Welcoming eSIM Go!

Thank you to eSIM Go for sponsoring this year's bash. Some of you will already know Shanks and the eSimGo team as they're no strangers to our little annual bash, and with it their expertise and experience in the mobile industry. Mobile is opening up. In an industry that has previously been difficult to break into, the team decided to make it easy by pioneering digital mobile and levelling the playing field for everyone. eSIM Go does just that by championing simplicity, innovation and inclusivity, breaking through barriers so any business, of any size can provide top-tier connectivity solutions. There's nothing they don't know about mobile and only eSIM Go can empower you to build digital-first connectivity experiences your customers will love. Whoever you are, and however you want to go to market, the eSIM Go team can transform you into an eSIM superhero in a matter of days and without upfront investment, tech barriers or experience. Yes, they really make it that simple and straightforward to do.

Welcome back nQuiringMinds and Copper Horse!

 It wouldn't be Swedish Beers without a few familiar faces so it's always a delight to welcome back sponsors from last year - Copper Horse and NquiringMinds. Without support like this, Swedish Beers simply wouldn't happen.

Cybersecurity is on everyone's minds right now, whether you're a big business needing to protect your infrastructure and systems, a government needing to keep your citizens safe or a consumer like me who just wants to keep their digital life safe. As our lives and work become both increasingly connected and increasingly digital, cybersecurity increases in importance too. Well, thank goodness we have teams like the one at Copper Horse who really know how to handle this stuff.

Copper Horse is a specialist in mobile, AI, automotive and IoT security. It is currently focused on future security for 6G, developing resilient and robust AI assurance mechanisms, and providing cyber security expertise across many sectors to businesses globally. Their CEO, David Rogers, (who has been coming to Swedish Beers for almost as long as it's been running in Barcelona) will be on hand with beer tokens and chat.

And where would we be right now in the middle of the AI revolution without some companies who truly understand the implications of that and how best to deploy AI technologies, and not least agentic AI. Fortunately, we know some people who are expert in this - Nick Allott and his team from NquiringMinds. Their Volt4.AI platform empowers organisations to deploy and manage secure AI agents. Its fully distributed security model supports deployments in public/private clouds or at the edge, enabling cross-organisational data sharing and agent collaboration. NquiringMinds works with the best and the brightest people on hard data sharing and data analytics problems across a range of industries including agriculture, defence, fintech, healthcare, industry and security.

Announcing our first sponsors...

Welcome back zzz.co.uk and Combain!

We haven't seen Helen from ZZZ for a few years but are absolutely delighted to welcome her back to Swedish Beers. Some of you may well know ZZZ as specialists for client, team and crew accommodation in apartments and hotels in Barcelona. But did you know they also find great activation and event spaces too! And not only in Barcelona, but also Cannes, Monaco and Davos! Helen and the team at ZZZ aim to take the hassle out of finding your event accommodation with their central, great quality accommodation options and they also have unique spaces to bring your brand to life.

Combain started life as a research project 20 years ago because they wanted to improve mobile positioning and reduce the need for power-hungry GNSS calculations. The project was spun out of Ericsson in 2009 and Combain Mobile AB was born to make global location solutions accessible to everyone. Ever since, the team's mission has been simple: to locate everything everywhere and are established as leaders in seamless indoor and outdoor global positioning. Find them at MWC this year in Hall 7, Stand 7D1.

It Was Twenty Years Ago Today - Edition #18 Barcelona 2026

Doesn't time fly! I can hardly believe it but it's 20 years since Swedish Beers first came to BCN at MWC! It wasn't even called Mobile World Congress back then, it was 3GSM and it took over La Fira at Placa Espanya. I took a last minute decision to head to Barcelona for a few days and take in the show. (I'd missed out on visiting 3GSM at Cannes due to the lack of accommodation and the huge cost of staying anywhere nearby.) 

I'd already been hosting Swedish Beers in London at that point for almost 5 years so I put the word out I'd be in town and some of my regulars and some international bloggers about mobile who I'd met online turned up in a bar in a hotel in Gracia. There were about 25 of us there if I remember rightly. Not only was it lovely to hang out with my tribe but I also saw that week that there was a real need for a more grass roots style event during Mobile World Congress where people could connect on a human level. I feel that is still true today. Little could I imagine back then that I would still be doing this 20 years later! But here I am.

