Barcelona Expat Week: Your launchpad for success in the city

Finding your feet:

Relocating can be tough at the best of times, let alone during a global pandemic. For this reason, Barcelona City Council is promoting a new platform to virtually connect the city’s international talent during the COVID-19 pandemic in support of its thriving expat community.

This fall, the city’s international community will benefit from Barcelona Expat Week: a networking event, hosted between 19 and 23 October 2020. The event will have a hybrid format, but will mainly take place online as a remote alternative to International Community Day: the annual event for Barcelona’s expats, organized by Barcelona City Council, which has been postponed this year due to the pandemic.

The event will be broadcast using a new, collaborative, and innovative virtual platform, and will feature a program of online and face-to-face activities that complement the main interests and needs of Barcelona’s international talent.

The conference aims to encourage networking, share knowledge, and provide information on the municipal services and resources available to expats in Barcelona, making the process of relocating and achieving their professional goals in the city easier. What’s more,  leading figures and organizations in Barcelona’s startup ecosystem are participating in the event.

What to expect:

The week’s activities include workshops through real-time videoconferencing, dynamic networking activities, expert-led webinars, and virtual round tables. Not all the activities will be online. To ensure participants have the opportunity to network effectively offline, there may be in-person meet-ups every evening in some of the city’s iconic locations, with all the necessary health and safety measures in place. However, given the constantly evolving nature of Coronavirus, this is subject to further review.

Each day, a distinct theme will be tackled in virtual events led by inspiring expats, all of whom have come from abroad and settled in Barcelona, setting up successful ventures here. Learn from French e-commerce entrepreneur: Ronan Bardet, about how to ensure success in an increasingly digitized commercial landscape, or Lucre Mba Ndong, who relocated to Barcelona from Equatorial Guinea as a child and is the founder of Africa Fashion Week Barcelona, a leading event for the African fashion industry, globally.

Schedule:

Monday 19/10/2020: 

• Opening Conference at 9 am:
  • Barcelona Expat Week will kick off on Monday 19th with the keynote speech 2020, the year that changed the employee experience forever, given by the Practice Lead of Employee Engagement and Experience at Mercer Consulting, Katerina Psychopaida. This expert in talent management will analyse the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic for employees and what future challenges and opportunities this new paradigm opens for talent and companies in Barcelona. The opening conference will also feature the intervention of the First Deputy Mayor, Jaume Collboni, who will explain how Barcelona is positioned in the face of this new scenario and what initiatives are being offered by the City Council for international talent.
• The rest of the day:
  • The focus will be on ‘Personal landing’ and adjusting to life in Barcelona. Throughout the day, you will benefit from advice about how to look for housing, opening a bank account, accessing healthcare, and finding schooling for your children.

Tuesday 20/10/2020:

The day will focus on ‘Work and training’, with a particular emphasis on digital upskilling and learning new languages to boost employability.

Wednesday 21/10/2020: 

The day’s theme will be ‘Talent Without Borders’, and among other things, will feature sessions on building your business network in Barcelona and female entrepreneurship.

Thursday 22/10/2020: 

Today’s focus will be on ‘Doing business and entrepreneurship’, with sessions offering practical advice about how to navigate Barcelona’s startup ecosystem, with a specific emphasis on how to secure funding for your business.

Friday 23/10/2020: 

The day’s theme is ‘Enjoying Barcelona’, with sessions throughout the day about Catalan culture and language as well as discovering the city. There is a meet up at the stylish, upmarket Soho House in the evening.

If you are new to our incredible city and are looking to find ways to settle in culturally, expand your professional network, and understand how to live and work successfully in Barcelona, this event is a must! Register for the event for free here, and access the tools that will make your life in Barcelona a great one.