The fifth edition of 4YFN (4 Years From Now), the leading international event for startups, investors, public institutions and large corporations, have closed its doors with a total of 20,359 visitors, thus consolidating the event and Barcelona as a reference point in the global startup ecosystem.
4YFN Barcelona, powered by Mobile World Capital Barcelona in collaboration with GSMA Mobile World Congress, has gathered more than 600 startups from more than 45 countries, 600 investors and 12 international delegations from Belgium, Colombia, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, the United Kingdom and Spain at the Fira de Barcelona in Montjuïc. “This year, 4YFN has achieved a significant level of specialization and maturity. Our uncompromising commitment to quality in content has been rewarded by a growing number of attendees” explained Esteban Redolfi, Executive Director of 4YFN.
4YFN’s legacy for the entrepreneurial ecosystem
This edition was characterised by the recognition of “local heroes”, entrepreneurs who have developed their projects in Barcelona with support from 4YFN and who have taken to the stage during the event. Carlota Pi, Co-founder of HolaLuz; Javier Figarola, CEO of ABA English; and Javier Suárez, Co-founder of TravelPerk were some of these ambassadors, and illustrated the impact the platform has on the territory.
275 distinguished speakers, such as Maurice Lévy, former CEO of Publicis; David Tennenhouse, Chief Research Officer at VMware; and Michal Braverman-Blumenstyk, CTO of Cloud & Enterprise Security Division at Microsoft, have shared their knowledge and expertise with the entrepreneurial community.
Entrepreneurs from all over the world presented their projects in the pitching sessions and met with experts in different fields, who have offered guidance on scaling, consolidating and expanding their businesses or attracting funding and talent. Pitch the Press sessions gave entrepreneurs the opportunity to introduce their projects to the media in “speed-dating” interviews with journalists from media such as The Next Web, Cofounder and Euronews, among others.
The activities at 4YFN Barcelona included featured programmes such as GSMA Women4Tech, which promotes gender diversity in the tech community to create a more equal-opportunity ecosystem; Digital Health & Wellness Summit, which gives visibility to innovation related to the healthcare field; and Impact Accelerator, which is powering the next European Superstar Startups.
Latest trends at 4YFN
Different areas across the venue have hosted a total of 110 hours of content on cutting-edge trends in the tech sector, such as blockchain, IoT, tech transfer, corporate venturing and artificial intelligence, among others.
The Keynote “Artificial Intelligence: We are on the air!” by Alfonso Ayuso, Chief Analytics at Banc Sabadell, and Nuria Olvier, Chief Data Scientist at Vodafone, and the panel about Crypto and Blockchain led by Carlos Domingo, Founder & Managing Partner at SPiCE VC, have shown the latest technological solutions in the entrepreneurial sector.
Recognising the most disruptive talent
The 2018 4YFN Awards has crowned Boxmotions as the most disruptive project in the conference. Boxmotions is an on-demand intelligence storage service that allows the user to store and track his or her belongings through a mobile app. This project has been chosen amongst the 10 finalists coming from 4 countries (Israel, Netherlands, United Kingdom and Spain) and over 300 participants from all over the world.
The prize grants Boxmotions a place at 4YFN Barcelona 2019, a residence at Palo Alto in the heart of Silicon Valley in the USA, and support from Mobile World Capital during the year.
