Mobile Week Barcelona kicks off with an immersive experience where technology and humanism meet

• Mobile Week Barcelona opens its sixth edition with an immersive opening event at the Digital Arts Centre, IDEAL, and a round table with the philosopher Elizabeth Duval and designer Isabel Inés Casasnovas.
• More than 60 lectures, workshops and round tables open to all citizens, distributed in 40 venues around the city gives way to one of the most collaborative editions.

28 march, 2022

Barcelona, ​​28^th of March 2022.- Mobile Week Barcelona, a Mobile World Capital initiative promoted jointly with the City Council, inaugurates its sixth edition at the Digital Arts Centre IDEAL, where technology and humanism interact during an immersive experience. The event concluded with an inaugural conversation, moderated by the head of Mobile Week at Mobile World Capital Barcelona, Cristina Colom, with the interventions of the philosopher, author and journalist Elizabeth Duval and the entrepreneur, humanist digital designer and founder of La Nave Nodriza, Isabel Inés Casasnovas, who discussed about technological humanism. The event included the immersive screens of the space into the sessions to reflect about the value of technology in culture and the new experiences that we as citizens can live through it.

Carlos Grau, CEO of Mobile World Capital Barcelona stressed that “now is the time to join forces and encourage cooperation, we must continue educating leaders and professionals with a humanistic vision of the activities they carry out, fostering a business culture capable of placing people at the centre of this technological revolution and promoting values such as knowledge, trust and transparency”. Grau highlighted “the great achievement” and the example that Mobile Week Barcelona represents when it comes to connecting technology and citizenship, pointing out that this 2022 is “the most collaborative and participative edition: half of the programmed activities are offered by public and private entities and institutions of the city that submitted their proposals to offer activities activities in an open call to be part of this great initiative”. The CEO of Mobile World Capital also mentioned another of this year’s novelties, Pymes Day, “a day dedicated to provide tools and new knowledge to self-employed professionals and SMEs in order to advance in the digital transformation of their businesses and services”.

For her part, Laia Bonet, third deputy mayor of the City Council of Barcelona, said: “Mobile Week, once again, invites us to reflect and act placing technological advances at the service of people. In Barcelona we are convinced that we will not be able to build a true digital city if it is not equal for everyone. And that means, above all, fighting against the digital divide and promoting citizens inclusion.

The technology of the future, diverse, inclusive, and intersectional

The opening event of Mobile Week Barcelona featured a conversation to reflect about a world where technology and digitalisation converge. The session was moderated by the head of Mobile Week at Mobile World Capital Barcelona, Cristina Colom, and included reflections of the philosopher, author and journalist Elizabeth Duval and the entrepreneur, humanist digital designer and founder of La Nave Nodriza, Isabel Inés Casasnovas.

The experts discussed the role of technology in everyday life, how it modulates and conditions society, guided by today’s digital immediacy. Both panellists mentioned the great challenges generated by digitalisation, focusing on the need to redirect this disruption by focusing on people from a feminist, inclusive, sustainable, but above all humanist perspective. A rising trend that is not unnoticed and is beginning to have a growing majority that seeks to go further and is becoming aware of the need to protect their digital rights or take into account some of the impacts generated in society by emerging technologies.

Furthermore, Duval and Casasnovas agreed that to achieve a digital future with a humanist perspective, we must confront the different digital divides and their intersectionality, as these lead to the exclusion of groups or segments of the population, not only in the digital sphere, that do not allow us to talk about technology as an inclusive phenomenon.

In conclusion, the experts concluded that we are at a turning point, a great opportunity to change the relationship and build a responsible digitalisation, capable of designing fairer and more inclusive societies, fostering responsible use and promoting innovation marked by ethical principles that facilitate technological development without compromising the evolution of society.

More than 60 free activities for all the population

Mobile Week Barcelona kicks off today with a programme designed in collaboration with Barcelona’s organisations and focusing on the digitalisation of SMEs. Over the course of a week, more than 60 activities will take place in 40 different spaces distributed throughout the city to connect the tools offered by digital technology with the social, cultural and ethical concerns and needs of citizens, through different participatory activities, free of charge and open to all citizens.

With the slogan “Where technology and society connect”, this sixth edition aims to make citizens the protagonists of the event and create spaces that challenge them in order to get them involved in disinformation, video games, digital rights, metaverse, digitisation by SMEs or music and that they can really be at the centre of the digital transformation to acquire a more critical sense of the impact of technology on society itself.

Mobile Week Barcelona is an initiative of Mobile World Capital, promoted jointly with the City Council and with the support of CaixaBank and Damm.