The next party is happening next week on Wednesday 4 March from 7pm onwards and we're back at Space Cowboy where I'm sure we'll be well looked after by Adam and his team at the bar. And for conversation and good vibes, we'll have Shanks Kulam and Nick Allott with beer tokens in hand. More sponsors tba.

If you work in or around mobile, this networking event is for you! RSVP required and you can do that over on Eventbrite.

If you'd like to connect with several hundred mobilists, meet everyone on the night, and create and contribute to memories that people will be talking about for years to come, please sponsor the event. Sponsorships available from £500. All the money goes behind the bar and to the related people and admin costs of running the event. This is not a money-making exercise for me. The more sponsors, the more beer tokens and the more fun for everyone. Please contact me to discuss to help the legend live on.

Below are some memories from last year's bash.

See you in Barcelona! Tell your friends! Let's have a blast!

Skål

Helen

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Follow us:

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LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/swedish-beers-mobile-networking/ and https://www.linkedin.com/company/heroes-of-mobile/

Wanna talk MVNOs, eSIM, or CPaaS? xMobility and Travelroam are in the house.

xMobility are the global CPaaS, eSIM and MVNO experts. They power the services that you create. They enable the enablers, connecting clients with customers and customers with each other. As a technology partner of Three UK for well over a decade, x-Mobility pioneered the digital MVNO market with their own AppVNO® and have enabled some of the leading brands in the sector. Shanks Kulam has been coming to Swedish Beers for many years and this is not his first time sponsoring so I'm delighted to welcome him and his team back one more time.

This year, he's bringing one of his partner companies, Travel Roam.

It's a fully managed eSIM retail platform for bold brands. The Travel Roam Partners quick-to-market solution removes the ongoing cost, stress and long term commitment from launching your own eSIM Travel Retail operation. Your brand, your customers, our expertise.

New for 2025... boku!

Many of you will already know Trevor Goldberg from Boku. He's been to every single one of the Swedish Beers parties in Barcelona and many in London too. And there's not much he doesn't know when it comes to mobile payments.

Boku firmly believes that the future of payments is local - Boku is the payment network trusted by tech giants like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, Sony, Meta, Spotify and tencent. Did you know that more people today pay with a local payment method, than with a Visa or MasterCard? (Ed: I didn't! ) Boku is a leading global provider of mobile payment solutions globally (HQ in London but offices globally)and its Payment Network has the world’s largest selection of local payment methods, reaching over 7 billion consumer payment accounts in more than 90 countries worldwide, serving 300+ payment methods, including mobile wallets, direct carrier billing, and account to account/real-time payments schemes.

Boku works with the world’s largest merchants helping them to grow their businesses, with payments that reach mobile-first consumers, targeted marketing programs that attract, engage, and retain digital subscription users, and merchant services that ease the complexities of global settlement, compliance, tax, and fraud mitigation. Sounds pretty neat to me. If you need help to simplify sign-up, acquire new paying users and prevent fraud, then chat to Trevor. This is boku's first time sponsoring and hopefully not their last!

Absence makes the heart grow fonder... welcome back Apadmi

Want talk about all things mobile apps? Then come and find Nick Black and his team from Apadmi. Apadmi designs, develops and optimises mobile apps for leading brands. They unlock new value through strategy, platforms, middleware and systems integrations that transform the way they work. Nick (not to be confused with fellow sponsor Nick Allott!) and his team are no strangers to the joy of Swedish Beers but it's been a while since they were last with us in Barcelona. Absence just makes the heart grow fonder though so I'm delighted to welcome them back.

Nick is particularly interested in finding the new new this year at MWC, you know, the real game-changing stuff with substance over style. Feel free to share your MWC Greatest Hits with him on Wednesday night in exchange for a beer token or two.

aql and Trusti are back sponsoring Swedish Beers

Oh, it's good to have returning sponsors! Professor Adam Beaumont has been sponsoring Swedish Beers since the early days and has sponsored more Swedish Beers parties than anyone else. Now that's a claim to fame!

aql is one of the UK's most innovative telecoms operators and a hidden enabler of smart cities. They believe that by powering a connected society through their enabling technology it will create more efficient, smarter and more resilient cities. in so doing, it will make society better and build a better future for all. aql can help you with messaging, connectivity, 5G as a service, voice, MTM and IOT, colocation and innovation. 

