//warning: lots of pictures
Participating at the Mobile World Congress is a great experience, the perfect place to test new devices and technologies and to meet interesting people from all over the world.
This years’s edition was almost too big with an estimate of 70 000 attendees and the 4 days seemed insufficient to do all the planned things.
But of course a very helpful tool is the MyMWC web platform and official app where all the information is available together with the personalized agenda, networking and social components.
Location
This year a new, larger location was chosen for MWC, the Fira Gran Via which is double the size of the last year’s venue.
The new location was impressive with it’s great features: 240,000 square meters under one roof, 49 dinning spaces, 8 outdoor networking gardens, 20 dedicated bus routes and an upper walkway for faster access which also included moving sidewalks.
To get from the South to the North Entrance they estimated a 16 minutes walk, considering the use of the moving walkways.
To get a glimpse of the new location here is the orientation link.
Exhibition
The Exhibition, Conferences and Seminars were distributed among the 8 halls.
Samsung booth seen from the upper walkway.
Very crowded (below the upper walkway)
Some of the big companies
… and some smaller ones
Catalunia was very well represented by a lot of IT companies and start-ups.
Seminars and Featured Programs Theatres
Here is an interactive map from the event’s website.
The Networking Gardens and Lounges
The networking experience was very pleasant and relaxing in the specially designed outdoor areas.
Two were located on the lower level and the rest were along the Upper Walkway. Each garden was thematically decorated and named: Mediterranean, Water, Wood, Greens, Slate, Tin, Brick and Glass Networking Garden.
More information here.
Along with these outdoor gardens, there were numerous indoor Networking Lounges.
Romania
Romania had a very welcoming booth with exhibitor companies including QualTeh, Appscend and AllView.
Nokia
One of the most comfortable booths was Nokia’s with plenty of room to test the new devices and technologies and to enjoy some drinks and chocolate or to recharge your batteries on the Fatboy(s).
NOK
Very welcoming design.
Resting on the Fatboys.
Live 3D printing
Nokia had a special corner where they demonstrated 3D printing of phone covers for Lumia phones.
New devices
The Lumia 520
The Lumia 720
The Nokia 15 Euro phone
NFC
NFC technology was a highlight of this year’s edition.
Even from the start, there was an option to use your smartphone as an NFC badge during the conference, and all card badges had NFC chips to quickly exchange contact info.
More than that, NFC could be used to buy food and drinks in the conference alternative catering courts.
Posters all over the venue displayed one-touch NFC information about Barcelona and the congress and there was a special corner dedicated to NFC apps offering from booking, tagging, ticketing to payment solutions.
Many of the exhibitors included NFC technology in their new gadgets, for example, Sony enables wireless headsets to pair or unpair instantly with the device even while listening to music. #NiceToHave
Cool
HTC One
Best New Mobile Handset, Device or Tablet Award
Smart Watch
Electric Renault car
Huge touch screen
Free device charging at the conference
Sorrounded by Androids
Intel was very proud to show Android running on x86.
Firefox OS wanted to steal the show, but the Intel Androids were everywhere 🙂
Excellent photo-reportage!
a good point of view Oana.. you’ve got skills 🙂 love your article!
Don’t know about you guys, but I liked the android monsterz the most, hihihi!
Yup, they were real fun and always there when you wanted to shoot a picture.
Stats update: over 72000 attendees, more than 1700 Exhibitors, 4300 CEOs, 3400 Media