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The Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona (MACBA) is expanding into the nearby Àngels Square in the heart of the historic neighbourhood Raval. On 17^th July the museum unveiled the details of its future plans, which are designed to increase the flow of visitors to the art centre. These include increased exhibition spaces and the expansion of the existing MACBA Study Centre. The project is estimated to cost a total of €2 million, 1.5 million of which will be provided by Barcelona City Council, and it is hoped that this will increase the number of visitors to the museum by 15% per year.

During the 2014 Innovation Convention, organised by the European Commission on Tuesday, Barcelona was named the first European Capital of Innovation. The Catalan capital has prevailed over finalists Grenoble (France) and Groningen (the Netherlands) in a contest which also involved Paris, Espoo (Finland) and Malaga (Spain). The winning project highlights the predominant role of the city in promoting new technologies and bringing together government bodies and citizens, in order to enhance sustainable economic growth and improve the people’s welfare. The award is endowed with € 500,000 to promote innovation. Barcelona's Mayor, Xavier Trias, stated that new technologies in an urban environment have to "work towards improving people's everyday lives[…] or they will fail".

The MediaTic building in the 22@ Innovation District of the Catalan capital will now be known as the Barcelona Growth Centre, also becoming a meeting place for entrepreneurs and businesses. Such an announcement was made by Mayor Xavier Trias to the fifty attendees of the Barcelona Growth Board meeting, which took place at the City Council on Thursday. Currently, the 8-floor building hosts initiatives such as the Mobile World Capital Foundation, the Agency for Barcelona Brand, the Open University of Catalonia and the Barcelona Mobile Startup, among others. To convert the building into a platform for businesses, the City Council and the Chamber of Commerce will set up an office of assistance to entrepreneurs on the ground floor, which will act as a “facilitator” to create new companies.

GSMA, the organisers of the Mobile World Congress, have announced on Thursday that more than 85,000 visitors from over 200 countries participated in this year’s event. The figure sets a new impressive attendance record with an overall increase of 18% on last year’s edition. Around 80,000 attendees participated at the Mobile World Congress at Fira de Barcelona’s Gran Via venues and more than 5,000 visitors attended mPowered industries programme at Fira’s Montjuïc venues. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and IBM CEO Virginia Rometty delivered highly anticipated keynote speeches, while close to 1,800 international market leading companies presented their latest innovative products and services. In the Global Mobile Awards, the HTC One scooped top award of the Best Smartphone of the year, while Apple iPad was announced the Best Mobile Tablet. Wearable devices were also an exciting highlight of the 2014 MWC.

The App Planet at the Mobile World Congress is one of the biggest app events in the world, and the Catalan App companies have taken full advantage of the opportunity to showcase their latest products. Not only this, several Catalan App companies have come together to form the group ‘Catalunya Apps’, in which big and small companies alike have joined in order to survive and compete on the global stage. ‘InQBarna’ had extraordinary success since last year with their Music based app; they have had 700,000 downloads and Apple named the best music app in 2013. Inqbarna isn’t the only large company to commit to ‘Catalunya Apps’; Sixtemia, founded 5 years ago, is on board as well.

The winners of the 19^th Global Mobile Awards were announced on Tuesday afternoon, in a ceremony held at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The prizes recognize the most innovative mobile products, apps, services and initiatives from all over the world. More than 175 international industry experts, analysts, journalists and academics were involved in the judging process.In the category of the Best Mobile Handsets and Devices, the HTC One scooped top award of the Best Smartphone, defeating other nominees such as Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and Apple iPhone 5S.The Apple iPad Air was announced as Best Mobile Tablet. Nokia was a runaway winner having received awards in two different categories. The Catalan Government was also honoured for the educational mSchools project. The award ceremony was hosted by British comedian James Corden.

A total of 53 companies are present at the ‘Catalonia’ stand that the Catalan Government has set up at the Mobile World Congress (MWC), for “established companies with international sales to newly-created start-ups”. Larger Catalan companies already dispose of their own stand at the MWC, the world’s largest fair in the mobile phone industry, which was launched on Monday in Barcelona for the 9^th consecutive year. Joan Tarradellas, CEO of the public business innovation agency ACCIÓ, highlighted the heterogeneity of the companies present at the ‘Catalonia’ stand, which work on different fields, from developing applications for the biomedical sector to dealing with social networks, urban mobility or ‘smart cities’.

Within a year, Pope Francis’ Twitter account, @Pontifex, has reached 12 million followers while his tweets are 4 times more re-tweeted than the ones of U.S. President Barack Obama. Indeed, each of Pope Francis’ messages generates an average of 6,637 re-tweets, while Obama’s messages are re-tweeted 2,309 times on average. Such data was unveiled on Tuesday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, which is the main international event of cell phone related technologies. After analyzing the Pope’s impact on the digital environment, the study ‘The Internet loves Pope Francis’ concludes that Pope Francis is the world leader with the greatest influence in social networks, above the Dalai Lama or Cristina Kirchner.

