Spirit of innovations
Web Summit 2017 gathered about 61k people. Standing on the edge of latest inventions in the tech world, they were trying to raise the curtain and see what is yet to come. There was enough space for everyone: developers, investors, digital nomads, freelancers, business and brand developers, designers and many others were soaking inspiration from countless events, exciting and, sometimes, terrifying speeches, and the general atmosphere. Lisbon was literally breathing with WebSummit – bright were stickers leading you right to the venue, some people were rushing busily for the meetings, meanwhile, the others were searching for the meeting point for one of the summits (like surf, night, sunset-summits, etc.).
Fascinating booths of promising startups and famous companies did their best to make people stop by and wonder. It was fun taking photos with the animated AR characters at the Google booth, literally see your blood flow using the tablet, and drink spectacularly represented coffee made by Delta Cafes. Interacting with the cutting-edge technologies for even once was worth more than hearing about them for thousand times.
Cybersecurity. Trump. Self-driving cars.
About 1.2 k speakers made a lot agitation around the burning topics such as cybersecurity, climate change, and latest presidential elections in the US. High profile people were eager to share their vision on the individual security, prospects of the AR, AI, self-driving cars, and changes they will bring about. Brian Krzanich (Intel CEO), Mark Hurd (Oracle CEO), Brad Smith (president of Microsoft) tried to raise the curtain of the unknown, talk about failures and share their own predictions.
Attracting investments
One of the things that remain in the memory is that among the usual as well as the fairly extraordinary company and startup booths, one could also mention the full-grown monumental stands of countries. The colorful stands representing Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Poland, Kazakhstan and a number of other countries showed strong support of the governments and the exhibition of interest in the development of the IT sphere. That is what we have found to be inspiring and supportive.
Why come back?
Web Summit is fascinating, inspiring, and thrilling, but if those words mean nothing to you, we have other reasons. The events are so diverse, you will definitely find a bunch of them to attend. Want it or not, you will meet many people from your sphere or from the related ones and even more people from non-related spheres. So, you will experience the networking in its purest form. Knowledge sharing is another thing to go for: speakers, high profile people, and usual attendees will be more than ready to share their experience and give a piece of advice. To end, Lisbon itself is a charming spot on earth to visit.
