{"id":203,"date":"2023-11-20T09:00:56","date_gmt":"2023-11-20T09:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nuke.app\/?p=203"},"modified":"2024-01-24T18:13:52","modified_gmt":"2024-01-24T18:13:52","slug":"my-web-summit-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nuke.app\/fr\/my-web-summit-experience","title":{"rendered":"My Web Summit experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

I didn\u2019t really have an appreciation of what we were going to find at Web Summit because although I’ve done trade shows with my other company, Kobas<\/a>, before, they’ve been very sector-specific, trying to sell to a service to a targeted audience. This felt like everything, everywhere, all at once (with an AI veneer) because it was for anything that utilises the web – and what doesn\u2019t?! But despite its size and over 70,000 attendees, it never felt cramped or jammed in. What also impressed me was the diversity of attendees and how far they\u2019d travelled to be there; Brazil (lots from Brazil), Asia, Australia, and Africa, were all represented and eager to network and learn.<\/p>\n

Firstly, let\u2019s talk about production values. Just spectacular. It\u2019s not just the main stage, which is colossal, but the fact you have ten stages dotted throughout the [multiple] pavilions that would probably seat two and a half thousand people each, and even the smaller stages, where I did our Startup Showcase was sizeable and very well attended. Everything ran like clockwork, and the schedule was packed with quality speakers and panels.<\/p>\n

\"Our<\/p>\n

Our view of the main arena for the grand opening<\/p>\n

Quality speakers, quality insights<\/strong>
\nSpeaking of speakers, there were certainly a few personal highlights. Hearing from Jimmy Wales was excellent, because I strongly believe that the more Wikipedia evolves the more important a resource it becomes for the world. Christina Fonseca from Indico Capital Partners was everywhere, and always worth listening to because as a poacher turned gamekeeper, she understands what it\u2019s like to be on both sides of the startup\/investor divide.<\/p>\n

You get the impression that the brilliant Christina is very much the poster child for Portuguese entrepreneurship, being that she founded one of their limited (but growing) number of unicorn companies. She’s also, spoiler alert, a woman in tech, an under-represented demographic Web Summit did an amazing job of pushing with about 46% female attendance. I suspect this has something to do with the heavily discounted tickets available to women through its Women in Tech programme, which I\u2019m a massive fan of and would highly encourage other trade shows and industry events to embrace.<\/p>\n

Our time to shine…<\/h3>\n

Our time to shine<\/strong>
\nIt would be remiss of me not to go into a bit more detail on our Startup Showcase on the Wednesday, because it was a brilliant experience. In my head, I was expecting maybe 10\/15 people, not what felt like a few hundred, with every seat taken and more sitting on the floor and standing behind. We were clustered with 19 other companies in the Fintech ecosystem, which meant that everyone there was looking for a product that fell into a specific niche. We\u2019ll have the video to share with you in a few weeks\u2019 time (and will probably update this blog accordingly).<\/p>\n

\"James<\/p>\n