King Felipe VI of Spain on Monday inaugurated the Mobile World Congress (MWC)-2023, an annual get-together of the big players of the telecom industry.
Some 80,000 delegates are expected at the four-day get-together of all the industrial titans, which is back to near full strength following years of pandemic-related disruption.
The Spanish King inaugurated the congress in front of about one and a half million people in Barcelona. The country’s president Prado Sanchez also attended the opening ceremony.
One of the aspects of this year’s event is the addition of ‘Velocity’, the outline of an upcoming smart world. Velocity is a global initiative by the telecom industries around the world which is the centre of focus in this year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC).
According to the velocity initiative, nearly one billion people will be connected to the 5G network by the end of 2023. Countries around the world are expected to come under smart technologies from next year.
The initiative was taken to ensure that no country is left behind on the way forward to digital transformation.
In a world divided by culture, ethnicity, and language, the velocity initiative also aims to bridge the gap among the people around the world.
Hundreds of thousands of tech enthusiasts from more than 200 countries attended the opening ceremony of the event. At the ceremony, King Felipe called on everyone to ensure the humane use of technology for the future.
“We will go further with technology. However, innovators and service providers need to be aware that their technology doesn't dehumanize people and turn them into heartless machines,” he said.
The telecom industry giants have pledged to be at the forefront of the "tsunami of innovation."
"We are at the doors of a new change of era driven by the intersection of Telco, Computing, Artificial Intelligence and Web3," said Jose Maria Alvarez-Pallete, boss of Spanish operator Telefonica and current chairman of industry body GSMA, which organizes the Barcelona event.
He promised the telecoms industry would be at the forefront of the "tsunami of innovation", adding: "Without telcos there is no digital future."
GSMA Chairman said, the purpose of this year's Mobile World Congress is a little different than before, which is reflected in the main theme. This year's main theme is to ensure the use of information technology to build a world free from poverty
This year's Mobile World Congress has the exhibition center of ten thousand companies from almost two hundred countries. Industrial titans like Huawei, Nokia and Samsung are set to showcase their latest innovations, flanked by smartphone makers like Oppo and Xiaomi and network operators like Orange, Verizon, and China Mobile.
The world is now gripped by a fear that the machine is leading to the destruction of human civilization. Tech giants from around the world said they are working on humanizing the machines. They’re also showing people how technology is changing people's lives and the pattern of work.
According to the innovators attending the conference, it is now necessary for people to learn about new technologies. Technology will not replace people’s jobs, rather it will make their work easier, they said.