24.02.2014 - 11:53
Thursday it was announced that Facebook would buy the WhatsApp Messaging service for 16 billion dollars. And today the two leaders of the agreement, Mark Zuckerberg and the Ukrainian Jan Koum will both be speakers on the first day of the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona. It will perhaps be the first opportunity to know what happened on Saturday when WhatsApp went offline for several hours; no explication has been given yet.
Koum is one of the morning session speakers (11:15am–12:45pm), dedicated to changes in the mobil technology scenario and Zuckerberg will speak in the early evening (6-6:45pm), about the future of mobility and universal access to the internet.
Those who can’t attend will have the chance to see Mark Zuckerberg’s keynote from the auditorium of the Association of Dentists and Stomatologists of Catalonia on Travessera de Gràcia, which will retansmit the broadcast live.
Big names and big numbers
GSMA, the organizer of the top world event in mobil telephony, anticipates that 75,000 technology professionals will pass through the doors of the exhibit halls between today and Thursday, 3000 more than last year. This would be the best attendance ever over the nine years of the event, which is estimated to spend 340 million euros in the city (4% more than last year).
The event, whose slogan this year is “Creating what’s next” has 1700 exhibitors, spread over 94,000 square meters in the Fira Gran Via.
