Under the auspices of Mobile World Congress Shanghai
Blitab wins the pitching competition at 4YFN Shanghai and
will travel to 4YFN 2017 in Barcelona
● 4YFN debuted in Asia at GSMA Mobile World Congress Shanghai gathering more
than 100 digital startups, 60 investors and over 60 speakers
● Companies from the spanish delegation, such as Tiendeo or Accent Systems, come
back from Shanghai with potential business proposals with key asian corporations
●
The members of the 4YFN Investors Club visited Chinaccelerator, Asia's leading
acceleration programme; and Xinchejian, China's first hackerspace, to generate
synergies with the local entrepreneurial community.
Barcelona, July 1, 2016.- 4 Years From Now (4YFN), the global business platform for the growing
community of technology startups, promoted by Mobile World Capital Barcelona and GSMA, today
recognised Blitab as the most innovative digital project at the Shanghai edition of the 4YFN Awards.
The company have developed the first tablet that offers braille code for the visually impaired. As
the winner of the contest, Blitab will have its own space at 4YFN 2017 in Barcelona.
The finals saw participation by EDaura (United Arab Emirates), an application allowing teachers to
boost their productivity both inside and outside the classroom. China's entrepreneurial community
was also well represented at the final, with entries by Yunmake, a smart mobile tech company that
furnishes all types of vehicles with mobile technologies; Robin8, a smart marketplace that links
brands and opinion leaders using specific queries and searches through the social networks; and
Ximmerse, a startup dedicated to invest and develop virtual reality devices.
"Being able to create opportunities for digital startups around the world is what drives the pitching
sessions at 4YFN," said Aleix Valls, CEO of Mobile World Capital Barcelona. Valls added that "at this
contest particular stress was placed on the international scope of the projects and their scalability,"
which he said "is fundamental for the growth of all startups in a competitive environment like
today's."
4YFN Shanghai Edition
The first Asian edition of 4YFN drew more than 100 startups and major companies to its exhibition
area. Two of the exhibiting startups, Spain's Tiendeo and Germany's Gamewheel, also participated
in the session Mobile Innovation: The Startup Pitch Challenge, within the official line-up of talks at
Mobile World Congress Shanghai.
The relationship between entrepreneurs and investors played an important role at 4YFN Shanghai.
In this regard 4YFN attracted more than 60 members of the international investment community to
the congress. Among them, a total of 25 representatives took a tour of leading centres in the Chinese
entrepreneurial ecosystem, such as Chinaccelerator, Asia's leading acceleration programme; and
Xinchejian, China's first hackerspace: a coworking space to develop technological and computer
projects. 4YFN Shanghai also generated 10 Founders & Investors sessions at a specific pitching area
in which entrepreneurs and startups were able to present their projects to investors, companies
and other attendees.
4YFN Shanghai boasted more than 40 hours of content and over 60 speakers, among them Yossi
Vardi, Chairman of 4YFN; Saket Modi, CEO of Lucideus Tech and a serial entrepreneur that features
on Forbes Asia's "30 Under 30" list; Ignacio Martínez Trujillo, Managing Director of Innovation and
Global Development at LaLiga; Bessie Lee, CEO of WPP China; and Adam Lashinsky, Editorial Director
of Fortune Brainstorm Tech and Asst. Managing Editor of Fortune.
The attendees were able to participate in an extensive programme of workshops that generated
more than 12 hours of training over the congress's three days. The most popular workshops included
that by Eneko Knorr, founder and CEO of Ludei, with a presentation on How to Do Business in Silicon
Valley, Europe and China: Pros and Cons; and the session led by Juan Álvarez, CEO of Seed & Click,
on Angel Investment in Spain and Europe.
Exporting digital talent
For the second consecutive year Mobile World Capital Barcelona supported a business delegation,
together with the Secretary of State for Telecommunications and the Information Society, through
RED.es, the Regional Government of Catalonia, represented by ACCIÓ, and the City Council of
Barcelona. The expedition consisted of 16 Spanish companies, which participated in various
activities to foster interaction with agents in the local entrepreneurial ecosystem.
According to Eva Martín, cofounder of Tiendeo, "participating in the congress in conjunction with
Mobile World Capital Barcelona allowed us to engage directly with the Asian ecosystem, and strive
to promote new business opportunities in a growing market that we are very interested in entering.
The experience was very positive and we hope to return home with new and specific ideas." Along
this same line, Jordi Casamada, CEO of Accent Systems, added that: “being part of 4YFN has given
us the opportunity to meet with a major electric car manufacturer interested in introducing our
technology in their vehicles. It has also been a great opprtunity to close a meeting with the R&D
team of Huawey to become partof the NB-IoT working group and position ourselves as one of the
first companies worldwide able to develop solutions based on this technology.”
The other companies that formed part of the delegation are Tiendeo, Accent Systems, Bibold,
Crazy4Media Group, Cronos Telecom Europe, Soluciones Cuatroochenta, Enigmedia, Globalcomm
Europe, i2factory, J21 Consulting y Servicios, Moove Team, Mybrana, Víntegris, Adele Robots, CTTC
and Familyar.