4YFN24 DAY 2: Who takes the prize?

27 February 2024 4YFN

The hustle and bustle continues, meetings multiply at stands and in corridors, and technology content fills an unreachable number of stages. As you can’t be at everything, we take a look back at some of the highlights and projects from the second day of the event.

EmprènXXI Awards

And what better way to start than by getting to know the most innovative startup in Catalonia. Keybotic, a member of the association, has won the top prize in the EmprènXXI awards, promoted by CaixaBank through DayOne and with the support of Tech Barcelona, ACCIÓ, Barcelona Activa and Enisa. The startup led by Irene Gómez and Hilario Tomé designs autonomous robot dogs to carry out industrial inspections, a project that has already won awards from the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). You can learn more about Keybotic in this recent TB Members Calling.

Outstanding visits

We received a delegation led by the Honourable Mr. Manel Balcells, Catalan Minister of Health, who showed special interest in some of the startups present at our stand, such as Wivi Vision and Aima. Ángel Rivera, CEO of Santander Spain, and Chema Alonso, Chief Digital Officer of Telefónica, also visited the stand. As we said, it is a meeting point for all those who want to take the pulse of the ecosystem.

Tech Hubs’ Tech Challenges

International technology hubs are also competing for a prize: that of attracting the best technological talent in a market with more demand than supply. Consequently, many of them have joined forces through Tech Barcelona’s Tech Up Nights initiative which, after 10 editions, has managed to bring their most disruptive projects to an audience of developers, programmers, big data analysts, engineers and other IT profiles. Once again at the CaixaBank DayOne stand, Mar Galtés (Tech Barcelona) moderated a round table with Susana Pastor, Xavier Morejón and Guillem Vila, respective directors of the technology hubs of Nestlé, MediaMarkt and Ocado Technology, to highlight the keys to success and the challenges ahead. Stay tuned because we will soon announce the next event.

Changing Health: the AI revolution in healthcare

Full house on the Sky Stage (Hall 8.0) to listen to Peter Ploeger, Country Managing Director of Boehringer Ingelheim, and Juan Fernando Muñoz, Secretary General for Digital Health, Information and Innovation in the National Health System, who kicked off a long conference day organised by the German pharmaceutical company and dedicated exclusively to artificial intelligence in the health sector.

Yes, even more artificial intelligence

No one wants to – or should – be left behind in the field of trendy technology. And Veepee, which operates in the digital environment of ecommerce, has shown its clear commitment to AI as a driver of innovative development. A transformative role that, in a presentation sponsored by the Port of Barcelona, was highlighted once again by Karina Gibert, professor and current director of the Intelligent Data Science and Artificial Intelligence research centre (IDEAI-UPC). Sorry to be so heavy-handed, but the not-so-distant future is largely marked by daily advances in this area.

BlueTechPort Startup Pitch Session

The BlueTechPort, a space designed jointly by Tech Barcelona and the Port of Barcelona at Pier01 to promote the blue economy, hosts many innovative projects: Mireia Coll and Cristina Arenas (BelongtoSea), Francesco Pititto (Envjoy Nature), Sebastian Stockzelius (Janah Cycle), Henry Hooper (Metarina), Tomas Puno (Navozyme) and Pau Guasch (Seabots). We invite you to visit them any day.

TB Content Sessions w/ Aptki y Artefacto y Semrush

Of course, we also focused on business. Aptki taught us how to finance the growth of a startup, Artefacto Studio revealed forward-thinking strategies and Semrush provided insights of interest to marketers.

Face to face between two historic figures in the sector on technocapitalism

Aleix Valls (Liquid Lab) and Ignasi Costas (RCD), each with their own particular vision of how to navigate and succeed in the dynamic digital world.