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Highlights
We were proud to have hosted some of the best thought leadership, the most cutting-edge tech and the industry’s most important decision makers this year. Now it’s your turn to catch up with everything from MWC21.
After over a year of travel restrictions during the global pandemic, MWC Barcelona welcomed back the ecosystem, both in-person and virtually. We got back to what we do best with a range of inspiring keynote sessions, eye-opening insights and cutting-edge technology that showed us how we can shape a brighter and more connected future. Mats Granryd, Director General of the GSMA, opened the event, citing a need for strong leadership to navigate these challenging times. Check out some of the noteworthy sessions from our first day back to business.
Inspiration, imagination and innovation come as standard. If you like what you see, find out how you can attend, exhibit or sponsor at #MWC22.
Speakers representing the GSMA, Orange Group, China Mobile, Deutsche Telekom AG and Telefonica SA, joined an insightful debate to explore the crucial role that connectivity has played in homes, at work and in the economy during the pandemic. The session highlighted how technology enabled so many people to virtually escape the confines of their homes – even during lockdowns, periods of self-isolation and keeping our distance. From having a video chat and streaming a movie, to creating new businesses and accessing healthcare, this enlightening session showed how connectivity enabled opportunity during times of great adversity.
Digital is here to stay. In fact, it’s shaping our future in a big way! This session welcomed Rima Qureshi from Verizon, Adam Selipsky from AWS, Cristiano Amon from Qualcomm and Eugene Kaspersky to discuss how technology is fast evolving and accelerating innovation for numerous industries who are using it to develop new products and services. Watch this forward-looking session on demand and discover how technology is driving our world in a new direction.
Another truly eye-opening session from our first day looked at how we’ve witnessed some of the most extraordinary events in recent human history. Our panel, including Chairman of 4YFN, Yossi Vardi, Director of 4YFN, Pere Duran and Co-Founder and Executive President of Holaluz, Carlota Pi Amorós, discussed how a global pandemic disrupted everyone’s lives and how a president was toppled from his social media platform. The session discussed this period of uncertainty and unrest where movements against climate change and racism found a voice. Log on today and ensure you catch up on the latest insights and inspiring thought leadership about how unstable times can often lead to exponential technological growth.
If you missed the 4YFN Fintech Summit, now’s your chance to get up to speed.
Our first inspiring session from the summit took an in-depth look into how our industry has the chance to act now to avoid the worst outcomes of climate change. Our panel, including Francisco Benedito of Climatetrade, Aaron Mccreary of New Energy Nexus and Francisco Benedito of Climatetrade, explored the initiatives that fintech is taking to become a sustainable industry.
Our session, Generating Impact Through Fintech, looked at how investing in and developing fintech products in emerging markets, can lead to positive impact beyond the financial sector itself.
And our final session from the 4YFN Fintech Summit featured Pol Navarro of InnoCells, Joakim Sjöblom of Minna Technologies and Josh Gosliner from Boku, sharing their insights of the most important factors to consider when launching new fintech products.
Another one for your catch-up calendar; find out how we’ll be interacting with customers in the future. Learn how to reach them and discover what new consumer habits have formed during the pandemic. This session looked at how shopping behaviour has changed and what brands need to do to keep up with these new buying patterns.
We’re more than thrilled to have got back to the epicentre of connectivity. To welcome back all our attendees could never have been possible without the help and collaboration of our partners and the city of Barcelona itself! Whether you joined us physically or virtually this year, we’d like to say a huge thank you for your support.
As we progressed into day two of MWC21, attendees were treated to big name keynote speakers. Entrepreneur and tech icon Elon Musk, joined us virtually from California in a rare interview about Starlink – a satellite based broadband system designed to “fill in the gaps between 5G and fibre” and to bridge the world’s connectivity divide. We also welcomed the “Elon Musk of Telco”, Danielle Royston, who passionately explained her vision of everything in Telco moving to the public cloud to open up new opportunities and revenue streams. Attendees also learned how 5G is becoming a key driver for the global economy from Huawei’s Executive Director of the Board, Ryan Ding. And Viacom International’s Raffaele Annecchino joined our own CEO John Hoffman on stage to discuss 5G’s influence on entertainment. Check out some of the noteworthy sessions from our second day back to business.
One of our key highlights for our second day was an exceptionally rare interview with Elon Musk, Chief Engineer of SpaceX. The excitement in the room was palpable, even though the man himself joined us virtually. Elon explained how Starlink, a revolutionary satellite based, high speed broadband system, could connect 3.7 billion people across the world who currently have no access to the internet (that’s roughly half the world’s population). Other revelations included plans to travel to Mars with a view to inhabit the planet!
