Web Summit 2017, Video Reportage from the Most Important Tech Conference in the World

To become the biggest technological event in the world! With this ambition the 2017 Web Summit held in Lisbon has opened its doors to more than 60.000 attendees from 170 countries. They joined the summit to promote their new start ups, to find new ideas, to invest, to get inspired and to network.

The Nobel prize laureate and former vice president of the United States of America Al Gore, the former French president François Hollande, the United Nations Secretary-general António Guterres came to share their support to the world of the innovation.
Participants were even greeted from space by a message from the Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli and were launched into the future by the amazing speech of the human robot Sofia!

1200 – the number of starry prestigious speakers! Nevertheless, the power of the Web Summit was not only in the presence of world famous people but also in new start-ups and original ideas.

Euspert could not miss all of this

During the 4 days we talked to more than 300 people and interviewed more than 100 from 30 different countries in 8 different languages. On this site you will find original ideas presented directly by their creators, suggestions from investors and information about projects by international organizations.

Well, with the above mentioned numbers, and 100% of very satisfied interviewed start ups, international organizations and investors, the Web Summit has exceeded its ambitions.

International Organizations

How big is the role of national and international organizations in the world of innovations and in the life of start ups? Many of them joined the event to demonstrate their support and to share useful information with start ups and investors.

Invest.eu – European Commission

Our attention was immediately attracted by invest.eu – a project introduced by the European Commission. The professionally prepared EC staff was answering and supporting hundreds of attendees who stopped at their stand. After talking to the web-team leader Enrico Portelli, we got an interesting interview with Flipa Ramahallo, Communication Officer at the European Commission.

Flipa talked to us about Invest.eu, a large scale project through which the EU is providing support to help projects get off the ground with customized grants and available to start-ups at all stages and ages of their lives, providing smart lending to trigger additional investments

The presence of invest.eu was very important and also very appreciated. It was also greatly promoted by the originally designed installations in the center of Lisbon. Good job EU!

UK Department of International Trading

Then we met Ana Abreu from the UK Department of International Trading, who told us more about the support they provide to start ups and the solutions aimed at linking up UK entrepreneurs with investors from around the world.

Now lets look at some of the players in the technological field

Tech-evolution turns social

Pinf

Let me introduce to you the youngest start up creator of the Web Summit. Only 16 years old Ondrej Vrabel from Slovakia has developed Pinf hry, games for kids with Autism, Down’s syndrome or Cerebral Palsy.
This was one of the interviews I was most proud to take part in, both because of the age of the founder and because of the social role of the app.

With Pinf children with special needs can learn how to read, write, recognize colours, read time and at the same time the app helps them to improve their fine motor skills and logical thinking.

Interview in Ondrej’s native Slovak language:

Tecnosenior – Brasil

A start-up which saves the most fragile. In this the case elderly.

We met Gilson Esteves from Tecnosenior, a Brasilian company which develops innovative and extremely useful products for personal emergency monitoring, focusing on the needs of the elderly.

Teamwork Family Denmark

As I was hunting for innovative ideas, wandering around booths, a man dressed as a groom blocked me, asking, “Are you married? Are you going to divorce? “

Let me introduce Richard Deleuran from the Danish company Teamwork Family. In our interview Richard has explained how to effectively reduce conflicts for divorced parents and protect children from stress deriving from the separation using a simple online platform

An original idea and an even more original approach of its creator.

Lablaco

During a cocktail party at the Ritz Hotel in Lisbon, we had the opportunity to meet several start-up founders, journalists and investors which were sharing their ideas and suggestions. I was pleasantly surprised by the Lablaco created by Shih Yun Quo and Lorenzo Albrighi (an Italian/English fashion designer).

Shih Yun Quo has introduced Lablaco to us, an Italian start-up which is the first digital Social-Commerce and Circular Economy platform in fashion, worldwide.

Video interview in italian language with english subtitles

Thank you Shih Yun and Lorenzo, good luck for your start-up

BEEsharing

Why not match technology with an environmental “rural” project?

