At the beginning of March, the city of Barcelona hosted the twentieth edition of the Mobile World Congress . The global event brought together nearly 105,000 attendees from nearly 200 countries, more than 2,900 exhibiting companies and more than 1,700 speakers, and focused on the future of artificial intelligence, 5G connectivity and cybersecurity as the main technological trends. In this vein, the Generalitat de Catalunya dedicated its space to presenting the artificial intelligence strategy of the Government of Catalonia, which showed a technology with great potential that only made sense when developed with ethics and transparency. Also, the Table of Entities of the Third Social Sector of Catalonia and the Mobile World Capital Barcelona Foundation energized the debate 'Governing data, caring for people', which raised the challenges and opportunities of digital social innovation and how entities could improve the care of people through ethical data management and responsible artificial intelligence. In parallel, a new edition of 4YFN was experienced with more than a thousand emerging companies and more than a hundred investors, which became one of the main European spaces for establishing links and connections.
Similarly, at the beginning of March, the second edition of the Talent Arena was launched , an event that sought to promote European digital talent with presentations, workshops, mentoring and immersive proposals from global leaders in the digital sector. In total, the event had more than 25,000 attendees. "Society is created by men and women. If the technology sector does not have this diversity, we are losing half of the talent. "I believe that initiatives like this or other proposals promoted by the Secretariat of Digital Policies of the Department of Business and Work of the Generalitat of Catalonia are key to inspiring new generations and creating close references, flesh and blood references, so that the girls here can see that their neighbor or their aunt can be one of these people and that they could be one in the future, and create a sector where there is a presence of both men and women," said Estel Blay, member of the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia and representative of the Hypatia Mars Association. Specifically, the Secretariat for Digital Policies of the Department of Business and Employment of the Generalitat de Catalunya organized the conversation 'Women who influence and lead the frontier of technology' with three women awarded in the latest editions of the DonaTIC Awards, the 'Comunitat DonesTIC' space with the Technovation entity and the 'Hackejar el teu cervell' workshop with the El Garbell cooperative. "We are in a very masculine world and, for this reason, it is very important that there are female role models. Each person has a way of facing challenges and approaching them, having women and diverse people is always very interesting," shared Margot Matesanz, member of the El Garbell cooperative. Likewise, the Secretariat for Digital Policies of the Department of Business and Employment of the Generalitat de Catalunya was part of the proposal 'Without talent, there is no technology: the digital future of Catalonia' of the Cercle Tecnològic de Catalunya, where it was discussed how the lack of digital talent in the Catalan territory was the main barrier to growth and competitiveness of the sector.