As well as running aql, he's also supporting new tech businesses including Trusti. Trusti provides trust-as-a-service in the data and physical domain. Securing SMS, IoT and code providing NFTs to preserve physical value. 

Trusti is an auditable token platform built to support lifecycle integrity across any industry or process. It's the globally trusted certificate authority and immutable ledger architecture behind Trusti Tokens, which are publicly verifiable, secure, and flexible enough to suit all use cases. That could be CA as a service for enterprise, defence or government, for example. The Trusti Token can also be generated as a secure QR code, and Adam can show you that in action on the night in exchange for a beer token or two.

Welcome to the Swedish Beers family, Trusti and welcome back aql!

Dr Nick joins us once more from nquiringminds

NquiringMinds is back for the third time supporting Swedish Beers. 

It's a trusted AI company led by the super-smart Dr Nick Allott. NquiringMinds is building secure AI agents. NquiringMinds' VOLT4.AI platform helps customers develop and deploy secure AI agents on top of a solid zero trust backbone. Everything is underpinned by fully distributed digital identities; giving the customers full control of their data and providing ultimate flexibility on where and how their systems are hosted. The company is multi-award winning, with customers across telecoms, defence and manufacturing sectors. With security at its core, Volt4.AI paves the way for confident AI agent collaboration.

Nick and his team are also lovely so I'm delighted to welcome them back. 

Welcoming David Rogers and his team from Copper Horse

Long time attendees and friend of Swedish Beers but first time sponsor -- I'm delighted to welcome David Rogers and his team from Copper Horse. 

Copper Horse is a UK-based company specialising in future cyber security. The organisation only takes on interesting and complex projects, operating in the mobile, IoT, automotive and AI domains across the world. The company is currently working on the future protection of AI systems and telecommunications networks. Copper Horse also works on international standards in the internet and mobile space, helping to make technologies 'secure by design' through better standards and recommendations.

Copper Horse also supports the security research community in the car hacking and policy domain, as well as working on interdisciplinary research - get this - the company is currently researching deciphering 17th century shorthand using AI which it intends to open source. 

And, as if that wasn't enough, it also supports STEM development for young people, sponsoring the premier league of indoor and outdoor skiing in the UK, the Copper Horse GBR Series as well as partaking and sponsoring in esports sim racing with its car hacking simulator rig (see pic).

Find out more at https://copperhorse.co.uk

With all that going on, I'm sure you'll find something to talk about with David!

Yeah, baby, we're back!

Yes, it's that time of year mobile friends when 100,000 or so of us descend on Barcelona for our annual shindig that is Mobile World Congress. And for the SEVENTEENTH time, Swedish Beers will be back hosting your favourite networking party of the week. If you work in or around the mobile industry, you are very welcome to attend.

We're back at Space Cowboy as they looked after us so well last year and the year before. We'll be open from 7pm until late. No admission after 01:00. We will revert to a pay bar if/when the beer tokens run out. Photo ID (eg. your MWC pass) may be required. We reserve the right to refuse admission. 

RSVP is required. Please do that here -- https://swedishbeersBCN2025.eventbrite.co.uk

The format will be the same as previous years - a relaxed evening, no formalities, no presentations. Please come with an open mind, be prepared to see friends old and new, chat, enjoy a drink or two (courtesy of our sponsors*) and have yourself a good time. Oh, and please leave the corporate personas and the sales spiel at the door. 

This year's event is sponsored by aql, Trusti, Boku Inc, Apadmi, NquiringMinds, Copper Horse, x-Mobility and TravelRoam Partners. 

The Swedish Beers crew (which includes the sponsors) and the friendliest bar staff in town will be on hand to give you a warm welcome.

*If you'd like to support the party by being a sponsor and joining this year's line-up, please get in touch with Helen. The more sponsors, the more beer tokens we'll have. You'll get your own bag of tokens so you'll make a lot of friends very quickly over the evening.

See you in Barcelona.

Skål

Helen and Team Swedish Beers

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Please note, RSVP'ing here or on LinkedIn does not guarantee entry. If you want to guarantee entry, please contact Helen about being a sponsor. 

Spanish licencing law requires us to keep to a specific capacity which means there might be a small queue when you arrive. We always manage to get everyone in who wants to come in so please don't be put off by the wait. The queue generally moves quite quickly. We do ask you to keep the noise down whilst waiting.

