After two successful editions held in the midst of the pandemic, Barcelona is once again hosting the Barcelona New Economy Week (BNEW), the benchmark event for the new economy to be held from October 3 to 6, 2022. Promoted by the Consorci de la Barcelona Free Trade Zone (CZFB), BNEW will once again be articulated around various thematic verticals that focus on the structural changes that the economy has undergone in the last two years and that are here to stay.
The meeting, which knew from the beginning to take the pulse of the challenges that the market was experiencing, has maintained its visionary character from minute one in form, but also in substance. "We created the event at a time when the global situation did not allow traditional meetings to be held and, at the same time, we were experiencing an unprecedented transformation of the economic model," says Pere Navarro, special delegate of the State in the Consorci de la Zona Franca from Barcelona.
Under the umbrella of the new economy and with a focus on the challenges that have arisen in recent times, the organization has redefined the thematic areas, seven in total. Compared to the previous edition, they repeat Real Estate, Digital Industry, Sustainability, Mobility, Talent and Experience, a new name for the BNEW City, which will allow it to continue giving visibility to the entire cultural, gastronomic and leisure offer that Barcelona offers.
In fact, as Navarro underlines, the city continues to act as host, but also as a protagonist and an asset for the participants. "In these years we have been able to position Barcelona as the main meeting point in which to face the challenges posed by the 4.0 economy", adds the special delegate of the State in the Consorci de la Zona Franca de Barcelona. “This is, without a doubt, the edition of the consolidation of BNEW”, he anticipates.
As a novelty, the third edition of BNEW opens a new vertical, called BNEW Invest, which lands to explore new investment trends. Specifically, a panel of experts will offer a perspective on the risks and opportunities posed by the post-pandemic economy for both large companies and SMEs in Europe, Latin America, the United States, Africa and the Middle East.
In total, the third edition of BNEW will bring together 600 speakers, giving rise to 180 hours of content distributed in 130 panels, debates and sessions that will take place in the most unique, technological and disruptive building in Europe, promoted and managed by the Consorci de the Free Zone of Barcelona. The DFactory Barcelona will host the sets where the different verticals of the event will be addressed, all of them under the umbrella of the new economy: Real Estate, Digital Industry, Mobility, Talent, Invest and Experience.
Likewise, the organization expects to exceed 400 participating companies and more than 12,000 attendees to the seven verticals that will be held in parallel. In fact, the hybrid nature of the event remains the axis of the third edition to facilitate the attendance of people from anywhere in the world.
To do this, BNEW has a state-of-the-art digital platform from which participants from any country can follow live or recorded the content that will take place on the sets located in different parts of Barcelona.
Another of the elements that differentiated the previous editions of BNEW and that represents a great claim is the "quality and efficient" networking, enhanced by Artificial Intelligence to offer each participant the possibility of connecting with people with whom they have common interests. “BNEW invites to expand the network of contacts of the participants. We created a new way of celebrating events that is here to stay”, highlights Blanca Sorigué, General Director of the CZFB.
The celebration of the BNEW Best Innovation awards in recognition of the most disruptive startups in each of the sectors present at the meeting will once again be one of the main dishes in an award that in 2020 was attended by King Felipe VI, the president of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and that of the First Vice President and Minister of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, Nadia Calviño, in 2021.
Some of the award-winning companies in these two editions have been Rimbo Rent, in the Real Estate category, Econcrete in the sustainability theme, and Opgroung in the talent category, among others. "In an economic context focused on reactivation, BNEW offers much more than a space for debate and reflection, since it is a multisectoral environment that allows a global vision of the current situation," adds Sorigué.
During its first edition, BNEW reached great figures such as 10,000 registered from 111 countries. However, the second edition, held in 2021, managed to overcome them, reaching more than 12,000 online participants, 3,000 physical attendees and 33,828 views. In 2021, other record data was recorded with a debate program made up of 821 top-level international speakers and 240 hours of content. In addition, the format allowed that, despite the restrictions, 47% of the participants were international, belonging to 145 different countries.
