November 6-9, Lisbon, Portugal
Last week, more than 60,000 tech enthusiasts from 170 countries gathered in Lisbon, Portugal, for the largest technology conference in the world – Web Summit. This year’s event has been featured in the media across the world as one of the the most exciting and impassioned ones, having featured 1,200 world-class speakers not only from the tech community, but also from show business, sports and politics. IOS Partners had Tereza Sacha, our in-house techie and business development team member, cover this event.
The topics covered were truly impressive and focused on the future of technology and its applications, ranging from flying and fully automated self-driving cars, Artificial Intelligence, cryptocurrencies, political implications, social media, and how it can tackle the world’s most pressing global issues, such as climate change.
Attendees included the world renowned theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, former Vice President of the United States Al Gore, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich, President & CEO Booking.com Gillian Tans, Co-Founder & CEO of Slack, CEO of Reddit Steve Huffman, Oracle CEO Mark Hurd, Co-Founder & CEO of Tinder Sean Rad, Microsoft President Brad Smith, VP Business & Ops Google Amit Singh, VP of Product at Facebook Stan Chudnovsky, CPO of UBER Jeff Holden, the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, the President and Prime Minister of Portugal and many others.
The whole venue consisted of four large expo areas and one large closed stadium called Centre Stage reserved for the leading speakers, most interesting talks and final start-up pitches. One of the most wowed presentations was Sophia The Robot, the world’s most humanlike robot with AI features and a jaw dropping expressiveness and interactivity.
It is also worth mentioning that out of the 60,000 attendees, 42% were women thanks to the Women in Tech initiative Web Summit had launched several years ago to bring more women active in the technology sector to this event. COO of Facebook and Founder of Lean In Sheryl Sandberg connected live to the event and expressed her intention to attend the event in 2018.
Photo credits: Tereza Sacha; Web Summit official webpage