For those of you who love connectivity, the great news is that there is no better industry to be part of today than mobile! This session explored how technology has transformed the way we all live, work, play and communicate. Providing a lifeline during such turbulent times, we are now embracing digital to open up new opportunities and unthought of possibilities. Danielle Royston of TelcoDR, Rafaele Annecchini of Viacom and Ryan Ding of Huawei explored how tech can evolve, develop and shape a brighter and more connected future for everyone.
We watched in horror as the global pandemic ravaged our health and way of life. As we coped with the uncertain, technology successfully accelerated how we access health and social care with digital transformation. This session looks at the creation of teleconsultations, AI-powered diagnostic solutions, tracking apps and digital passports, remote monitoring and support, mental health management, etc.
Find out what the digital era represents for the pharma industry and the healthcare system. Our speakers, Marion Chalumeau and Dr. Izarzugaza share how we can co-create, design and launch innovative solutions for patients and healthcare professionals with enablers like BIOME, the Digital Innovation Hub by Novartis.
Other sessions from the Digital Health and Wellbeing Summit included Covid-19 Impact on Dispersion of Healthcare to the Home, from speaker Amit Shafrir, Vice President and General Manager, Cardiology at Itamar Medical
'Pandemic: a year of digital health innovations' featured discussion and analysis specifically about healthcare during the pandemic – as well as in a post Covid-19 world.
In this session, Summer Chen from ZTE Corporation, Marc Price of MATRIXX Software, Tim O’Shea from DeepSig and Patrick Joggerst from Ribbon, discuss how AI is helping operators to optimise network operations and enhance customer support. We learned how, by 2025, one third of MNOs will have automated 80% of their networks, with the primary objective of driving new revenue for 64% of those*. 'AI for Telecoms' explored how to address new industry requirements, whilst delivering value-added services – and reveal the opportunities for operators as they become digital service providers.
The Financial Services industry has been transformed by fintech as new market entrants and new solutions are disrupting the whole sector, including B2C and B2B propositions. 'Unlocking value from FinTech' featured Tim Zhou from Ant Group, Kunal Bist from Citibank and Chris Williamson from Vodacom Group as they discussed how leveraging the power of fintech creates new winning propositions.
We’re more than thrilled to have got back to the epicentre of connectivity. To welcome back all our attendees could never have been possible without the help and collaboration of our partners and the city of Barcelona itself! Whether you joined us physically or virtually this year, we’d like to say a huge thank you for your support.
*According to GSMA Intelligence’s Network Transformation 2020 survey
Technology can shape a better world where everyone and everything can be connected. And Day three of MWC Barcelona provided a glimpse into the future with Ana Maiques from Neuroelectrics explaining how 5G technology can be used to help track brain activity and aid health conditions with wearable electrodes. The topic of healthcare was further explored by Dr Antonio De Lacy who previously performed a worldwide first at MWC19 with a 5G assisted remote surgery. His keynote revealed how more and more revolutionary procedures such as this, can be used in many more hospitals all over the globe. Attendees also learned how materials such as Graphene can be used to evolve the connectivity devices we use on a daily basis.
As well as inspirational keynotes, we also celebrated how the industry has overcome many of the challenges of the pandemic at the prestigious GLOMO Awards.
Attendees were inspired and captivated by speakers including Zina Jarrahi Cinker of AMPT, Rod Menchaca of AIS Channel and Professor Tommaso Calarco of QCN. They explained the evolution of AI, IoT and 5G and how this technology is expanding boundaries to create the biggest innovation platform ever! Ana Maiques and Dr Antonio de Lacy explored advancements in healthcare – and we also learned about new materials that could build future cities.
The 4YFN Impact Awards celebrates the best digital startups across the world who are making a positive impact and helping us achieve the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals. The five finalists are Cureety who help cancer patients, ILof who cut the time and cost of drug discovery, Shotl who empower and transform public transport, WeWalk who enhance the mobility of the visually impaired and Yabx who believe in “One Equation, Infinite Possibilities”.
The ceremony included a Keynote from Ana Maiques Co-Founder and CEO of Neuroelectrics and a guest talk by 4YFN Barcelona 2019 Awards winner Eran Fine from NanoLock Security.
Day three of MWC21 announced the winners of the 2021 Global Mobile (GLOMO) Awards – championing the companies and individuals driving innovation in the rapidly evolving mobile industry. Co-hosted by Justin Springham and Sasha Twining of Mobile World Live (MWL), viewers celebrated the individuals and businesses in the tech sector, who have used their passion, innovation and resources to better the industry.
