In 2023, the eco Association was once again part of the NRW joint stand organised by NRW.Global Business and Koelnmesse at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona. This year, the Leader of the eco IoT Competence Group, Dr Bettina Horster, took on the position of State Representative for the first time and thus represented North Rhine-Westphalia as a business location together with the eco Association.
From 27 February to 2 March 2023, the Who’s Who of the technology world met again in Barcelona. More than 100,000 visitors and 2,000 exhibitors annually make the Mobile World Congress Barcelona the largest and most important trade fair for the industry in Europe. In recent years, the MWC has become the leading trade fair in the Internet of Things (IoT) sector and covers topics such as Industry 4.0, mobility, cybersecurity, AI, healthcare, smart city and energy.
Programme of talks at the NRW joint stand at the MWC
In addition to the conference programme at the trade fair, the various state stands in particular also invited visitors to attend exciting presentations. At the NRW Association stand, Markus Schaffrin, Head of Member Services, eco – Association of the Internet Industry gave an overview of the results of the eco IT Security Survey 2023. The survey shows that 93 percent of the IT experts surveyed perceive a growing threat situation. The experts named the war of aggression against Ukraine as a factor that has exacerbated the threat situation. eco – Association of the Internet Industry has conducted an annual survey of the Internet industry on the state of IT security in Germany since 2010.
eco IoT Competence Group Leader, Dr Bettina Horster, Board Member of VIVAI Software AG, was able to present IoT solutions from the field of “Elderly Care” with her presentation “The Senior Home can wait”.
Guided tour & networking lunch
This year eco, together with member company Huawei, organised a guided tour at the Huawei stand followed by a networking lunch for members, partners and IoT enthusiasts. In the spirit of the Internet of Things, the participants of the stand tour were able to take a look at some solutions around the topics of connectivity, networking and energy efficiency. Finally, they went to the Huawei Food Garden for a networking lunch to deepen the discussions and exchange of ideas among the participants.
Top topics at the MWC
Overall, the Mobile World Congress was once again very well attended and featured many exciting topics, innovations and trends in the Internet industry. The core topics of the MWC this year included:
- 5G continues to be a focal topic in all sectors
- Cross-industry outlook towards 6G
- Sustainability – both in implementation through IoT solutions but also in the direction of secondary use of hardware and, above all, in the smart city context
- IT security was the focus across all sectors this year
Overall, eco can look back on a successful participation at the MWC in Barcelona – with many highlights. In addition to good discussions and exciting presentations of our own focus topics, we were able to gather fresh impressions from the IoT sector and interesting insights into industry developments.
