It is a joy to be entitled to write something like this: the 1st FIWARE Summit was a complete success!
And it is not only something that can be done… it’s a must! This is the appropriate time to point out who is responsible for the Summit surpassing our most optimistic predictions: you.
We would like to thank you as part of the FIWARE Open Community for making our first Summit an occasion to remember. We are still reviewing the main assets resulting from the event and we are also focusing on what should be improved for our future events.

At this moment, we can already share some figures: during the 3 days of the event, the Trade Fairs and Congress Center in Málaga gathered 300 participants from 18 countries. The summit comprised 39 tech sessions and 13 business sessions, with the participation of no less than 37 speakers and 32 technical experts. Additionally, 11 exhibitors were showcasing their powered by FIWARE solutions.

Keynote speakers, how-to sessions, working meetings, a developers’ primer the first day, high-level panels on each one of the main verticals and programmes around FIWARE… and coffee breaks, lunches and an evening networking event with food, drinks and music! The 1st FIWARE Summit intended to be the most comprehensive experience possible for all and each one of the attendees.

We had the pleasure to be joined by the local and regional authorities, namely the Mayor of the City of Málaga, Francisco de la Torre Prados, and the representative of the Government of Andalucía, José Sánchez Maldonado (Regional Council for Work, Industry and Trade). Both of them spoke at the opening session, emphasizing the importance of the Summit for a smart city like Málaga and for a region that has always bet on the open technology, like Andalucía is.

The FIWARE Foundation was represented by Ulrich Ahle (CEO), Stefano de Panfilis (COO), Juan José Hierro (CTO) and Hubert Tardieu (Atos CEO Advisor) as chairman of the FIWARE Foundation Board of Directors, also including Rosalía Simón (Smart Cities Director at Telefónica), Patrice Slupowski (VP Digital Innovation at Orange) and Dario Avallone (R&D Director at Engineering).

In the closing session of the event, Ahle reviewed the main announcements that were made at the Summit. We will be going over all of them in detail, through a series of individual posts. But let’s summarize now what the different initiatives and programmes were presenting.

In brief, FIWARE announced:

• The FIWARE Accelerate programme gets renewed, with two spin-off projects: IMPACT Growth and Frontier Cities 2. With more than 5M € to be distributed supporting powered by FIWARE projects, the new calls are announced to be open by the beginning of 2017. Frontier Cities 2 will be focusing on developing solutions for the urban communities, while IMPACT Growth will be accelerating startups across different sectors, including Smart Cities, Smart Manufacturing, Smart Agrifood and Smart Content Verticals.
• The FIWARE Mundus Committee will continue promoting the usage of FIWARE and the set-up of the FIWARE ecosystems at global level. FIWARE Mundus will seek to enlarge international membership, explore common business opportunities and foster FIWARE nodes and FIWARE instances installations around the Globe. With Jacques Magen (InterInnov, FI-GLOBAL) as its provisional chairman, the Mundus Committee presented the ongoing initiatives worldwide and the list of action points to be taken in the short and long-term.
• The FIWARE iHub programme, designed to act upon the global FIWARE strategy, but at a local level. With the iHubs as physical meeting points for the community, the programme aims to show the path by example, offering coaching and training for developers and SMEs, organizing hackathons, collaborating with universities, showcasing commercial solutions, etc. Also, the FIWARE Zone initiative was presented, starting with two innovation centers in Málaga and Sevilla.
• The FIWARE Marketplace was launched during the FIWARE Summit, as a tool to help finding out who is offering solutions and services based on our open source technology.  It comprise a list of Powered by FIWARE solutions, FIWARE IoT-ready device manufacturers and providers of both Training and Consultancy/Integration services. The FIWARE Foundation will soon offer professional certifications for FIWARE trainers and certifiers.
• The FIWARE Foundation, that was set in motion by the Core Industry Group members (Atos, Engineering, Orange and Telefónica) is now joined by more Gold and individual members. FundingBox –the public funding platform upholding the IMPACT Growth accelerator–, Smart Cities Lab –the think-tank that is currently running the FIWARE activities undergoing in India– and Zabala Innovation Consulting –formerly leading Finodex, the Open Data accelerator– joined as Gold Members. Plus 37 individual members who also have joined the Foundation.
• Finally, the Foundation announced the 2nd FIWARE Summit, to take place in Berlin by the end of May 2017. Save the date in your agendas!

We have published a video overviewing what happened in Málaga. You will find it at the end of this post.
Each one of the activities in the main rooms were recorded in video. The first-day developers’ prime and the panels on days 2 and 3 were live-streamed. You can find them now, in a rough edit, on our YouTube channel. Soon, individually edited videos will be shared.
Also, we will be publishing each one of the presentations that were shown at the event.

After all this, after all the excitement, the good news and the hard work, it is probably the perfect time to think not only about the FIWARE Community: take a minute now and think about all the people in your life. How did you initially meet? What brought you closer together? From shared interests to specific events, from scheduled activities to casual networking. Each occurrence that builds upon the trust, the knowledge, the reciprocity and shared best practices that improve the quality of life within a human ecosystem and make a project thriving and resilient.

Personal relationships are built on a day-by-day basis. And a community like ours is worthing a lot more when it manages to reach new contributors, to convince them to join in and, at the same time, the engagement between the present and future members is deepened.
The 1st FIWARE Summit has accomplished to do that, enriching our social capital. And that should mark the biggest difference between having a good… or a great future ahead!

With events like this Summit, the community members will be able to keep creating their own value. The platform will be strengthening. The technology will keep advancing and being adopted. New partnerships will be started and people new to and interested in FIWARE will find a perfect chance to be joining the community, joining our global ecosystem. In Málaga, during each one of the sessions, there was a sense of great attention and the will to participate, to be enhancing the hands-on learning process about FIWARE, thus greatly improving the direct and institutional communication and the relationship within the Open Community, always based on merit, transparency and trust.

For the 2nd FIWARE Summit we are looking forward to offering an even better experience for the community members. So, please, if you were present at the 1st Summit in Málaga or followed it online, or maybe you have a notion about how to improve the involvement and participation of the attendants… just write us! Send an email to the FIWARE Press Office.
We will love to receive your ideas and we are counting on your support to make the encounter in Berlin the perfect place and time to gather and to keep moving forward. Thank you in advance and thank you, again, for making this 1st FIWARE Summit a great success.

Together, we build FIWARE! And the best is yet to come.