Barcelona Digital City

According to the 2016 European Digital City Index, Barcelona is the ninth ranked European city for supporting digital entrepreneurship, in a list of 30 major European cities.

Barcelona has over 12,500 technological companies, which have been created in a very short period of time, as 50% of them did not exist five years ago.

Barcelona City Council, with Barcelona Activa as promoter, aims to contribute to the development of the city's technological economy and digital ecosystem by offering services and activities that are part of its current portfolio, as well as creating new ad hoc projects that will place the City of Barcelona on the map of cities that wish to become major players in the technological and digital area.

This digital ecosystem exists because of its ability to attract talent, which is fostered by various initiatives, including: 4YFN, a business platform for the community of emerging technological companies, promoted by Mobile World Capital Barcelona (MWCB); Barcelona Startup Week, which aims to foster interaction among the city's entrepreneurs and promote networking; and Pier01, from Barcelona Tech City in 2016, a pioneering business-acceleration programme for emerging digital entrepreneurs, in order to prepare them for internationalisation and to attract talent.

In the knowledge economy, it is necessary to highlight the critical mass of the Catalan job market in sectors with high added value.

In 2015, Catalonia was ranked as the fifth European region with most people working in manufacturing that involves medium-high to high technological intensity, the seventh in terms of people working in science and technology and ninth for employment in cutting-edge knowledge and technology services.

Barcelona is also ranked fifth in Europe and seventeenth in the world for scientific production, according to Knowledge Cities Ranking 2015, produced by the UPC's Centre of Land Policy and Valuations.