10 Minutes with the Most Powerful Woman in IT
How I met Margrethe Vestager in the Web Summit 2018 in Lisbon.
In October 2018, my startup business partners and I packed our bags and boarded a plane to Lisbon to reveal our creation, TrustPrize, for the first time to the thousands of the curious visitors of Web Summit, the biggest tech event in the world.
As first-timers at the event, we were naturally a little anxious, but our excitement went far beyond that.
On the big day, investors, marketers, journalists, influencers, and all kinds of IT experts and representatives from giants like Google, AT&T, and the Olympic Channel were “parading” in front of our Alpha Startup booth from 8.00 to 17:30 while we were tirelessly explaining our concept in order to convert curious audience members to future customers.
After lunch, anxiety had given its place to productivity. We talked to so many people that every story, every explanation, came out of us instinctively, naturally. We were nailing it.
Around 15:30 we saw her. She was coming directly toward our booth with open hands and a big smile on her face. Her crew was behind her and some journalists were around her. A cameraman was circling her like a drone trying to catch the perfect shot.
In my excitement I almost forgot to apologize for breaking up the chat I was in with a marketer from Ukraine. “It’s okay,” he said laughing. “This is your moment, live it.”
Margrethe Vestager, the woman who fined such tech giants as Apple and Google for lacking fair practices, was standing next to our booth ready to learn more about “our thing.”
From all the startups in the biggest tech-event in the world, the most powerful woman in IT chose to visit only TrustPrize.
What a great honour (goosebumps)!
Okay, the bragging stops here, I promise.
We started by explaining to her how giveaways have become a data-mining tool for legal user-data trading at the cost of the users’ safety and how even big corporations are taking part in becoming bulk permission obtainers.
Then we informed her of the fact that the law today allows companies to obtain hundreds of permissions on the same leads as long as they follow the law. We asked her straight: “We know it’s legal, but is it fair?”
She said no.
For the rest of the time she was at our booth, we were explaining the verification system we created for giveaways for the missing fairness, the transparency, and, as a result, the trust that would also benefit the organizers who will use TrustPrize for making verified giveaway contests.
At the end we showed her an example of the LiveDraw, the only transparent and fair way today that is not allowing fake draws, re-draws, or custom pick-ups of the winners.
Mrs. Vestager asked us some questions; she said she loved what we were doing and wished us luck. Then she left to meet the Portuguese Prime Minister, António Costa.
By visiting us she showed in action how much she cares about transparency and fairness. She had actually given a speech on that topic in front of thousands of Web Summit attendees 15 minutes before she visited our booth, an informal confirmation that we have built our startup in solid ground.
Thank you, Mrs. Vestager.
Read more about TrustPrize here
Extra: Later that day, while celebrating our success over sushi, we happened to sit next to Web Summit CEO Paddy Cosgrave. He heard us talking about our success and called us for an interview shooting the next day :)
