The Barcelona International Convention Centre (CCIB) welcomed one of the main annual conventions of the multinational company specializing in technology, Cisco, for the European, Middle Eastern and African market (EMEA).
The event, attended by 4,000 professionals, took place from the 25th to the 28th of January, and this was the third consecutive year the CCIB hosted the Networkers at Cisco Live encounter, one of the most internationally important in the telecommunications sector.
The CCIB is one of the few Centres in Europe that can house an event of these characteristics at a single site, not only due to its size and the number of attendees, but also because of its considerable technological and logistical resources as well as the necessary venue flexibility and adaptability and easy access.
In addition, the Centre meets all the highest standards of environmental sustainability and respect that are paramount at this Convention. The CCIB’s tech crew and workforce successfully took on these challenges for the third consecutive year.
A multitude of simultaneous activities Multiple simultaneous sessions and activities were held over the four days: more than 240 of a technical and formative nature, in addition to other essentially practical and interactive formats.
Delegates had an opportunity to immerse themselves in the World of Solutions, the technological exhibition where Cisco presents its latest innovations alongside those of its partner companies.
At the end of each day, the venue was transformed to cater for social and networking parties, with live performances and musical and gastronomic references from Spanish culture, on a stage with circular rigging and a cutting-edge digital lighting system.
The multiple use of difference areas was made possible thanks to the Barcelona Centre’s exceptional flexibility and logistic capacity, facilitating daily setup and teardown.
Highly technological infrastructures and the tech crew’s expertise There are very few events venues in Spain that are technologically equipped to house an encounter characterized by a powerful display of the latest advances and a wide variety of specified technologies.
The CCIB boasts an infrastructure that facilitates the network extension required by Cisco: multimode and monomode optical fibre throughout the entire site, providing connectivity from any given point in the building; category 6 copper cables, one of the highest with the greatest connection speed; and powerful Internet output.
These services, along with the CCIB tech crew’s outstanding expertise, make it the ideal venue for staging these types of events.
A green Centre for a sustainable event Both the convention’s planning and its production and teardown were performed under strict environmental and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) criteria.
A sustainable committee, made up of Cisco and CCIB professionals, was in charge of applying and supervising compliance with these criteria, which are mainly based on generating the smallest possible amount of waste, recycling products and offsetting the event’s environmental impact.
Even in the Catering department, organized by CCIB Catering, local ingredients were used, as well as dishes made from especially recyclable plastic and water fountains that replaced plastic bottles, among other aspects.
Providing collection points for credentials to be recycled, the absence of plastic bags, the use of recycled paper, the minimum use of carpets and their subsequent recycling, as well as the positioning of batteries of ecological waste bins throughout the entire site are just some of the other measures that were introduced.
The sorting of waste products into six different types, in addition to special waste management, is common practice at the CCIB, which has a temporary waste transfer plant in the building itself, unique in a venue of its characteristics in Spain.
As far as Corporate Social Responsibility is concerned, Cisco invited a group of 20 female students to its convention, aiming to bring Information Technologies (IT) closer to this group and give them an opportunity to exchange opinions with female professionals from this technological giant.
Another highlight was the giving of all textile materials left over from the event to charitable foundations, as well as the donation of 1 Euro to a NGO for each event evaluation survey completed by the delegates.
Image: Barcelona International Convention Centre
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