Congresses and other events
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The European
Cardiology Congress,
a clear example
of Fira’s strategic
commitment to the
health sector.
More than 200 exhibiting companies
displayed new products and advances in
surgery, imaging techniques and technological
resources to those attending. Experts at the
congress, whose motto was "Innovation and
the Heart”, were keen to stress the new to give
fresh impulse to research into new treatments
to combat the new epidemic of cardiovascular
diseases, which cause the death of four million
people in Europe every year.
Technology meetings
The year also saw the celebration of
important corporate meetings organised
by leading international technology companies
such as SAP FKOM, which brought more than
6,000 people to Barcelona on January 20-24.
The US multinational Hewlett Packard
held its winter and summer meetings, HP ETSS
Winter (February 3-7, 1,200 participants) and
HP ETSS Summer (June 23-27, also 1,200
participants). However, particular mention should
be made of HP Discover, the company’s main
meeting in Europe. Organised in December,
this meeting brought together 12,000
professionals to learn about new developments
in the fields of technology, strategies and best
practice. The main focus was on such themes
as Cloud, Big Data, security and mobility in a
programme of lectures and networking with the
participation of around 1,000 experts. This was
the third consecutive occasion that this event
had been staged at Fira de Barcelona.
From October 13-16, moreover, the firm of
VMware, which specialises in technological
solutions and is a leader in cloud computing,
celebrated VM World, a meeting that brought
together 8,000 experts at the Gran Via venue.
This was the third consecutive time that this
key meeting in the industry had been held
at Fira de Barcelona.
Finally, we should mention the meetings
organised by Microsoft: Microsoft TechEd Europe,
which took place at Fira de Barcelona for the
first time on October 28-31, attended by 6,000
professionals and suppliers of this US company,
who were able to attend technical meetings,
lectures and networking sessions. Moreover,
Microsoft Convergence, which took place in
November 2014, was attended by 3,000 delegates.
