The coronavirus crisis has plunged the world into a hiatus and impacted its structural pillars. The Barcelona City Council wants to overcome this paralysis by anticipating and beginning to outline the bases for post-coronavirus reactivation. From April 13 to 16, the Catalan capital wants to weave a common narrative about what the priorities should be to overcome the shock and maintain its leadership.
"Barcelona has all the capabilities and all the potential to emerge stronger from this crisis caused by the pandemic because the future will be won by those companies, territories, and cities that have innovation, talent, connectivity, or technology. And Barcelona has all of this," defends the first deputy mayor, Jaume Collboni. "What we want to address is the joint work of all those who must lead Barcelona's reactivation, but also its transformation to have a more digitized, more sustainable, more equitable, and more competitive economy," he adds.
For four days, more than a hundred local and international experts will debate what the city's reactivation should look like, aiming to concretize it into ten key actions. The promotion of sectors such as the blue economy, creative industries, new mobility, the green economy, and sportech, and its consolidation as a digital capital will be some of the main axes to be discussed at the Barcelona reAct conferences, which the council expects to be an annual event.
Urban planner Greg Clark, sociologist Saskia Sassen, the UN Special Envoy for the Oceans and expert in blue economy, Peter Thomson, entrepreneurship expert, Hila Oren, and the director of the audiovisual fair ISE, Mike Blackman, will be some of the international speakers. Also participating will be the founder of Ona Therapeutics, Valerie Vanhooren, the general director of BIST, Gabby Silberman, the director of EIT Urban Mobility for Southern Europe, Daniel Serra, the director of Barcelona Airport, Sonia Corrochano, and the director of the CCCB, Judit Carrera.
The Barcelona reAct conferences will be hybrid, with physical and telematic participation, a format that covid forces to maintain until mass vaccination allows the return to events with thousands of attendees. The Disseny Hub will be the stage where most of the talks will take place, but La Boqueria, Casa Seat, the Olympic Ring, and Pier 01 will be other featured spaces.
Program of Barcelona reAct
The inaugural session of the conferences, on Tuesday 13, will feature the participation of the Mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau; the First Deputy Mayor, Jaume Collboni, and the Vice-President of the European Commission for the European Green Deal, Frans Timmermans. During the first day, challenges such as the creation of quality employment and new mobility will be addressed.
Innovative industries such as the blue economy and sustainable mobility will be the focus of the second and third days, on the 14th and 15th. Initiatives are expected to be presented to boost the leadership of the Catalan capital in terms of innovation, creative industries, foodtech, and digital health. The discussion will also cover one of the most urgent pending issues for the city: redefining the visitor economy, severely affected by the current crisis.
On Friday 16, the last day, the ten key actions resulting from the reflections made during the previous days will be presented, which will serve to draw a guide for Barcelona's economic future in the coming years. The Minister for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera, will be one of the participants.