Starting Monday, the "heart" of digital communication "beats" to the rhythm of... tango. The reason is the well-known Mobile World Congress, the largest mobile telephony and digital communication conference taking place these days in Barcelona.
In the visibly larger space of Fira Gran Via, which the exhibition was moved to this year, demonstrating the increased interest of companies, the movement on the levels of the huge exhibition space is permanent and continuous.
It makes sense if one considers that this year's Mobile World Congress brought together more than 6,500 exhibitors while it is expected to receive at least 65,000 visitors during its four days of operation until tomorrow, Thursday, when it officially closes.
Greece is present
This year, however, for those of us lucky enough to be at the biggest celebration of digital communication, the Mobile World Congress also has a Greek “flavor”. For the first time, our country is participating with a national pavilion, “bringing together” 25 Greek companies and startups, at the initiative of SEKEE (Association of Mobile Application Companies of Greece) and with the support of four national innovation and technology associations.
The business mission to Barcelona is part of the series of extroverted actions entitled Synergies with the participation of the innovative business associations SEKEE (Mobile apps), ENEVI (Microelectronics), EVIDITE (Aerospace), HBio (Biotechnology) and EENE (Startups).
It is noted that the Ministry of Infrastructure and Development is co-organizing the Greek business mission, participating with 90,000 euros, which come from the reserves of the National Telecommunications and Post Commission (EETT), while the sponsors of the Greek mission are Samsung, Eurobank and Sprint Integrated Communications.
First days, first impressions
Collaboration, complementarity, better networking and organization, more visitors, business contacts are the words that "dominate" among the company representatives, who express positive impressions from their participation in the first days, under the "umbrella" of the Greek pavilion at this year's Mobile World Congress.
We found that the presence of small companies in the space of a national pavilion brought more visitors but also led to closer cooperation between them.
For Dimitris Randos from Get Social , the facilitations in the financial-administrative part as well as in the matter of networking-contacts are particularly important elements. "I would like to mention the excellent organization of SEKEE for the preparation of the Greek mission. The benefits that all the companies saw from the first days are many. From the significant financial relief to the administrative facilitations and above all the part of the contacts with other companies at the conference in which SEKEE helped significantly."
Focusing on the greater visibility opportunities due to a national pavilion, the possibility of effective networking and the development of collaborations between the companies in the pavilion, the representatives of the companies Noveltech, Cytech, Telenavis, Hotech, M-STAT, and Regate.
IRIDA Labs, a company that develops real-time image and video applications, is particularly pleased with the results of its participation in the Mobile World Congress . During the conference, IRIDA Labs presented a video stabilization application, the world's first full HD application in collaboration with Silica, a leader in the market of special-purpose processors (video, image, audio). According to company representatives, this application attracted the interest of major mobile phone manufacturers.
Vidavo , a company active in electronic applications and services in the health sector, made its maiden appearance as an exhibitor at the national pavilion and at the Mobile World Congress , offering a range of high-tech products (easy-to-use, portable and mobile devices for recording biological signals) and innovative telematics services that encourage citizens to take an active role in monitoring their health and physical condition.
A company representative conveyed the positive climate of the Greek mission and the large number of visitors to the national pavilion, while referring, among other things, to the approach he had from an American fund that wanted to get in touch with the startups that are also participating in the Greek mission, under the umbrella of Mobile Monday Athens.
Of course, at this year's Mobile World Congress, large Greek companies in the field of mobile telephony and digital communication also had a dynamic presence, maintaining their own special presence-stands at the exhibition, such as Velti, Intracom Telecom, AMD Telecom, Globo, InternetQ and Upstream.
Eleni Natsi
