- The company will once again have a Wayra stand and an extensive agenda of activities at Four Years From Now (4YFN), the innovation and entrepreneurship conference held together with the Mobile World Congress (MWC).
- More than 30 startups will be showcasing their solutions and participating in different panels on new technologies and investment opportunities.
- To celebrate its 10th Anniversary, Wayra will also be launching an auction of 10 NFT (Non-Fungible Tokens) digital artworks.
Madrid, 23 June 2021 – Telefónica will once again participate in 4YFN, the innovation and entrepreneurship event part of the MWC, with a Wayra stand, its global entrepreneurship hub, and with an agenda with a dozen activities. Taking part in the event will be more than 30 startups in which the company has invested and which it has promoted both through Wayra and other initiatives of its Open Innovation programme aimed at entrepreneurs (Open Future and Telefónica Ventures).
The stand will have an exhibition area where startups will showcase their solutions to the public. The company’s participation is complete with an agenda of panels and meetings in which startup managers, investors and Telefónica representatives will participate.
“4YFN is the perfect event to get in touch with the best entrepreneurial talent and to introduce the initiatives with which we want to support them”, says Irene Gómez, Director of Open Innovation at Telefónica. “By participating, we want to reaffirm Telefónica’s strong commitment to startup collaboration, demonstrated by our open innovation programme, which continues to diversify itself and is on its way to becoming one of the most relevant in the world.”
Ten years of Wayra
Wayra celebrates its tenth anniversary this year after ten years of intense activity with investments of more than 50 million euros in more than 800 startups around the world, more than 250 of which have collaborated directly with Telefónica resulting in more than 285 million euros in revenue for them. Wayra is taking advantage of this 4YFN edition to invite around twenty of these startups to showcase their solutions at its stand. These are young companies such as Payflow, YBVR, Hybrico, ScaleWork and Auravant driven from their 7 hubs in Europe and Latin America.
Among the selection are also startups recently promoted by Wayra through new programmes. Startups such as Shaadow, created by Wayra Builder, the programme for the development of startups based on Telefónica’s internal innovation projects together with other investors; or Suscrip, part of the Wayra X portfolio, the digital hub focused on investments in startups with mass consumption digital products and services
During 4YFN, the celebration is not complete without the launch of Non-Forgettable Ten Years, a collection of 10 NFT (Non-Fungible Tokens) digital artworks envisioning what the future will be like and which can be obtained by participating through the initiative’s website.
Entrepreneurship during pandemic times and new investment opportunities
Telefónica’s presence at 4YFN is completed by the organisation of a dozen meetings and panels in which many other startups will participate between 28 June and 1 July. The company’s objective for this edition is to continue to support entrepreneurs and help them take advantage of the exceptional momentum resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. The confinement caused by COVID-19 has brought about an accelerated digitalisation of society and has led to the emergence of new business opportunities for startups.
Two events stand out in the agenda for 28 June. The first of which will be on the professional retraining of entrepreneurs in the digital era, with a special focus on female entrepreneurship and the participation of CodeOp, Tipscool, and Squadra. The other relevant session of the day will focus on the opportunity presented by the scalability of startup businesses focused on purely digital solutions, the focus of Wayra X investments, with the participation of Stack, Krew and Gazoom.
The main session organised by Telefónica at 4YFN, a presentation on hacking and entrepreneurship by Chema Alonso, Chief Digital Consumer Officer at Telefónica, is scheduled for 29 June. This second day will be rounded off with a panel on how startups are breaking into the digital home with solutions in sectors such as wellbeing and education, with the participation of Nannyfy, Volava and Watchity.
During the last two days of 4YFN, the focus of the agenda will be on analysis of investment opportunities in pandemic times, support for regional and local entrepreneurship through Telefónica Open Future and a panel on innovation and sport with the participation of Humanox and Idoven, among others.
For more information visit Wayra’s stand 2G5 at 4YFN in Hall 2 of the Fira Gran Via in Barcelona.