This session looked at how mobile IoT technologies have enabled connections between technology and people. The GSMA flagship IoT event, Mobile IoT Summit, addressed key topics surrounding the network deployment and global collaboration of 5G and Mobile IoT technologies, IoT platforms and services, SIM enablement and Security. Speakers included Leila de Charette from Orange, Koby Levy from Huawei and Marco Bijvelds from KORE who explained how mobile operators can deliver trusted and cost-effective capabilities – and support growth on a massive scale.
While 5G has the potential to shape a more connected world, this session looks at the next big thing! 2020 saw an important growth in 5G network rollouts and the business case for the new generation of connectivity is becoming clear.
Speakers including Hans Neff from ZTE, Haitham Abdul Razzak of Etisalat and Peter Jarich from the GSMA, asked what exactly do we need 6G to deliver?
We’re more than thrilled to have got back to the epicentre of connectivity. To welcome back all our attendees could never have been possible without the help and collaboration of our partners and the city of Barcelona itself! Whether you joined us physically or virtually this year, we’d like to say a huge thank you for your support.
We’re so proud of what we achieved during the week. We got back to Barcelona. We got back to business. And a huge achievement that reminded everyone of the power and value of meeting face-to-face – we got back together!
We were honoured to welcome over 20,000 people in-person, over 1,000 exhibitors, sponsors and partners – and around 100,000 unique virtual and daily viewers on MWC21 and partner platforms. We were inspired, moved and motivated as we look to a brighter and more connected world. We were captivated by speakers, amazed by new technology and fascinated by the possibilities that connectivity can deliver.
Day four explored how manufacturing is using 5G, we found out how the world's largest brewer has reinvented itself and we learned how the GSMA Foundry can help to rapidly develop real-world solutions to industry challenges – and forge a digital future by working in collaboration.
Inspiration, imagination and innovation come as standard. If you like what you see, find out how you can attend, exhibit or sponsor at #MWC22.
The way we work, play, learn, buy and even date –our whole lives have been redefined by digital disruptors. This session explored how constant innovation, measurement and adaptation are key to survival in a world where disruption is around every corner. Even the world's largest brewer has reinvented itself and currency as we knew it has been redefined.
Join Amplitude CEO Spenser Skates to learn what empowers teams to drive their business forward and disrupt the status quo.
Got an idea? Want your vision to become a reality? The GSMA Foundry is the go-to place for cross-industry collaboration and business development. And where GSMA members and industry players collaborate to rapidly develop real-world solutions to industry challenges and forge our digital future.
The Foundry utilises the global power and reach of the GSMA to convene, engage and unify the end-to-end connectivity ecosystem. Foundry projects advance key technologies such as the next generation mobile networks, the Internet of Things, fraud & security, identity & data, energy efficiency, mobile Internet, roaming & interconnect and artificial intelligence. The first GSMA Foundry project focuses on trialling Telco Edge Cloud solutions highlighting the benefits of the technology and identifying new business applications to grow the future market.
This informative session looked at how 5G for IoT enables manufacturing companies and their supply chain partners with the opportunity to utilise emerging technologies, such as AI and machine vision, to give vastly improved visibility over all aspects of their business. We think this session would be particularly relevant to delegates who have projects or interests in smart manufacturing, Industrial IoT, Industry 4.0 applications, Mobile Edge Computing for Industry, comparing the features and benefits between 5G and Wi-Fi, etc.
'The benefits of 5G in manufacturing' featured our speakers, Javier Martínez Borreguero from Telefonica Tech, Chris Allen from Vodafone, Chris White from Ford and the GSMA’s Jo Gilbert.
This year, we welcomed back 165 countries and territories, 1,500 CEOs and C-Suite executives – and embraced around 100,000 unique virtual and daily viewers on MWC21 and partner platforms.
Attendees enjoyed keynotes, The GLOMO Awards ceremony, excitement from TelcoDR’s Cloud City and 4YFN – and a variety of the world’s most cutting-edge exhibitors.
Never has it been more important to lean on partners to bring MWC21 to life. We thank all our partners in Spain and the people of Barcelona for having us. We also thank our medical partner, Quirónprevención, who re-invented processes to ensure the highest standards of health and safety. And of course, we thank all our attendees, both physical and virtual for all your support and helping us make this happen.
The future starts right now. And it’s all about impact and sustainability. About looking at solutions in a different way. And re-writing what we already know.
The seventh edition of 4YFN, the world’s most influential startup event, joined the heart of MWC21 – AND. IT. WAS. EPIC! We were proud to welcome 350+ international startups from more than 30 countries. We hosted 150+ speakers as they inspired at a thrilling conference programme. The 4YFN Discovery area featured 200 startup pitches and multiple activities at the Impact and Investors Lounges. And the 4YFN Impact Awards Finale celebrated the startups making a positive impact on the world.
Thanks to our platinum sponsor, Banco Sabadell for making it all possible!