CVC at Mobile World Congress 2023

The Computer Vision Center at Mobile World Congress (MWC)

The Computer Vision Center was exhibitor at this year’s MWC, thanks to the support of Generalitat de Catalunya, highlighting the applicability of Computer Vision technologies for artistic expression.

The world's most influential mobile technology event, the Mobile World Congress (MWC), took place this year from February 27 to March 02 at Fira de Barcelona. The Computer Vision Center (CVC) participated in this relevant event as one of the Catalan institutions that exhibited their solutions within the Catalan Government Pavilion.

During the event, we presented all aspects of CVC's work focusing on a cutting-edge demonstration developed by our research engineers. The demo employs state-of-the-art Computer Vision and Stable Diffusion generative AI models to generate unique art pieces that are inspired by facial emotion recognition. Attendees had the opportunity to interact with our demo by adopting one of six basic facial expressions, including disgust, sadness, happiness, fear, anger, and surprise, and experience firsthand how art and technology intersect in our ExpressArt.AI demo and redefine the possibilities of artistic expression. This is a collaborative and pioneer experiment at the intersection of humans and artificial intelligence.

This demonstration has been developed for the ExperimentAI project, a project to disseminate AI in public libraries, promoted by the CVC and co-financed by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT).

Take a look at the MWC23 ExpressArt.AI art portfolio

The applicability of this technology attracted the attention of the media and was featured in an article published by MetaData, the first online media in Catalan specialized in technology issues.

➡ During the event, numerous companies, institutions, and professionals showed a keen interest in CVC's work at our MWC booth. Notable attendees included representatives from the Catalan Audiovisual Cluster, as well as distinguished political figures such as the Right Honourable President of the Government of Catalonia, Pere Aragonès, and the General Secretary of the Department of Business and Labor, Oriol Sagrera i Saula.

➡ Our Head of Knowledge and Technology Transfer, Dr. Fátima Itzel López, participated as a speaker in a session on AI in the audiovisual sector and conflicts with intellectual property, organized by the Catalan Audiovisual Cluster of which CVC is a member. During the session, she highlighted the cross-disciplinary nature of Computer Vision and its numerous applications in the audiovisual sector.

CVC as an active member of Catalonia.ai participated in a roundtable together with IDEAI-UPC Research Center, Eurecat and CIDAI – the Centre of Innovation for Data tech and Artificial Intelligence. Catalonia.ai is the Catalan Artificial Intelligence strategy. A strategy that establishes the priorities and lines of action to turn Catalonia into a pole of innovation, leadership and attraction of talent and companies in the field of artificial intelligence.

➡ Our CVC Director and Director of AIRA – the Artificial Intelligence Research Alliance of Catalonia, Josep Lladós, participated as a speaker. And, our Strategic Projects Head and AIRA's coordinator, Meritxell Bassolas, moderated the roundtable. The debate aimed to analyse the Catalan AI ecosystem as a driver to boost the competitiveness of the region.

Overall, CVC had the chance to present its research to a significant number of professionals.Following four days of intense work and networking, the CVC team left the event with a positive impression and a plethora of new contacts to follow up on.

We look forward to seeing you at MWC 2024, where we will present our latest Computer Vision technologies!