La Pedrera will be one of the venues for the second edition of BNEW

La Pedrera will become in October one of the new venues where the Barcelona New Economy Week (BNEW) will be held. The second edition of this hybrid and semi-presential event aimed at reactivating the economy and strengthening Barcelona's position as a driving and international reference city expands its thematic axes this year and, therefore, its venues, as twice as many topics will be addressed as in 2020.

The Consorci de la Zona Franca de Barcelona (CZFB), organizer and creator of BNEW, has signed a collaboration agreement with the Fundació Catalunya-La Pedrera to incorporate Gaudí's emblematic building into the event, which will be held between October 5 and 8, with ten thematic axes that will be addressed in parallel and in which 800 speakers will participate.

Specifically, La Pedrera will host activities related to BNEW Talent, which will address the role of cities in retaining and attracting talent, female leadership in organizations, and the role of young entrepreneurs in boosting the new economy.

In 2020, BNEW's venues were Casa Seat, the Movistar Centre in Plaça Catalunya, and Barcelona's Estación de Francia, owned by Adif, which hosted three of the five thematic axes on which the first edition focused.

"The incorporation of such a symbolic location as La Pedrera will contribute to strengthening the position of the city of Barcelona as a motor of the new economy worldwide. Through emblematic spaces such as La Pedrera and a program of internationally interesting content, we hope to double the number of attendees and exceed 20,000," explained Pere Navarro, special delegate of the State in the CZFB.

For her part, the general director of the Fundació Catalunya-La Pedrera, Marta Lacambra, pointed out that "collaboration between public and private institutions is key to facing the challenge of recovery after the pandemic. From the Fundació Catalunya La Pedrera, we will always support initiatives like BNEW, because we firmly believe that the city of Barcelona must be innovative, sustainable, with talent and, above all, guarantee equal opportunities so as not to leave anyone behind."

In the first edition, in which nearly 11,0000 people from 111 countries participated, the five verticals were dedicated to logistics (BNEW Logistics), industry 4.0 (BNEW Digital Industry), e-commerce (BNEW Ecommerce), new economic zones (BNEW Economic Zones) and the real estate sector (BNEW Real Estate).

This year, five other themes are added, standing out for their transversal contribution to the construction of the new economy: mobility (BNEW Mobility), sustainability (BNEW Sustainable), talent (BNEW Talent), science (BNEW Science) and new city challenges (BNEW City). The number of speakers will grow from 389 to 800.

Each thematic axis is held in parallel and broadcast via streaming, so BNEW is like a large platform where online registered users located anywhere in the world can view the channel or vertical they prefer at any time. Some of the sessions are joint for all channels. Registrations for the event are now open, free until September 6.