Organisers of Europe’s largest tech event, the Web Summit, have said they hope this will be “the biggest and best” edition ever, with over 70,000 guests participating this year.
“This year, we hope it will be the biggest and best Web Summit of all time,” Web Summit’s organisers said in a statement. “We are excited with the third edition in Lisbon and expect to receive over 70,000 participants from 170 countries.”
This year the event will see three new stages: “Deep Tech,” focusing on the impact of technology such as computing and nanotechnology on both the industry and daily life, “UnBoxed,” where technology critics are to analyse electronic products, and “CryptoConf,” where debates on issues relating to digital currency are to be held.
All in all, there will be “25 different conferences in one only summit to discuss realities relating to technology, in areas like the environment, sport, fashion and politics,” Web Summit pointed out.
Speakers this year include well-known figures such as Britain’s former prime minister, Tony Blair, the actress Maisie Williams, the CEO of eBay, Devin Wenig, CEO of Nestlé, Mark Schneider, fashion designer Alexander Wang and president of Microsoft, Brad Smith.
Portuguese speakers taking part include the secretary-general of the United Nations, António Guterres, European Commissioner, Carlos Moedas, Portugal’s prime minister, António Costa and president Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.
The Web Summit is to continue to be held in Lisbon annually for at least the next five years and potentially the next decade, its organisers announced recently.
In related news, French startup Lifeina, which is developing safe transport for fragile medication and won Web Summit’s early-stage startup pitch competition in 2017, says it has gained recognition through the technology event and is planning to enter the stock market.
“Winning at the Web Summit gave Lifeina a major boost in terms of publicity and helped turn Lifeina Box [the company’s first product] viral,” the CEO of Lifeina, Uwe Diegel, told Lusa News Agency.
Diegel said the company “is now entering an exciting phase of business and the first products are going to be on sale from January 2019.”
The idea to create the company arose after Diegel, who kept his chronically ill brother’s medication in the fridge, decided to come up with a place to safely store it. He never imagined it would turn into a business.
That led to the creation of LifeinaBox, a portable “mini fridge” which keeps medicines at a temperature of between 2º and 8º centigrade.
The award included €50,000 cash and access to an incubation programme.
Diegel said the company’s aim was not to “make money” but said the funds were “welcomed” and would be 100% applied to research and develop the product.
The Web Summit, which is to take place from 5 to 8 November in Lisbon this year, was first held in Ireland in 2010 and then it moved to Lisbon in 2016.
Last year it attracted about 60,000 people from 170 countries to the capital of Portugal, including 1,200 speakers, 2,000 startups, 1,400 investors and 2,500 reporters.
