Vodafone presented this Monday, January 31, in Malaga its European Research and Development center in which it will invest 225 million over the next five years and will centralize its innovation activities with the creation of more than 600 highly qualified jobs, 40 of which They are already working in the city. In this way, Vodafone joins the technological ecosystem of the city of Malaga in which other international firms in the sector such as Google, Orange, Ericsson or Dekra already operate.
The facility will boost group efficiencies and develop new products at a 50% faster rate, resulting in greater cost efficiency and the ability to launch in multiple countries at the same time.
The opening of the Vodafone European Technology Center in Malaga positions the city as a reference technology hub on the European continent and the company as a "key investor for the development of future digital infrastructures, solutions and services", assured the CEO of Vodafone Spain, Colman Deegan.
Likewise, the commitment of the telecommunications giant to Malaga consolidates Spain as a pole of attraction for digital talent in the European framework, since Vodafone seeks to incorporate 7,000 software engineers throughout Europe by 2025.
This new technological incorporation is also the result of the institutional support that the project has had and that has resulted in the presence at the opening ceremony of representatives of the central, regional, provincial and local governments of the University of Malaga and companies in the sector.
The technological center
The center has been temporarily installed in the Impact Hub coworking, but later it will move to its final location. The center's offices and laboratories will be equipped with 5G networks, ultra-fast fiber and cutting-edge technologies.
Vodafone is currently looking for specialized profiles in product and solution architecture, data engineers, scrum masters, software engineers, developers (front-end and back-end), UX experts, experts in digital sales processes, data analysts , Cloud developers, experts in innovation and financing projects, experts in blockchain and cybersecurity, as well as human resources and IT personnel.
The Vodafone Business R&D Centre, which has already opened its doors to the first 40 employees, is specialized in the development of new technological solutions and innovative digital services based on unified communications, IoT (Internet of Things), Edge Computing , MPN (Mobile Private Network) and OpenRAN (the standard for open and interoperable networks). Likewise, it will manage the commercial operations of the Vodafone Group and business clients in 11 countries, taking advantage of the technology, experience and global scale of the operator.
Thus, a Digital Transformation Design Center will also be launched with experts in customer experience and will promote the management of private mobile networks, the development of 5G applications or the design of specifications for Open Ran chips.
The operator seeks to create a technological pole around the center of Malaga with agreements with universities, professional training schools, companies and local institutions to promote the development of talent and multiply its impact in the region.
Malaga, hub of technological innovation in Southern Europe
Malaga was the location chosen by Vodafone, which organized an international competition between January and March 2020 to decide in which European city it would establish its next research and development center. Eight cities from five European countries participated in the tender, which had to prepare an exhaustive proposal covering criteria focused on quality of life, availability of talent with the necessary technical knowledge, working conditions, transportation, public aid and bonuses, connections with universities or attraction of each place for talent, among others.
After an exhaustive analysis of the candidate cities, Vodafone selected Malaga as the host of its Hub. The Andalusian city was the one that stood out in the competition for being the one that offered the best combination between all the selection criteria, as well as for the good collaboration and coordination between administrations (Málaga City Council, Andalusian Government and the Government of Spain) in the presentation of the proposal.
In this sense, the Chairman of the Board, Juanma Moreno, has valued the opening of Vodafone's European Center of Excellence as an example of Malaga's potential to be European and world technological capital in the future: "We have the resources to do it: talent , training capacity, drive, illusion and passion", he underlined.
