Web Summit 2017 : new explorers, new frontiers
Lisbon future leader of Global Connectedness?
Portugal “ we come from a long long line of explorers” Nuno Sebastião, 38, Feedzai co-founder and CEO. Web Summit 2017 in Lisbon just ended. From November 6 until November 9 the city was fervent and feelgood. When they say “the largest technology conference in the world”, believe them it is TRUE!
Opening the Web Summit António Costa, Prime Minister, Government of Portugal and Fernando Medina Mayor, City of Lisbon reminded us that Portugal was a land of explorers. To enter the Web Summit you have to cross the Vaso de Gama huge commercial center not far from the Vasco de Gama Tower in Parque de Naçoes. For Nuno Sebastião, 38, Feedzai founder and CEO an emblematic portuguese born entrepreneur at the Opening night speaking of Portugal “we come from a long, long line of explorers”. And “the reason that Magellan and those before him were such iconic explorers was their constant quest to discover the unknown”. Speaking of his own experience at the European Space Agency, Nuno Sebastião described his personal quest as an explorer “to push the physical boundaries of our own planet earth and now “using AI at Feedzai to fight financial crime, to use what we built to build a better world”. So he introduces us to Stephen Hawking…
“My name is Stephen Hawking” we could hear him live and see him blinking his eyes to us as he talks about artifical intelligence and our mind “amplified by AI. “clever machines will take the jobs and destroy millions”
“To further explore our own human boundaries, a wave of new technologies needs to emerge that can access, read, and write from the most powerful tool we have — the human brain” Build a better brain is the life time project of Bryan Johnson, a visionary and a persuasive evangelist who put One hundred million dollars in his own society Kernel so great is his his belief in our future augmented brain thanks to neuro sciences.
Paddy Cosgrave is the charismatic co-founder and Web Summit CEO was also an explorer in Ireland, “a co-founder of MiCandidate, a website that “provided detailed information on every candidate running in the 2007 general election”. And indeed explorers were there at this crowded opening night, brilliant speakers, and there were no doubt explorers among the 60 000 attendees who patiently queue to enter the Altice Arena and the 4 pavillions of the Feira international de Lisboa (FIL) from November 6 till November 9.
Only the brave
Paddy Cosgrave on the Opening night reminded us it all started in 2010 with a simple idea : “connect tech with industry world leaders” . And connexion stays the key word with startupers being able to meet “mentors” in dedicated lounges, such as AWS, or Women in Tech in Pavillion 4 where booking.com offers the possibility to women to meet, talk, connect. Connexion via the Web Summit App, with the zero paper being now the rule in many tech events.
Yes technology investors and CEO of the world are there but it requires a special talent to be at the right time in the right. Brave, bold and most of all organized to get the benefits of your presence here. I must say I was just lost in the space I did no expect so huge and filled with relevant content, conferences, companies, start-ups, tempting food, people to meet. When they say “the largest technology conference in the world”, believe them it is TRUE! Thanks to the special app that allowed me to meet Marie Cazalis I Knew from Pays Basque now working for https://fr.123rf.com/ in Turin for and introduced me to Women in Tech Lounge sponsored by booking.com where I could check the busy and cosy ambiance. By the way, Booking.com CEO, Gillian Tans, was one of my favorite of the 1200 world class speakers. By the way “Nearly half of our registered attendees in Lisbon this week were female.35.4% of our speakers were female.” (source Richard Forbe Media & Communication, Web Summit). I also bumped into Valentin Chaput Open Source Politics just coming back from his Forum Conference and so on. Mathilde Noir at Business France, as well as Remi Fresnel the charming representant of L’agence RP who introduced me to French Tech start-ups. And YES I listened to François Hollande who came with a whole delegation. And sorry for not being able to meet you all!
To build a better world in Global Connectedness
“We’ve got 59,115 people from more than 170 countries joining us in Portugal this week, and we think we’ve got something pretty special planned”. And yes indeed everybody agreed on the quality of the event, uncluding top security, help with 60 000 people going at the same time through the underground through Oriente station.
Wether is Sophia the robot or the driveless car of Waymo, the flying car of Uber, or artificial intelligence for organizing a better team or a better health, everybody agrees that technology should serve one goal : help to build a better world.
“Why do so many founders travel to Lisbon? Well, the weather helps. But, clearly, Web Summit has turbo-charged the ability of Lisbon startups to build a high degree of Global Connectedness. “ writes Forbes as a conclusion in a Dane Stangler article. We agree.
Plus ++++
At the media rank in front of the Altice Center Stage we met The Observador the first totally digial portuguese newspaper they made a review in portuguese of the “67 frases que marcaram a Web Summit” : http://observador.pt/especiais/as-67-melhores-frases-da-web-summit/