Let’s meet Nils from BEEsharing, an online network created for bee-keepers, farmers and bee enthusiasts to share bee-related knowledge, services and products.

German interviews, but nothing scary, subtitles are in english

Web Summit night

Web Summit doesn’t end at night.

The best of Web Summit’s networking happens after hours, in bars across Lisbon.

Travel and Tourism

The world of Tourism too is going hand in hand with the last tech evolution

TroopTravel

Dennis Vilovic  has introduced a Spanish based start up Trooptravel to us, an optimizing tool, which analyses thousands of flight options and combined with travel preferences suggests the best places for groups to meet.
Dennis has shown us how it works in real time.
interview in Spanish with English subtitles

Dennis spoke with us also in his native German language

Hand2Hand

As we were in Lisbon, we had the opportunity to meet a huge number of Portuguese start-ups. Being a travel and let’s say also a shopping fan, I was immediately attracted to Hand2Hand, an app, which connects travellers with shoppers seeking products from all around the world.

Since in 2017 it was the second time I attended the Web Summit in Lisbon and I decided to learn some Portuguese, I tried to interview Pedro in his native language (perdoe minha pronunciação…)

Menu de dias

The Web Summit also introduced a project called Women in Tech, so lets look at the Spanish based start-up Menu de Dias which was completely made by one woman and one woman only.

The daily menu in restaurants (called “Menu de dias” in Spanish) is very popular in Spanish cities and Loanne Crumlinne thus had the idea to create an app which helps restaurant owners to propose their menus of the day in a very effective way

Nomadash

Have you ever thought of travelling the world and earning money while travelling? Learn more about the app that helps you to find a temporary job in every destination you go to.

In our interview Felipe, introduces Nomadash, an app that helps you find per-day job offers around world while you travel.
Interview in Spanish with English subtitles

Web Technology

And what is the tech evolution of management? And here we are in the sophisticated software area!

Kontentino

Juraj has presented us a Slovak based start up Kontentino. Not an “early birth” start up but already a well working project which helps social media brand managers and digital managers around the world create high quality content by making their jobs as streamlined as possible. Watch the full interview to find out more!

interview in Slovak

Datalabor

The Italian Datalabor is not a recent start up but a well-established business for small and mid-sized companies that are interested in having a professional customized business management platform solution.

We were talking to Luigi from Datalabor, a revolutionary business management platform to self-create management applications such as ERP, CRM, WCMS.

Antiadblock

Last year we interviewed the founder of Eyeo, the owner of the notorious Adblock plus, which blocks ads on publisher sites, preventing monetization.

This year, in the spirit of fairness , we met the antagonists, the Czech company Antiadblock!

Antiadblock .com unlocks and recovers reach and inventory previously inaccessible to publishers and advertisers. In our interview the Antiadblock’s founder Martin Vedj has told us a little bit more about his company

interview in Czech

Visionect – Slovenia

Urša from the Slovenian company Visionect introduced us to Place & Play a paper-like, energy-saving display, mount and software player in a single all-in-one device, foregoing expensive and time-consuming sign installation, integration and content management.

Ursa was one of the thousands of attendees, but in some way different. While we were finishing one of our interviews she has suddenly interrupted us asking, if she could demonstrate her start up to us. Well, if the mountain won’t come to Muhammad, Muhammad must go to the mountain. Even tough we were tired I liked her strongly entrepreneurial and at the same time pleasant approach!

NearGroup

Web Summit is about networking isn’t? So lets meet Prashant Pitti from NearGroup a start up expanding at a phenomenal rate.

An app which was downloaded millions of times within a few mounts. NearGroup chatbot intelligently connects nearby-people based on their communication and not their looks. It is a social and dating product, which believes humans are much more than just their pictures and selfies. Its founder Prashant Pitti told us more about his rapidly growing company

shop-o-rama

And where is the e-commerce heading? Among the dozens of booths dedicated to the e-commerce industry, some start-ups were able to draw our attention because of their original ideas. One of them, SHOP-O-RAMA, is a start-up made in Italy-founded by Stefano Ritelle, who returned to his home country after 12 years in China.

