More than 1,000 people take part in JUMP2DIGITAL, the first major event aimed at digital talent

• This is an initiative promoted by Mobile World Capital Barcelona, the Vice-presidency for Digital Policies and Territory of the Regional Government of Catalonia and Barcelona City Council within the framework of the Barcelona Digital Talent programme
• Attendees can watch presentations by professionals and influencers in the sector such as Chema Alonso, Carlos Buenosvinos, El Físico Barbudo and Eva Porto
• More than 300 interviews will be conducted through Speed Dating with the participation of companies such as Zurich, Accenture, Inetum, Freshly Cosmetics and Schneider Electric
• Companies such as CaixaBank, Seat, Bayer, DKV and NTT Data, among others, will explain what their businesses consist of and the vacancies they are looking to fill in various sessions aimed at talent
• Attendees can also enjoy technological experiences with holograms, digital graffiti, virtual reality glasses, a DJ playing music with AI and a tap that serves beer when you click on your own smartphone, among others

10 December, 2021

Barcelona, 10 December 2021 –  Mobile World Capital Barcelona, through its programme Barcelona Digital Talent, together with the Department of the Vice-Presidency and Digital Policies and Territory of the Regional Government of Catalonia, and Barcelona City Council, is holding  JUMP2DIGITAL, today until 9 p.m. at Barcelona Chamber of Commerce’s Llotja de Mar venue. This is the first major event aimed at digital talent in Barcelona, at a time of strong growth in the sector.

Companies and talent will meet throughout the day, creating employment opportunities for the new digital professions. In particular, more than 1,000 people will have the opportunity to attend presentations by industry professionals such as Chema Alonso, Chief Data Officer at Telefónica, Carlos Buenosvinos, CEO & CTO at SEAT: CODE, Montse Guàrdia, co-founder & CEO at Big Onion, Christina Ghetti, global head of Workforce 360 and Nearforce IT Hub Barcelona & Milan at Nestlé, and Rosa Martínez, AI & Advanced Analytics CoE at CaixaBank Tech. In addition, there will be digital influencers such as El Físico Barbudo, Eva Porto, Jota Code, Raquel Mascaraque and Miriam González.

Participating companies such as CaixaBank, Bayer, Accenture, SEAT:CODE, Zurich, DKV, NTT Data, Cloudblue, Wolters Kluwer, Experis, Agbar, i2CAT Foundation and Ocado Technology will present the projects and professional profiles they are looking to find for their digital development teams. On this occasion, the talent have the opportunity for an initial interview with some of these companies through Speed Dating organised together with Barcelona Activa. More than 300 interviews are expected to take place during the day.

The talent will also take part in the Hackathon, where 80 people from different digital professional profiles will be able to solve different challenges together with professionals from the participating companies.

There will also be three three-hour workshops   given by centres of reference, such as Ironhack, Nuclio Digital School and IT Academy, on web development, cybersecurity and machine learning, which are gateways for future digital professionals.

In parallel, throughout the day, attendees will be able to enjoy the following technological experiences:

• Body Scanner: an experience in which you stand on a rolling surface and a set of cameras scan your body and create a mini-avatar.
• Facial recognition: a camera detects everyone who looks at it and, through an algorithm, can state your gender, age and mood.
• VR Museum: an experience where you are given virtual reality glasses and can create your own immersive 3D artwork with a joystick.
• Mixed reality with Hololenses: the best mixed reality glasses.
• Immersive PPTX: augmented reality applied to PowerPoint presentations.
• I Move & Flow: a Damm tap with which you can pour your own beer using your smartphone.
• Digital Graffiti: this will take place 3 times during the day (10 am, 12:30 pm and 5:30 pm).
• Closing concert: an audiovisual production at which a DJ will play music using Artificial Intelligence.

According to Carlos Grau, CEO at Mobile World Capital Barcelona, “from MWCapital we have been insisting for some time that the digital field is full of opportunities at the level of job projection to promote or start a career from scratch in the Catalan capital. These opportunities have multiplied as a result of the pandemic; in the last year and a half we have experienced a frantic transformation process that is here to stay.” In addition, he added that “all the new professional opportunities of the future will require digital skills in any sector. The digital sector itself is the new economic engine; in fact, in 2020, in the most difficult times in the pandemic, we have generated more than 15,000 new professional opportunities in the metropolitan area of Barcelona.”

The digital sector in Catalonia consolidates itself as an engine for job creation

According to Digital Talent Overview 2021, the ICT sector in Catalonia created 14,700 new jobs in 2020, growing to 129,000 digital professionals. This growth is a 12.8% increase on the last quarter of 2019. The trend contrasts with a 3.1% fall in employment in the ICT sector in the Spanish economy.

At the end of 2020, Catalonia had more than 88,000 digital professionals, 95% of whom were concentrated in the Barcelona area, which also accounted for 97% of digital job vacancies in the last quarter of 2020.

The supply of talent has grown, while the number of job vacancies has fallen due to the pandemic. Barcelona’s ecosystem produced 6,700 new professionals in 2020, which represents an annual increase of 9% in the total volume of digital talent. There are around 4,000 job vacancies in this sector each quarter, which is similar to 2018 but 15% lower than in 2019. However, this fall is far short of the decrease in job offers in the economy as a whole, which are 43% lower than the previous year. The proportion of job offers in the digital sector has increased: in 2018, 1 in 10 offers were in the digital sector, and in 2020, 2 in 10 were (representing 18.9%).