Pymes Day, Mobile Week Barcelona’s commitment to promote the digital transformation of SMEs

• The sixth edition of Mobile Week Barcelona is launching its first day dedicated exclusively to SMEs and self-employed professionals
• Pymes Day includes a series of workshops, talks and sessions to provide tools and promote digital transformation in the productive ecosystem

23 march, 2022

Barcelona, 23^rd of March 2022.- Mobile Week Barcelona, a Mobile World Capital initiative promoted jointly with the City Council, is debuting its first day dedicated exclusively to SMEs and self-employed professionals on the 30^th of March at the Antigua Fábrica Estrella Damm. The day includes twenty workshops, talks, networking, and personalised mentoring sessions to promote the digital transformation of companies and provide tools and knowledge to self-employed professionals and SMEs, with the aim of helping them to develop an effective and efficient strategy for the digital transformation of their business, company or activity. Several entities collaborating with the Foundation have joined this programme, such as Barcelona Activa, Pimec, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), All Women Tech and Cibervoluntarios.

The event will focus on three key areas for transformation and adaptation to the digital environment of the company or business: digital marketing and e-commerce; digitisation of the company; and cybersecurity. These areas of knowledge, in the context of the pandemic, have grown exponentially, sometimes being the only answer to face the changes of the current digital transformation. For this reason, this sixth edition of Mobile Week Barcelona focuses on SMEs and self-employed professionals to involve them so that they can really be at the centre of the digital transformation, providing them with the necessary tools so that they can prepare for the challenges of the 21st century.

In the current context, SMEs are one of the most affected layers with a low level of digitisation, a large majority of them are not digitally ready. In fact, according to the latest studies, three out of every 100 small companies use artificial intelligence (AI) or big data analysis; even so, those that do exploit their resources fully. This proportion contrasts with large companies, where 30 out of every 100 that use these new technologies, only 50% analyse their data. Along these lines, before the pandemic, only 14% of small and medium-sized companies in Spain had a digitalisation plan. With this specific event, Mobile Week Barcelona aims to facilitate ways for SMEs and self-employed professionals to empower themselves and acquire digital skills: skills needed to compete and give visibility to the company, improve production processes, take advantage of opportunities to work in collaborative environments, or understand the imminent challenges in the event of cyber-attacks or digital phishing.

Pymes Day aims to provide the different agents of the ecosystem with the necessary tools so that the growth of the digital society of the future grows in an equitable way and is as inclusive as possible so that no one is left behind. In this scenario, digital transformation plays a key role in achieving these objectives to be the lever of change that moves the economy and society of the 21^st century. The possibilities and changes that the deployment of technology can bring to businesses and innovation are increasingly present, but we also need to fit society into this rapid and accelerated digital transformation.

Free and participative activities for SMEs and self-employed professionals

Some of the day’s highlights include talks by the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), taught by Oriol Rius, specialist consultant, to digitise a business in the context of the fourth digital revolution; thus, the workshop by Amadeu Albós, professor in IT, Multimedia and Telecommunications Studies, who will talk about the cybersecurity needs to plan a secure digital transformation. The Fundación Cibervoluntarios workshops, seek to promote digital marketing in SMEs and incorporate eCommerce as a new business model, along with content management and promotion via social networks. During the day Barcelona Activa will offer personalised consultancy sessions, a meeting point for SMEs and experts to discuss their doubts and risks and explore solutions to build a digitalisation plan in 45 minutes.

For its part, Pimec will present the Digital Kit, the initiative launched by Red.es, to support the digitisation process for SMEs and self-employed professionals within the framework of the Next Generation EU Funds.

In addition, the director of gender equality at All Women, Patricia Fernández Carrelo, will present the Gender Equality Tech Hub, a public-private initiative that aims to bring together companies in Barcelona committed to gender equality in the field of technology to promote and develop specific measures to combat the gender divide in the technology sector. Also noteworthy is the round table that will deal with gender equality in the technological field and how to reduce the digital gender gap with speakers such as Tatiana Guerrero, project manager of Social Rights, Global Justice, Feminisms and LGTBI of the Barcelona City Council; Laura Fernández, CEO and co-founder of All Women; Aysel Palacios, Managing Partner of Iterem and Thais Ruiz de Alda, founder and CEO of Digital Fems.

Networking zones, key to strengthening the ecosystem

During the day, two time slots will be organised – from 2pm to 3pm and from 7pm to 8pm – to encourage all attendees to meet in the different networking areas that the space will offer.

The networking spaces are designed to strengthen the ecosystem and promote global agreements and cooperation between the SMEs and present entities. Prioritising governance systems that place technology as a fundamental tool for change, as a lever to reduce inequalities, evidenced by the same technology, with the aim of bringing together all those agents who work daily to address the digital divide.

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