BNEW closes its first edition successfully

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he challenge was not easy, but it has been achieved. After an investment of more than two million euros, BNEW has managed to make Barcelona a key lever for the economic reactivation process this week. The event was born with the vocation to add, to put defeatism aside and get to work, always with constructive proposals and with a view to the future for five strategic sectors of the economy: logistics, e-commerce, the digital industry, the real estate sector and new economic zones.

It has not been a congress nor a fair. Nothing to do with it. The Consorci de la Zona Franca de Barcelona took a risk with a highly sophisticated proposal that has materialized in a new, very disruptive format adapted to the post-Covid era. The technological, production and organizational effort has been titanic, as can be seen in the summary video we have prepared. But after the avalanche of webinars we suffered with the lockdown, a new, much more dynamic and attractive hybrid format has been found that combines the advantages of in-person attendance with all the potential reach that streaming provides.

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Thus, BNEW has developed as a great television show with five sets located at Estació de França, Movistar Centre and Casa Seat from which more than 160 hours of content have been broadcast. In fact, throughout the week five broadcasts coexisted, as there was a different program of panels, interviews and debates for each of the thematic axes, to which a sixth channel was added to broadcast parallel activities fundamentally linked to gastronomy and to enhance Barcelona's brand image as a design capital.

The more than 10,860 people who have registered for BNEW, from 111 different countries, could click on the channel and session that interested them most at any time and also communicate through a chat with each broadcast. In parallel, the innovative technological platform developed by BNEW has served as a powerful networking tool, since upon entering, professionals who registered were asked about their fields and sectors of interest, and the system itself, thanks to artificial intelligence, connected them with the people who best matched that profile. Thus, more than 23,200 business contacts or virtual meetings have been generated. 31% of the professionals who connected to the platform were international (from 38 countries in Europe, 24 in America, 25 in Africa, 29 in Asia, and 5 in Oceania).

The technological platform also had an area for companies, the BVillage, with 128 companies that over the last four days have received more than 6,500 requests for information.

The special delegate of the State in the Consorci de la Zona Franca de Barcelona, Pere Navarro, has already confirmed that there will be a new edition of BNEW next year and has shown himself "very satisfied because BNEW has been a tremendously useful event in these moments of difficulty, boosting economic reactivation on a global level and creating business opportunities worldwide. The Barcelona New Economy Week has positioned the Ciudad Condal as the capital of the new economy and has shown the leadership and the extensive industrial fabric it has in this regard."

The Barcelona New Economy Week has positioned the Ciudad Condal as the capital of the new economy

"BNEW has exceeded all the objectives we set when we created it by connecting professionals from the logistics, eCommerce, real estate, economic zones, and digital industry sectors from anywhere in the world, offering them quality content and the possibility of generating networking. After this successful edition, in a few days we will start working on the next edition, which will take place in 2021, also in Barcelona," concluded the general director of BNEW and the Consorci de la Zona Franca, Blanca Sorigué.