Last night, the annual Web Summit, Europe’s largest technology conference, opened its doors in Lisbon for the first time.
This year’s Web Summit will bring together over 50,000 attendees from 166 countries, alongside 15,000 companies. The 663 speakers will include Tinder CEO Sean Rad, actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt – who recently played the role of Edward Snowden in Oliver Stone’s film about the ex-NSA contractor and whistle blower – and footballer Ronaldinho.
The Web Summit moves to Lisbon
Originally called the ‘Dublin Web Summit’, this year’s conference sees it move from its Irish origins to new beginnings in Portugal.
Back in 2009, around 400 tech individuals gathered in Dublin for the first time to celebrate the growing tech industry. Over the last seven years, the Web Summit has really taken off – its popularity has grown exponentially to the point where Dublin could no longer accommodate the sheer scale of the Summit planned for 2016.
And so, founders Paddy Cosgrave, David Kelly and Daire Hickey began the hunt for a new location. It needed a city with not only the capacity to hold this year’s attendees, but accommodate further growth in the years to come; and a move to Lisbon became the next step in the Web Summit’s evolution.
The old and the new summit
Whilst the location has changed, many of the beloved features of the web summit have remained. The pub crawls and the evening summit will continue, swapping Irish pubs for Portuguese bars. However, the food summit will not be moving to Lisbon. Instead Lisbon will feature three types of culture crawls; attendees may choose a gastronomy, music or architecture crawl.
Talks this year are wide and varied, including advancements in block chain, discussions of security and data protection and interactions between technologies, entrepreneurs and governance will play an important role.
Lisbon advances its bid to become Europe’s new tech hub
Since 2015, Portugal has worked hard to grow the offering of opportunities for technology start-ups in its capital city. By creating a tech friendly environment and connected community, Lisbon is hoping to attract promising new entrepreneurs and become Europe’s newest tech hub. The low cost of rent and transport – as well as its sunny beach location – certainly speak in its favour, however, thus far, London and Berlin have been better at building their tech community and attracting the right investors.
Yesterday, Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa announced the creation of a new 200 million Euro public fund to support start-ups headquartered in Portugal, in the hope of attracting more international venture funds and other investors.
The arrival of the Web Summit in the Portuguese capital may just be exactly what Lisbon needs to further advertise its opportunities to both companies and investors. More than 200 Portuguese start-ups will be showcasing their businesses at this year’s Summit.
The Investment Observer team will be there this week to see what the new Web Summit and the city have to offer.