Thoughts on Web Summit 2018

On Monday 5th at 18:30, we had the chance to witness 2018’s Web Summit opening session, possibly the best technological conference on the planet.

Web Summit is an event where start-ups founders from all over the globe gather, where notable global connections are made and where companies meet and compete for attention spotlight and investor’s money (just watch the FINAL PITCH ).

Lisbon is well ahead of other ecosystems at being able to attract new companies from different locations and to, what is more important, build-up links founder-to-founder. That is the reason why I want to congratulate the organizing committee: to Startup Lisbon ad to the Portuguese Government for their courage, resolution and support. For having taken the initiative of reinforcing this event at their city, announced throughout the inaugural event.

Throughout these three days, a great number of things stood out to me. In the first place, the positive reception of the event among the attendants and the rest of the people who had the opportunity to witness it online. There we could encounter actors, promoters, politicians and investors, a myriad of people that are looking forward to become part of this human revolution, another one, the fourth industrial revolution which is part of today’s reality whose motor is technology, which enables the digital economy reality.

Secondly, another point that made me reflect on things is that the digital economy is a reality nurtured on the goods and services production revolution, through technology, aimed to dynamize, generalize and cheapen people’s commercial activities. 50% of earth’s population has access to the internet. This is a process generating social and economic changes and which is becoming a focal point for politician’s attention. Digital economy is without a doubt an enabler for human development which is directly impacting the establishment and that politicians do not want to miss out, although they still have much to internalize.

I met with new players, whose new ideas and technologies are reinventing society just by sitting in front of their compute’s screens. There were they all. 60.000 people came together, and left important revenues in Portugal, international acknowledgement and opportunities to modernize a great nation.

More than 600 years ago Portugal was one of the main players on worldwide integration and in 2018 still is. The Prime Minister highlighted “the need for combining society’s different sectors to answer to the fourth industrial revolution’s impact, defined by the broadening of technology’s presence in our daily lives” “We have to face the close future with a strategical vision which combine the government, civil society, private sector and academic entities to make technological innovation a tool for good-doing.” Portugal is back to be a pioneer on societies integrations and technological development.

Being a live witness of the willpower these new players bring to the table was impressive, their enthusiasm, capacity, knowledge and collaborative spirit is the main fuel enabling this fourth industrial revolution. Nobody wants to miss this out. It is all revolution members’ duty to be promoters of the new society’s game rules.

At Web Summit, we have witnessed a world exhibit of players producing a shift on well-established business models such as photography, music, entertainment , commerce, transport, bank services, insurance world, society’s own security, communications…. In short, the activities between suppliers and consumers at a productive, service and accessibility level.

The third point making me reflect was seeing the main worldwide companies being present at Web Summit in search for their spotlight place and not miss out on being part of this revolution. That’s why we saw well established companies from sectors such as energy, insurance, banking, automotive, government and regional communities through their promoter businesses, 38 companies attended, being a key and active part of this spectacle, at least as what refers to space.

Meanwhile, what was being held there was a joint bet from the entrepreneurship society offering to the whole world the technology, which we have to benefit from as a tool to implement more secure societies, protecting liberties, transactions and property exchanges from the population, their health, food security, demographic change, well-being, agriculture, research as a whole, maritime and inland waters safety, safe, clean and efficient energy, intelligent, ecological and integrated transport, climate action, environment, resources and raw materials efficiency, human equality, and not only from women, well present at Web Summit. No longer only announcing a contract for the web counts, it also has to comply with everything just stated.

Perhaps, the most important part is seeing entrepreneurs threatening those giant corporations and regulators through solutions based on Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain as new development drivers.

Blockchain stands out as an intermediary tool for financial and registration operations, which are going to change the economy model and that are looking for solutions to force the establishment to develop agreement and cohabitation nodes as integrating solutions.

The solutions that the entrepreneurs are offering through blockchain, as an unique collaborative distributed and decentralized register, which hold in it the individual and all the other system’s users, exceeding the economic field and plunging into the political and regulatory environment.

Last but foremost, I was shocked not to see the political and regulatory authorities, the stock markets supervisors and the registrars having a more active role at Web Summit, with the goal to reach an understanding on the divergent interests.

I know for a fact that every one of them is well aware of the fourth industrial and financial revolution being a reality, but as always, the regulator’s caution and their position as establishment gives them the advantage of managing times, thinking it is not the time to publicly deal with the social change that is upon us. But let’s take into account, because of historical experiences, that political-regulatory / entrepreneurship divergences will end up tilting towards the technological side.

Moreover, we are well-aware that the first ones to come up with solutions in this registration-finance revolution will be those who possess the best ideas, the drive and the necessary resources to make their projects progress. This is a race, an already common ground, and at the next Web Summit we will be a step further in the lead of this race.

At Conexo Ventures, we are taking the right steps towards uniting companies, entrepreneurs and investors into being part of this reality, the fourth industrial revolution, which goes beyond technology.