Every year the global mobile industry gathers in Barcelona for the Mobile World Congress to see the latest innovations such as the launch of Gear VR in 2016. Given who we have been working with in the recent years it was a fantastic opportunity to explore the ecosystem. The show has 8 massive exhibition halls, runs for 4 days and feels impossible to see everything amongst 110,000 visitors. Usually the weather is sunny and dry, but not this year as at one point it was snowing.

 

 

What was interesting to see was the number of cars as part of exhibits. Understandably the likes of Pirelli are going to show off their F1 cars (above), but Qualcomm who produce CPU’s also had a car on display.

 

 

Any readers who read about my tour of Silicon Valley will understand I endeavour to make the most of time. That meant I tracked down the  best local tech companies and went inside their offices. Plenty of people have heard of TypeForm, but it might be surprising to know they are based in Barcelona.

 

 

Another company with an office in Barcelona is the Spanish office of a US startup called Letgo. Their office wasn’t quite as cosy, but did have this quite inspiring graffiti.

 

 

 

A conversation with the English speaking locals at a Mobile World Congress after party led to a exciting evening. They said they had an invitation to a better party so I trusted their local judgement. We hopped into a taxi to head to an unknown location. 15 minutes later we ended up at the destination next to the esplanade. We went inside and up the lift to the roof of Barcelona’s 7th tallest building. That is about 25 floors up. A choice of food, drink and desserts were provided courtesy of Mapbox. Mapbox is the service we use for the Cycling app.