Flying Ubers and robo Einstein: tech titans offer a glimpse of the future at Web Summit 2017
It was about two years ago that I first heard about a super-cool tech conference called Web Summit. Incredibly, it was attended by some 42,000 people who were interested in internet technology — phenomenal growth for a conference that only started with 400 people in their first meetup. Ian Douglas of The Daily Telegraph was one of the panellists in 2009’s summit.
I was fortunate to attend the conference this year, which hosted a record 60,000+ attendees, 1,200 speakers, 68% senior management in the industry, and more than 2,600 journalists from 170 countries in Portugal’s capital city.
The city of Lisbon had clearly prepared well for the 2017 summit, and this was obvious starting from registration at the airport through to the Web Summit directions posted all over the city’s metro trains. Although this was my first time in Lisbon, I had no problem getting around the city and to the venue itself. Full credit for this achievement goes to the local government and the people of Lisbon.
Reaching the venue early on Monday, Ian Curtis (our web product manager) and I toured the location, and met with some interesting internet start-ups pitching their ideas and products outside of the Main Hall.
People started to arrive, and a queue began to develop for the invite-only opening ceremony. Of the 60,000 plus attendees, just 15,000 were randomly selected and invited to the opening evening.
Day 0 — The Opening
Paddy Cosgrave (CEO of Web Summit) officially opened the event with the Prime Minister of Portugal, Mayor of Lisbon and the European Commissioner for Competition at the European Commission in attendance. All delivered exciting and encouraging opening talks, with the European Commissioner giving her views on technology and democracy. You can read more about here it by following this link.
Since it would have been impossible for me to attend and listen to all the talks presented, I selected a few that I thought would be useful to discuss in the short time I had to visit each day. Here is a summary of the talks which I attended.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
AI was mentioned a number of times. It was easy to determine that the majority of the event would cover the AI theme. However, Stephen Hawkin’s talk highlighted a risk with AI, as he warned that “the rise of AI could be the worst or the best thing that has happened for humanity”. More on this can found here.
Day 1
AI Continued
Einstein and Sophia debated, with a touch of “robot humour”, what AI truly means for those of us who are made from mere flesh and blood.
AWS (Amazon Web Services) and AI
Amazon Web Services introduced Amazon AI services. It was claimed that most of the AI information on the web is currently being built using Amazon services. Furthermore, Amazon also provided hands-on developer workshops on their CodeStar platform. This is a one-stop shop for software development and deployments, which is easy to setup and cost effective. Amazon web services organised speed mentoring workshops and it covered the basics for start-ups.
Google was more focused on AR (Augmented Reality) and VR (Virtual Reality).
Taking centre stage was Waymo, Google’s self-driven car project, which demonstrated how the internet giant has taken automobiles and apparently made the roads safer with better drivers — simply by taking human drivers out of the equation.
Day 2
Continuing with AI
Slack and AI
The founder of Slack spoke about AI and its future, emphasizing the power of communication for getting the job done.
FinTech
The second day was more about FinTech for me. Looking for tech solutions in the financial services, I discovered a number of talks around blockchain technology and cryptocurrency.
This technology is becoming increasingly popular due to the increased value of bitcoin. However, it offers solutions for industries that need to verify the integrity of goods, documents and their supply chain. The technology expands outside of the financial world and can be applied to any industry.
IBM Hyperledger
The one which stood out for me was IBM’s project (Hyperledger). IBM are either trying to become (or already have became) the aggregators for all major blockchain networks in order to support the collaborative development of the technology based on distributed ledgers.
Uber
The biggest announcement was from Uber on the centre stage. CPO Jeff Holder announced that Uber Flying cars will be ready by 2020. It looks like a mix of a helicopter and a drone.
Day 3 — Final Day
Amazon
The Amazon CTO took the centre stage on the final day of Web Summit. He suggested that voice-based searches are fast becoming the norm in the present, and will set the standard in the future.
Explaining the concept of Alexa devices, he said the device itself has nothing complicated about it. He demonstrated the technology network behind the product, emphasizing the need for an intellectual response from Alexa.
Finally, Mozilla showcased Firefox Quantum, its new fast browser, competing with Google Chrome. This video shows the comparison.
My Final Comments and Thoughts
There is so much more that I could write about Web Summit (not to mention all the free stickers, coffee, and even fidget spinners handed out by various companies). But instead, I will simply summarise my final thoughts on what I took away from Web Summit 2017.
- Artificial Intelligence it’s finally happening, and it’s happening fast. All the major players in the tech industry are playing their part in this revolution.
- Blockchain/Cryptocurrency is almost certainly a bubble, but it’s a good bubble. Now is the time to experiment, explore and learn.
- Voice search is growing fast. It’s no longer enough just to have a brand presence; now is the time for voice optimisation, fast becoming a requirement to compete.
- Start-ups are changing everything. Out of the 200+ start-ups at Web Summit 2017, my pick for the most interesting is Regily with their intelligent registration concept.
If you would like to hear more about Web Summit 2017 and get information on what’s happening in tech today, follow Web Summit’s twitter stream.
Mehdi Ali is the Head of Engineering for Web Platform at The Telegraph. Follow him on Medium MEHDI Ali and Twitter @mesum98
References
Ipfs.io. (2017). Web Summit. [online] Available at: https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknFiJnKLwHCnL72vedxjQkDDP1mXWo6uco/wiki/Web_Summit.html [Accessed 13 Nov. 2017].
Langston, B. (2017). AWS Developers Knowledge. [Blog] Available at: https://twitter.com/brentContained/status/927839809351110657 [Accessed 13 Nov. 2017].
YouTube. (2017). Trading Coffee with IBM Blockchain. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suE5KHkESF4 [Accessed 13 Nov. 2017].
Coleman, E. (2017). If you want to unlock digital systems, you have to give them human interfaces. [Blog] Available at: https://twitter.com/EarlColemanJr/status/928580124752060416 [Accessed 13 Nov. 2017].
