The Next Web, the Financial Times event in Valencia, set its multicolored Ferris wheel to spin yesterday in the Marina. It is the most unique aspect of his proposal, since it turns the journey into an opportunity for investors and entrepreneurs to meet and talk in a short distance, as much as the small cabin of this particular 'Valencia Eye' allows.
Fran Villalba, an entrepreneur behind Internxt, has been reminded of the "show" he already discovered in the Netherlands, where he lived before creating his company and where The Next Web has grown for 16 years. Now this technological event is coming to Valencia for the first time, with the idea of continuing until 2025. "I already saw there that the entire staging was very spectacular," recalls this young man who last year was included in the Forbes list of children under 30 years with greater projection in Europe.
His company, which will have a turnover of four million euros this year, participates in the space dedicated to startups through Lanzadera and its global brand Marina de Empresas, one of the partners, which also acts as a host since he is well versed in The marine.
His students were having their break lunch yesterday and blending in among the many visitors to the event, all young and many of them backpackers with their laptops on their backs. In fact, some of the EDEM students have even been encouraged to volunteer, accompanying the press to the Media Lounge that has been installed in the classrooms of the educational center founded by Roig.
The footprint of Juan Roig's technological project is not only there. Mercadona IT is another of the event's partners and even has its own stand, from which they try to attract technological talent. With the distribution of the brochure included, the company promises development in new technologies and a "solid and defined" career plan. Yesterday on site they showed some of their digital tools to label products to the young people who came to their corner.
The rise of the company's technological department is growing, since they already have more than 1,000 workers to face the "great technological challenge" that lies ahead of the company, as pointed out by the director of Technology of Mercadona, Luis Clavel, who He also gave a conference yesterday in one of the beautiful settings next to the sea.
Among other things, he said that Mercadona is a company in which technology has a "great impact" and pointed out that the real challenge they face is to modernize the company while it continues to function.
At the meeting, young entrepreneurs come to look for opportunities. Like the guys from the Therminer team, who were handing out free coffee yesterday thanks to their system that brings the circular economy to data centers to recover heat from servers using it to activate heating, for example. From Soria and Valencia, the startup won an award at the last Valencia Startup Awards, the same one that brought it here. "We hope to make ourselves known and consolidate", explain Gonzalo and Aarón.
During the morning, some entrepreneurs like them dropped by the networking area and many others walked along the dock, some even set up their own picnic overlooking the sea. The landscape is an indisputable element of the event, because the sheds, the marina and the light of Valencia on a sunny day like yesterday are not easy to match.
The entrepreneurial offer of the city that was playing yesterday at home also takes advantage of this, such as Startup Valencia, which participates with its own stand and which in a few months aspires to open its own headquarters just a few meters away, in the Old Maritime Station.
"This event consolidates the Marina as the entrepreneurial area, which we will join at the end of the year when La Terminal is a reality," explained sources from the Valencian association of startups.
The definitive confirmation that the Marina is already the preferred site for the venture was evidenced yesterday in its most exclusive area, a boat reserved for speakers and attendees with a VIP pass. A distillate of glamor and exclusivity under the protection of the technological venture that last night was topped off with an exclusive networking event in Marina Beach, with the main investors and industry leaders and where the idea that Valencia is "the Mediterranean technological jewel" was insisted on. which does not lack the sun.
