Girish Mahajan (Editor)

Web Summit

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Status
  
Active

Venue
  
MEO Arena

Inaugurated
  
2009 (Dublin)

Genre
  
Technology

Country
  
Portugal

Location
  
Lisbon

Web Summit httpsuploadwikimediaorgwikipediaencceWeb

Founders
  
Paddy Cosgrave, David Kelly and Daire Hickey

Web summit gary vaynerchuk keynote lisbon portugal 2016


Web Summit (originally Dublin Web Summit) is a technology conference held annually since 2009. The company was founded by Paddy Cosgrave, David Kelly and Daire Hickey. The topic of the conference is centered on internet technology and attendees range from Fortune 500 companies to smaller tech companies. This contains a mix of CEOs and founders of tech start ups together with a range of people from across the global technology industry, as well as related industries.

Contents

Web Summit runs events throughout the world including F.ounders, RISE in Hong Kong, Collision in New Orleans, SURGE in Bangalore and MoneyConf in Madrid.

For the first five years the event was held in Dublin, Ireland. In September 2015 Paddy Cosgrave, Web Summit co-founder and CEO, announced that Web Summit would be held in Lisbon starting in 2016.

Web summit 2015 day 1


2016

In September 2015 Web Summit co-founder and CEO Paddy Cosgrave announced that the event would be held in Lisbon for three consecutive editions, from 2016 to 2018. Cosgrave cited the local startup scene and a "cosmopolitan city with better infrastructure conditions and a larger number of hotel rooms" for the decision.

The three-day event held from November 7—10 at the MEO Arena, site of Expo '98, drew 53,056 attendees from more than 150 countries and more than 1,500 start-ups spread over 21 venues.

Among the more than 600 speakers were a number of tech top executives from around the world, including John Chambers of Cisco, Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer, Twitter founder Jack Dorsey and Tesla's Elon Musk. Also speaking at the event were prominent figures from non-tech areas, such as U2 frontman Bono, Salil Shetty of Amnesty International and Joana Coles, Editor in Chief of Cosmopolitan, as well as footballer Luís Figo and both the Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and Prime Minister António Costa.

Web Summit's 3rd annual Cisco Innovation Grand Challenge was presented by Senior Director of Innovation Helder Antunes to StreamRoot, Gestoos, and Dedrone.

2015

Web Summit 2015 was held over three days from 3 November until the 5 November at the RDS in Dublin. Over 42,000 people attended the event over the three days. Speakers included Ed Catmull of Pixar, Michael Dell, Bill Ford and Chris Froome.

In September 2015 Web Summit announced that they would be moving the event from Dublin to Lisbon. Following the announcement organisers released email correspondence between the Irish Government and Web Summit CEO Paddy Cosgrave about hotel costs, traffic and other issues around infrastructure in Dublin. This led to a debate in the Irish media about the support the Government had provided to the event since it began and what future promises they could make.

Problems arose with the Wi-Fi, but on a lesser scale than in 2014.

2014

Web Summit 2014 was held over three days and consisted of nine stages or Summits as they are known; Centre, Machine, Enterprise, Marketing, Builders, Society, Sport, Film and Music. Eva Longoria, Peter Thiel and Bono were among the speakers that spoke over the three-day event, with attendance of 22,000 people from 109 countries.

On Day 1 there were problems with the WiFi network and Web Summit founder Paddy Cosgrave took to the stage on two occasions to apologise for the connectivity problems. The RDS defended their technical set-up with CEO Michael Duffy saying, "The WiFi has successfully responded to the exceptional demands placed on it. This is an unprecedented WiFi density compared to similar European tech events." Attendees were mostly disparaging in their remarks, with some deriding it on social media as "the most Irish thing ever".

International broadcasters including CNBC, CNN, Fox Business News, Bloomberg, Sky News. Al Jazeera and the BBC all covered the event.

After the announcement of the decision to move the 2016 Web Summit to Lisbon, several Irish technology correspondents cited the WiFi debacle as one major push factor behind the move.

2013

In 2013, over 10,000 people attended the Web Summit, the vast majority from outside Ireland. Speakers included Elon Musk, Shane Smith, Tony Hawk, Drew Houston, and Niklas Zennström.

The event expanded in its scope with a number of side-events launching as part it, including the Night Summit, a series of after-hours events featuring musicians from throughout the world, and the Food Summit, a two-day showcase of gourmet Irish Food.

Irish Prime Minister, Enda Kenny, also opened the NASDAQ Market from the Web Summit, the first time it was opened outside of New York since the Facebook IPO. The event was covered substantially in the international media with Bloomberg Television, CNN, the Wall Street Journal and Wired covering the event.

2012

In 2012, 4,200 people attended Web Summit, approximately 40% of these came from companies based in Ireland (which provides a European HQ for several major tech companies) and 60% came from companies based elsewhere in Europe. Speakers included Tim Armstrong, Wael Ghonim, and Arkady Volozh.

A number of companies from across the world also launched their new products or made announcements as part of the event.

2009-2011

The first Web Summit was a mix of bloggers, journalists and technologists in a hotel on the outskirts of Dublin. Panelists and speakers included Iain Dale, the political blogger, Ben Hammersley of the Guardian and Ian Douglas of the Daily Telegraph. In 2010 it was a meet-up for 400 or so of the local technology community in the Chartered Accountants House in Dublin. Speakers were mainly local entrepreneurs, business people, and investors. In 2011, the event tripled in size and moved to the Royal Dublin Society. Speakers included Chad Hurley, Jack Dorsey and Matt Mullenweg.

References

Web Summit Wikipedia