MWC Barcelona, still commonly called the Mobile World Congress, is annual mobile communications trade show held in Barcelona.
While this is the flagship event, there are other MWC events in the Americas, Asia, and Africa. It is truly a global event.
In this blog post, we will explore some of the winners and the exciting advancements they brought to MWC Barcelona, which was held at the end of February in 2024.
EdgeQ Wins Multiple Awards
This year at MWC, EdgeQ was the only semiconductor startup to win awards. EdgeQ won “Best Digital Tech Breakthrough for Companies with Under $10 Million Annual Global Revenue.
They also took home the highly coveted “CTO Choice Award for Outstanding Mobile Technology” award.
The CTO Choice Award is chosen by a pannel of more than 20 CTO winners from around the world. They select the overall technology winner from each of the seven best “Mobile Tech” award winners ever year.
EdgeQ is doing very exciting work. The startup has created the world’s first ever “Base station-on-a-chip.”
This gives opens up new possibilities to operators, cloud service providers, and businesses new opportunities when it comes to networks.
With their chip, users can create, configure, and deploy adaptable public and private networks easily and more affordably than before.
EdgeQ offers a converged 4G+5G+AI platform. This allows service providers to deploy and upgrade sysrems at scale without having to rip out and replace their entire network configuration to make changes.
Huawei Wins ‘Best Mobile Technology Breakthrough’
At MWC Barcelona 2024, Huawei won the GSMA GLOMO ‘Best Mobile Technology Breakthrough’ award. This is because of its “0 Bit 0 Watt” solution.
Huawei is known for its leading native-green network technology. In fact, this is the first time at MWC Barcelona that a network solution designed with conserving energy in mind won the Best Mobile Technology Breakthrough Award.
There are number of reasons why this technology is considered so groundbreaking in the mobile and communications world. Huawei’s native-green technologies were designed specifically to ensure premium experience and high energy efficiency at the same time.
The RF equipment consumes less than 10 watts of power during idle hours. This involves zero-load hours and a switch-off depth level of 99%. It also wakes up in seconds when activated by users.
This is the first solution to support all of these capabilities at the same time.
Huawei also leverages intelligent technology to better resource and power scheduling at the network and site levels. As such, networks are able to identify service types and scenarios. They then allocate and schedule network resources to suit various scenarios.
This ensures that energy is distributed to ensure maximum efficiency. Their aim is to combine energy efficiency with a premium user experience on 5G networks.
So far, “0 Bit 0 Watt” has been deployed on over two dozen networks globally. It has been showed to decrease the energy of consumption of users between 9% and 38%.
Rakuten Symphony Wins Best Network Software Breakthrough
According to Rakuten:
All people need connectivity. Rakuten is reinventing telecom by greatly reducing cost, rewarding big users not penalizing them, empowering more people and leading the human centric AI future.
Rakuten refers to itself as a diverse ecosystem of more than 70 services. Outside of those knowledgeable in tech, many online shoppers probably know of Rakuten as the online platform which offers cashback on online purchases.
At MWC Barcelona 2024, they won the Best Network Software Breakthrough award for their Symworld with Juniper RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC).
So, what exactly is RIC? The RIC is a key element in the management of 5G network functions. This includes things like:
- network slicing
- high-bandwidth
- low-latency applications
- prioritized communications
According to RCR Wireless:
The RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) is an essential component of the Open RAN architecture. The RIC architecture includes a Distributed Unit (DU) software function, multi-RAT CU protocol stack, a near-real time RIC and orchestration/NMS layer with Non-Real Time RIC.
Rakuten Symphony also won the GLOMO Best Cloud Solution award for Symworld Cloud.
The Digital Everything Award Winners
The Best Mobile Innovation for Connected Economy award went to the Guangzhou Metro, China Mobile International Limited, and ZTE Corporation.
This award was for the 5G-empowered Smart Metro in Guangzhou.
The Best Mobile Innovation for Connected Health and Wellbeing award was also won by Chinese companies. This award went to the Xuanwu Hospital of Capital Medical University, China Unicom, Citc, and Huawei.
This is for their combined successful efforts on the 5G Mobile Stroke Unit in the hospital. This is meant for maintaining the brain health of patients with 5G capabilities.
When it comes to Web3, the winner of Best Mobile Innovation for Web3 is Authena for their Secured Phygitals technology.
According to Authena’s site:
We are a Swiss company founded in 2018 to support brands in fighting against counterfeiting and diversion through an advanced Authenticity and Traceability as a Service platform.
Today, by combining the power of blockchain with multiple proprietary IoT devices, we protect the authenticity, prevent the diversion and provide real time traceability for both physical and digital products and assets such as NFTs.
Considering the prevalence of fraud in the emerging crypto and web3 spaces, companies that create successful security solutions are necessary for this sector.
Device and Tech4Good Award Winners
These awards celebrate innovative hardware developments that are evolving what mobile can do!
The Best Smartphone Award went to the Apple iPhone 14 Pro. The Disruptive Device Innovation award also went to Apple for their Emergency SOS via satellite feature.
The Best Connected Consumer Device Award went to a Turkish Company. This is the NXTWEAR S device created by TCL Communication Turkiye. Motorola Solutions won the Best in Show award for their Bullitt-made Defy Satellite Link.
Huawei, which has done a lot of exciting work over the past year and won several GLOMO awards both individually and in collaboration, won Best Mobile Innovation for Emerging Markets.
They were recognized for their work on RuralLink–Green: “Simplified, and Evolvable Solution for Rural Connectivity.”
The Best Mobile Innovation Supporting Emergency or Humanitarian Situations was won by LifeCell International Pvt.Ltd for Project Operator’s Work Under Fire.
LifeCell is a biotechnology company located in Chennai, India. According to the company’s LinkedIn:
Established in 2004, LifeCell is the nation’s largest stem cell and tissue storage bank. We combine modern sciences with traditional Ayurvedic knowledge, offering innovative personal care products. We’re committed to making our solutions accessible and affordable so that advanced technologies benefit everyone.
The Best Use of Mobile for Accessibility & Inclusion award was won by South Korea’s SK Telecom, LBStech, and SAPEON Korea Inc. This was for their work on ‘G-EYE PLUS Powered by SKT’s Visual Localisation and Mapping Technology (VLAM).’
Other GLOMO Award Winners To Note
The government of India won the MWC Government Leadership Award. India is a country that is quickly growing in terms of mobile use, business, and technological innovation.
India especially is a rapidly growing global hub for startups, with funding soaring over the last decade due to investor confidence. 16,000 new tech companies began in India in 2020 alone.
Investment firms have shown strong confidence in Indian startups over the last year. There was a total funding of $8.4 billion into Indian startups in 2023.
Eugina Jordan , CMO at Telecom Infra Project won the Diversity in Tech award for her work. In addition Chairman at dyna LLC Martin Cooper won a Lifetime Acheivement award.
Martin Cooper is a 95-year-old American Engineer who is widely considred to be the inventor of one of the first ever handheld cellular devices. This device made the first ever cell phone call in the early 1970s.
Final Thoughts on the GLOMO Award Winners
As you can see, a lot of exciting advancements are being made globally. The world is becoming more connected and 5G, web3, and more are being applied to public transportation, digital security, medicine, and more.
Advancements are being made in so many areas, as well as there being a spotlight on sustainability. It is certainly an exciting time when it comes to all things mobile. The future is bright!
What do you think? Comment below.
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