Mobile World Congress (MWC), the world’s biggest congress in the mobile phone industry, takes place from today until Thursday in Barcelona. The Catalan capital is hosting this event for the 9th consecutive year. More than 1,800 companies from all over the world showcase their latest products at the event and more than 77,000 visitors are anticipated at the conference centre at Fira Gran Via. Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook and new owner of Whatsapp, will follow today’s earlier speech by Whatsapp founder Jan Koum with his highly anticipated keynote talk. Virginia Rometty, IBM´s CEO and recently pronounced most powerful woman in Business, will also appear as a keynote speaker on Wednesday. Leading mobile phone companies such as Samsung, Sony, Nokia, Huawei, HTC and others are expected to launch their new devices at the exhibition.

Some 1,900 police officers, both from the Catalan Police Force (called Mossos d’Esquadra), and from the local polices of Barcelona and L'Hospitalet de Llobregat (Greater Barcelona), will ensure the safety of the 75,000 visitors expected to attend the Mobile World Congress, the main international event of the mobile-phone-related industry. This trade fair and conference takes place each year in Barcelona and the upcoming edition will run from the 24^th to the 27^th of February. With this safety reinforcement plan, plain-clothed police officers will be deployed in the pavilions of the Mobile World Congress, while the number of uniformed-police patrols will be increased to dissuade pickpockets. Furthermore, there will be more private security guards controlling the premises this year and a dedicated police station where attendees can report any loss or theft will be open all day long.

The Director General of Fira de Barcelona and Executive Vice President of Mobile World Capital Barcelona, Agustí Cordón, presented on Wednesday the initiative ‘Mobile Ready’, a set of activities that will show citizens and tourists in Barcelona the potential transformations of mobile technology on their daily lives. ‘Mobile Ready’ will travel across the main architectural, commercial and entertainment points of the Catalan capital. Moreover, coinciding with the Mobile World Congress, the Fira de Barcelona facilities in Montjuïc will host the event ‘4 Years From Now’, which will bring together international investors and over 1,000 entrepreneurs in the Information and Communication Technology sector.

Since it was named Mobile World Capital for a 7-year period in 2011, Barcelona has worked on becoming a world leader in the mobile phone industry. Since 2006, it is hosting the world’s main event of the sector, the Mobile World Congress, but on top of this it is also developing manifold parallel initiatives. Some of them focus on Education and the younger generation. Among such measures there is a new secondary school course, ‘Mobilitzem la informàtica’ (Mobilising IT), dedicated to creating and designing applications for mobile phones. During the first stage of the course, 5,965 pupils from 196 high-schools have studied the subject in a theoretical way. Now they are about to start the practical stage, devoted to designing and developing mobile applications to be released on the market. Pupils will be mentored by trained teachers as well as leading professionals in the sector.

Barcelona’s next Mobile World Congress, which will take place from the 24^th to the 27^th of February, should be the “best edition ever”, according to the CEO of GSMA and Director of the event, John Hoffman. Indeed, 75,000 visitors are expected to attend the world’s most important fair in the mobile industry, meaning 3,000 more than in February 2013. Besides, so far, five weeks ahead of the opening, the number of online registrations is already 15% higher than last year. The economic impact on the Catalan capital will be an additional income of €356 million and the creation of 7,220 jobs. One of the highlights of this year’s edition will be the participation of Facebook-inventor Mark Zuckerberg, who will give a conference on the 24^th of February.

Next February, the Mobile World Congress (MWC), the world’s most important event in the mobile industry, will open its doors in Barcelona for the 9^th consecutive year. The major companies in the sector will introduce new products or give conferences on applications designed for many innovative uses. By hosting the fair each year at least until 2018, Barcelona, named Mobile World Capital, is looking to become an international leader in this industry. The city has also created a HUB to develop the sector even further. The 2014 edition of the fair expects to break all records. The Director of the MWC, John Hoffman, stated that 75,000 visitors were expected, meaning 3,000 more than last year. Besides, once the fair will be over, it is estimated the local economy could have gained €340 million from it.

The telecommunications company Cronos Group, based in Hong Kong, is opening its European offices in Barcelona to offer services throughout the continent and worlwide. According to the Catalan Ministry of Business and Employment, the company is expected to create 25 new jobs in the first year operating from the Catalan capital. Currently 10 people are already working in Cronos’ Barcelona offices. The project received the assistance of the Catalan Government’s programme ‘Invest in Catalonia’, which focuses on attracting foreign investment and international business. Cronos’s Managers explained they have decided to settle in Barcelona because it had become the world capital of the mobile phone and of telecommunications, since each year it organises the main international event in this sector. Furthermore, Cronos Group praised the talent and skills of Catalan workers.