Mobile World Congress, the world's largest and most influential technology and connectivity fair with over 80 000 visitors took place after some quieter years. This year 17 Finnish SME's participated Finland Country Pavilion.
Business Finland was not only the provider of the overall look-and-feel but also a matchmaker at the event. The Finland pavilion hosted a networking event and Business Finland organized several networking visits to MWC-company stands such as Nokia, Ericsson, Huawei, Cellnex and other country pavilions. In addition, marketing and PR activities were done by Business Finland. Some Finnish companies attended also EEN's Open Innovation Challenge.
MWC is a hot spot of the newest technological achievements and an event to publish the brightest news of the industry. Non-arguably the biggest release came out on Sunday, a day before the start of MWC week, when Nokia released their new visual identity and strategy.
For the companies, participating at MWC is so much more than standing next to your booth at the exhibition space! Most of the work is done before the event and exhibition days are filled with meetings with potential partners and other networking opportunities.
MWC is one of the Business Finland's chosen global events that are planned to take place each year. This year's MWC was a common project and a big effort for three our programs: 6G Bridge, Sustainable Manufacturing and Digital Trust Finland. Planning for the next year's event is already starting.
State Secretary Pilvi Torsti opened Finland's main event 'Roadmapping 6G Development'. Event was very successful and gathered hundreds of exhibition goers to network over keynote speeches about 6G development and critical communications in Finland. All pavilion partners also had their spotlight for one minute pitch each to introduce them to the big crowd. The ambassador of Finland in Spain, Sari Rautio also honored the event with her participation.
The participation rate of the event was a pleasant surprise and exceeded all expectations. Finland was clearly seen as an interesting partner and our communication spearhead 6G development was great icebreaker and attracted the international target group. Finnish pavilion partners expressed their positive feedback immediately after the event.
Finnish companies, research organizations and universities at the Pavilion included Aalto University, Creanord, Cumucore, Eva Global, Fusionlayer, Hamina Wireless, Mentura, Movya, Noccela, Nolwenture, Omnitele, Orbis Systems, Portalify, Radiotor Software, University of Helsinki, VTT Technical Research Center of Finland and Wirepas.
Lotta Hanski
Head of Marketing
Business Finland