We reserve the right to refuse entry. Beer tokens valid while bar tab lasts and then we will revert to a pay bar. No admission after 01:00.

Well, that was quite the night! Thank you for coming!

It always takes me a little while to get over the intensity and madness of Mobile World Congress. There's so much to see, so many people to meet and so many good conversations to digest and mull over. Throw in some sleep deprivation and being out of my usual routine means I take time out to recover.

I'm still buzzing about the whole show, but in particular, I'm buzzing about Swedish Beers. It was such a fun night. Thank you to everyone who came - Swedish Beers is nothing without all of you, whether you're one of my regulars or discovering the party for the first time.  

A big thank you to my sponsors: Toby at Headforwards, Adam from aql and TrustiUK, Anton & Steph from Imagination, Nick from nquiring Minds,  Eduardo from Monedata, the Combain Team, Ian from DigitelTalk, and Troy from SER Team. Of course, their financial support is needed and pays for all the beers. But to me, the personal support they give me means just as much.

And let's not forget the fab team at Space Cowboy who looked after us so well. They kept the beers and cocktails flowing and joined in the fun too. They tell me we were all lovely too. Praise indeed.

And finally, thank you to my gorgeous photographer Erika Arias who always manages to capture the occasion so well. You can see for yourself here.

 

I am planning a London comeback edition of Swedish Beers very soon - watch this space, as they say. If you fancy sponsoring, please get in touch.

Until the next time!

Skal

Helen

The photos are up on Flickr!

 A big thank you to Erika Arias for the fabulous photos once more. You're all looking gorgeous in them. You'll also find some of the pix over on our instagram. [Update] They were on Facebook until our page there got hacked and disappeared. Sigh.

Until the next time. Skal!

The full complement!

Click on the image to register or go here https://swedishbeersBCN2024.eventbrite.co.uk

 

There's nothing like a bit of last minute sponsorship...! Welcome back nquiringminds

You may remember Dr Nick Allott from last year's party. Nick's been coming to Swedish Beers forever and he's back as a sponsor for the second time. I'm chuffed to bits about that. Nick is one of the smartest people I know in the industry and he's built a great team around him at nquiringminds. I reckon you will have an interesting conversation when you meet him and the team. 

nquiringMinds: a Trusted AI company, building advanced analytics solutions on top of solid cyber security principles. Their TDXVolt platform helps customers develop and deploy AI Analytics systems on top of a solid zero-trust backbone. Everything is underpinned by fully distributed digital identities. This means the customer has full control of their data and has ultimate flexibility on where and how their systems are hosted. Multi-award-winning, with customers across telecoms, defence and manufacturing sectors, this team knows its stuff.

Wanna know more? Check out the website: http://www.nquiringminds.com and join us on Wednesday night. You can RSVP here https://swedishbeersBCN2024.eventbrite.co.uk 

Let's not forget our Swedish Beers supporters - SER Team, Combain and Digitel Talk

We're very lucky at Swedish Beers to have friends of the family, as it were. I'd like to give a special thank you to a few people who have helped get this year's show on the road. They'll also have a few beer tokens on the night so do search them out for a chat and a token. 

First up, Troy Norcross, is no stranger to Swedish Beers. He's been a few times before over the years and is back this year. Troy heads up SER Team, and he's looking to connect with innovation leaders grappling with turning visionary ideas into reality. He's especially interested in those diving into the complex world of AI strategy. So, if you're navigating the hurdles of resource scarcity, lack of support, or regulatory constraints, join Troy for a drink and share insights on overcoming these barriers and transforming innovative potential into tangible success. 

https://serteam.co.uk 

Next, we have Yllka from Combain. She's been a superstar support behind the scenes. Although she can't be with us on the night, her colleagues from Combain are exhibiting in Hall 7, Stand 7C8. Combain is a leading geolocation service provider for IoT devices, offering AI-based indoor positioning, 5G LMF for private networks, and global cell ID positioning. They have one of the world's largest positioning databases and have clients across the globe including mobile network operators, security agencies and IOT manufacturers. Bjorn and his Swedish team will be at Swedish Beers, so make sure to find them.

http://combain.com

And last but not least, meet Ian Ginn. I only met Ian fairly recently, and this will be his first Swedish Beers party so go gently on him! Ian is a highly successful, internationally-orientated executive with decades of enterprise software sales experience. He heads up IFG, which specialises in unlocking opportunities for software providers and enabling growth in Europe's Telecom, Enterprise and Mobile markets. He's also great company so I know you're all going to warm to him.

