A Resurrected Mobile, by Manuel Navarro

Two years ago, the Mobile World Congress had to be canceled due to the outbreak of the pandemic. Many, including myself, thought that there were other reasons to cancel the event and that the coronavirus was a mere excuse. The self-complacency and despotic nature of the organisers, to which was added the activism of the mayor of Barcelona, ​​made many exhibitors privately express complaints about the way in which the Hoffmann and the rest of the organization’s managers. To that, we had to add a certain boredom on the part of everyone with the concept of great events and exhibitions.

Two years later and a pandemic in between, the story is different: the organizers have lowered the tone, Colau has not spoken out against it and must have understood that a fair like Mobile brings more Benefits that damages and exhibitors, manufacturers and visitors have seen that a meeting like the one in Barcelona is still very necessary. It is true that, especially first thing in the morning, the queues of previous editions have not been seen, but there is a lot of technology, the conferences are interesting and the attendees, who have been growing over the days, have shown more than receptive.

This year’s Mobile has been resurrected because, among other things, people need to relate

What the pandemic has shown us is that it is possible to work remotely, that we can establish meetings and agreements through Zoom, Teams or Webex and even that the productivity of companies not only does not decrease, but in many cases, it increases. But it has also shown that face to face is still fundamental. Now that there is so much talk about people, we have discovered that the relationship between them in person is essential to do business and also to spend leisure time. That is something that technology, however much it advances, will never be able to achieve.

The Mobile has been proof of this and has been able to take advantage of this aspect. It has been resurrected and, although it has not reached the number of people it had in 2019, it can be said that it has many editions ahead of it. In addition, we must recognize the organization that was one of the first to react, in a forceful way, to the Russian invasion of Ukraine by prohibiting the Russian pavilion, in which more than a dozen companies from the Putin regime congregated, putting the money ethics. A whole declaration of intentions of the time in which we live