His online marketplace allows small and medium companies to use this software in order to promote Made in Italy products in the world.

Being a business focused on Made in Italy I made the interview in Italian as well

Fintech

What would the Web Summit be without at least one crypto-currency related start-up?

Dozens of international blockchain and bitcoin professionals participated with their new solutions at the Web Summit. I interviewed a couple of particularly interesting ones.

bitINKA

bitINKA a South American Bitcoin wallet, which allows users to buy and sell bitcoins in exchange for 9 different currencies through a built-in trading platform. National currencies can be deposited and stored in the Bitinka wallet.
interview in spanish with english subtitles

BTC .com

2017 is surely the year of crypto-currency. What news are bringing the giants of the internet?

BTC.com is one of the world’s most important players in the bitcoin wallet and mining pool field. It is the prime online destination for information about the Bitcoin and digital currency industry: integrating a community forum, breaking Bitcoin and digital currency news, Bitcoin network statistics, a solid beginner’s guide to Bitcoin and much more.

Big tech companies

SEMrush

If our editorial activity is successful and we have received millions of visits through search engines, it is partly due to advanced analysis tools, especially SEMrush.

That’s why at any Web Summit we can’t miss a meeting with someone of their Team. Last year we talked to Olga. This time we met Daryana. SEMrush is one of the best keyword researching tools worldwide, and Daryana shared with us their most recent news and projects. Let’s find out the latest news in the SEO world!

Daryana is responsible for the Italian market and we have taken the opportunity to make a detailed interview with her in Italian

We made a short interview also in Russian. Not only because it is Daryana’s native language but mainly because Semrush was born in Russia

SEDO

Another giant of the Web! Let’s discover the latest news from the world of domains with Frank from SEDO, the world’s leading domain name and website marketplace and domain parking provider.

Trello

To organize our editorial work and to optimize every task with our programmers, designers and other freelance cooperators, we have been using Trello for years! That is why when we noticed the Trello stand at the Web Summit, we could not miss at least a short chat.

We met Alexa Battisita from Trello, one of the most popular web-based project management applications in the world, who has shared with us some of their hotest news.

Start-up Creator

We met Rafael from Startup Creator, a German based company, which is supporting entrepreneurs in developing their entrepreneurial ideas towards the implementation of their tech concepts in the form of an app and web development and providing them with everything necessary to build their own start-up.

Interesting people

Finally some interesting suggestions form even more interesting people we met at the Web Summit

NG KEE PENG – inQBay (investor)

NG KEE PENG has suggested to the start-ups how to promote their activity in the most effective way to attract the investors – being himself one of them

Two experts from Italy from the field of HR, entrepreneurship and social networking participated at the web summit as well

Enzo Zauli – Cost srl

Enzo Zauli, manager of the company Cost has shared with us his particular point of view about the Web Summit’s project Women in Tech and about the female entrepreneurship in general

italian interview with english subtitles

Osvaldo Danzi – Fior di Risorse

One of the most important Italian headhunters and chief editor of Fior di Risorse (association of HR professionals born on Linkedin which soon became a benchmark in the industry).

Osvaldo was not hiding his great enthusiasm about the Web Summit, but at the same time revealing a bit of disappointment with the current situation in Italy.

italian interview with english subtitles

Conclusion and Credits

We hope you were inspired just as much as we were and can’t wait what Web Summit 2018 will bring.

This reportage has been made by:

Helena Hagan (linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenahagan/)

and  Marco Fattizzo (linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcofattizzo/)

Thank you to Web Summit organization and to all people who shared with us their experiences!

See also who we met during the  Web Summit  2016 in Lisbon and Web Summit 2015 in Dublin.