Not only that but Ian has just launched a new podcast, Digitel Talk, with the inimitable and long-time friend of Swedish Beers, Frankie Spagnolo. Digitel Talk is a podcast with a mission to promote doing good in the mobile, telecoms and related technology industries. You'll hear from real people, find out what they have done, how it has affected them, others and the planet, and what great things we can expect. 

Ian and Frankie want to share the stories of those champions who want to help others and have found a way of using technology to achieve this. In sharing these stories, they hope that others will be inspired to do something good themselves. You can tune in right now to their first episodes over on Apple and other podcast platforms soon. Could you be their next guest?

http://www.digiteltalk.com

You gotta have some Imagination!

Another lovely sponsor, Imagination, joins the party. Imagination is a multi-award-winning Experience Design Company founded 50 years ago on a principle of Independent Creativity. Headquartered in London, with 13 studios worldwide, they bring together diverse groups of strategic, creative, and practical people to find the answers to client challenges. Still an independent agency, they've earned a reputation for consistently challenging and changing the status quo through their core offers of Consulting, Destinations, Content and Live. 

Anton Christodoulou (Global CTO) and Stephanie Balme (Biz Dev Director) will both be at Mobile World Congress this year. They are particularly interested to discover fresh ideas and companies that can help solve their client's problems in new and interesting ways. Their clients include LG, Ford, IKEA, LVMH, Samsung, Jaguar Land Rover, HSBC, Major League Baseball, 3M, Turkish Airlines, Shell and Telstra. Does that sound like you? If so, drop your contact details into this form, and one of the team members will be in touch.

Anton, Imagination's Global CTO, is part of the legend that is Swedish Beers, having been in on it from the very beginning back in London more than 20 years ago.  I'm chuffed to bits to have his continued support. Welcome home Anton and welcome aboard, Imagination!

Monedata - Our latest sponsor

Eduardo Olmeda and his team from Monedata will be at Swedish Beers. They're a new sponsor but no stranger to Swedish Beers. So, if you're a newbie around here, they'll show you the ropes on the night.

 Not only that, but Edu heads up a very interesting company called Monedata. It's a data monetisation platform for your Android apps - you no longer need annoying or bulky ads to generate revenue from your app. Instead, you can use the Monedata platform to make money by sharing non-personal usage data via simple, robust and safe SDK. It's all GDPR compliant and is a great way to add stable, additional revenue to your projects. 

Seems like a great idea to me! Welcome aboard Monedata! 

Welcoming the return of aql and introducing Trusti, an auditable token platform

Oh, it's good to have returning sponsors! Many of you who are Swedish Beers regulars will know the wonderful Professor Adam Beaumont and his team from aql from the times we hung out at Dostrece. Well, Adam's back and this time, he has a new thing to talk about - Trusti. 

Trusti provides trust-as-a-service in the data and physical domain. Securing SMS, IoT and code providing NFTs to preserve physical value. 

Trusti is an auditable token platform built to support lifecycle integrity across any industry or process. It's the globally trusted certificate authority and immutable ledger architecture behind Trusti Tokens, which are publicly verifiable, secure, and flexible enough to suit all use cases. That could be CA as a service for enterprise, defence or government, for example. The Trusti Token can also be generated as a secure QR code, and Adam can show you that in action on the night in exchange for a beer token or two.

Welcome to the Swedish Beers family, Trusti!

Let's welcome our first sponsor... Headforwards

The Headforwards team are no strangers to Swedish Beers and are a previous sponsor. It's great to have them back!

Headforwards is both a consultancy (advisory and strategy) and a delivery partner for your software solutions. They're now 12 years old and are a trusted partner of clients in sectors including insurance, financial services, health, global communications and local authorities. 

Join Toby and his lovely team and find out how they've delivered value for over 120 different clients with one of the lowest attrition rates on the market. You can also find out how they support the local, growing digital community in Cornwall and form a key part of the annual Agile on the Beach festival. Oh, and they'll have some beer tokens to hand out too.