. This time 80% of the stations used PDA systems to send the data, while traditional voice services were used as backup, and in stations with technical last minute problems or lack of 3G signal coverage.

Once released, the app quickly becamethe #1 download, both in the Apple Store and Google Play with over 80.000 users in only 4 days, in 105 different countries. This represents that almost 2% of the voters downloaded the app, with almost no publicity due to the lack of project time.

On future elections the Generalitat intends to improve the app, including more social features and information about the parties. But the experience can be leveraged to other administrations, and it is now planned to be used also on Spanish and Local elections in the following years. The working team is also in contact with countries all over the world to export the know-how, software, architecture and monitoring, in an exercise to improve worldwide government transparency. For more info on the project please contact us and we’ll put you through to the developers.

From now on, Barcelona is the world’s capital of mobile, successfully leading companies to take advantage of mobile technology´s limitless opportunity.

In addition to the Mobile World Congress the Mobile World Capital comprises three other unique channels: The Mobile World Centre, The Mobile World Festival, and The Mobile World Hub

The Mobile World Centre, an open platform and state of the art exhibition showroom where citizens are able to understand and experience how mobile is enhancing our lives.

The mobile World Centre, located in the heart of Barcelona, on Plaza Catalunya 16, is open to the public Monday through Saturday from 10:00 – 21:30. Guided tours will be held during the week of MWC13 on Monday & Tuesday at 11am, 5pm., 8pm. To book please email: centre@mobileworldcapital.com. For more information go to mobileworldcentre.com

The Mobile World Festival, inviting citizens to celebrate the mobile lifestyle through a series of creative leisure and entertainment events. We encourage you to stop by our stand at MWC13 located at stand 3C28 and experience a small taste of what the Mobile World Festival will be. For more information write us to festival@mobileworldcapital.com

The Mobile World Hub, focused on the design and management of key projects that will transform the world’s mobile economy.

The Mobile World Hub will be located at the MediaTIC building in Barcelona´s innovation district. For companies interested in participating in the Mobile World Hub partnership program please contact hub@mobileworldcapital.com

Take part in this new collaborative effort:

For more information regarding Mobile World Capital at MWC13 please visit our congress website.
To arrange a visit or set up a meeting at the Mobile World Capital stand please email congress2013@mobileworldcapital.com or call +34 673 383 432.