The Mobile World Capital Barcelona Foundation changes its focus. Technologies should not be the center or the objective per se, but an instrument at the service of people and the planet. With this change of vision, the foundation also changes its brand identity and strategy, which is summarized in its new motto: from Technology matters, it moves to Humanizing technology. The entity, whose new logo resembles a vibrant sound wave, thus redirects its strategy towards its foundational objective: to promote the digital transformation of society by taking advantage of the momentum of the Mobile World Congress (MWC).
After twelve years of trajectory, the public-private entity has approved a strategic plan from 2023 to 2027, which adds objectives to the purpose for which it was founded: to maximize the impact of the MWC throughout the year. Maintaining this original purpose among its priorities, the foundation sets as main objectives to facilitate the development of digital services for people and sustainability, and to consolidate Barcelona as a great hub of digital talent and as a venture builder of reference in Europe, from an international perspective. All with one goal: "to humanize technology and leave a legacy to improve people's lives," summarized GSMA CEO John Hoffman at the presentation of the new strategy.
Thus, the Mobile World Capital has designed a strategic plan aimed at "technologies at the service of people, and people at the service of the planet," according to Francesc Fajula, general director of the foundation. Fajula, who took office in 2022, highlighted the importance of having the necessary talent in this digital environment, for which he pointed to the Jump2Digital event as a key player. Driven by the foundation, it consists of a meeting of digital talent that aims to bring the sector and digital professions closer to new professionals. In its latest edition, held in mid-November, it attracted 7,000 young people.
The foundation has launched for the first time the 'Mobile World Capital Awards', which will recognize projects linked to the SDGsThis is an objective that must be addressed, like the rest, from an international perspective. With this view, the foundation has launched for the first time the Mobile World Capital Awards, that will recognize projects linked to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), to "reward from Barcelona any initiative from anywhere in the world," according to Fajula.
To this novelty is also added the creation of an observatory within the foundation, through which it will elaborate studies on the evolution of knowledge transfer and also of strategic technologies, in addition to those already carried out annually by the entity on digital talent and on tech hubs.
Towards the chip industry
The foundation's strategy and identity have been rethought after the MWC organizer and mobile industry employers' association, GSMA, confirmed last year its intention to keep the congress in the Catalan capital at least until 2030. The foundation is linked to the international event as it works to ensure it positively impacts the territory that hosts it and its citizens. "The MWC attracts many visitors and exhibitors, but none of that would make sense if we were not able to leave a legacy, which the foundation is in charge of," highlighted the president of Fira de Barcelona, Pau Relat.
"We are inspired by technological humanism, and we do it in public-private collaboration," proclaimed the mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni. He went further: "We want to move from software to hardware, and move from innovations to what materially sustains them, and that is chips." Thus, Barcelona wants to leverage its technological and digital facet to be a reference center in the chip industry. The Minister of Business and Labor of the Generalitat, Roger Torrent, shared this objective, advocating for digital and technological innovation to "have an industrial translation" and lead to chip production.
Beyond mobile technology
The foundation has rethought its image and strategy from the perspective that mobile technology is not the only one transforming the present and future of society. Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, advances in education or manufacturing systems condition current and future models. "We want to translate these concepts into reality, and do it from Barcelona," according to GSMA CEO, Mats Granryd. The Catalan capital wants to play a prominent role in this third digital revolution, which encompasses a set of technologies that can contribute to generating a positive impact. The Minister for Digital Transformation, José Luis Escrivá, has praised the transformative power of technologies and has advocated accompanying them with a "narrative to explain their use well and remove fears that can be installed in society" with some of the advances, such as AI.
Given this irruption of new technologies beyond mobile ones, the foundation is open to expanding its corporate partners to other sectors and adding them to the current ones, most of which are focused on telephony. This is contemplated in the strategic plan, which also foresees an increase in contributions from administrations to the foundation, as detailed in July when announcing that Barcelona will host the MWC until 2030. The Government, the Generalitat and the Barcelona City Council will go from contributing five million to eight each starting in 2025. Thus, they will allocate a total of 24 million annually to the Mobile World Capital, which in turn contributes to the financing of the congress.
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