Web Summit

Web Summit
Status	Active
Genre	Technology
Venue	MEO Arena
Location(s)	Lisbon
Country	Portugal
Inaugurated	2010
Attendance	22,000 (2014)
Organized by	Ci
Website
http://www.websummit.net

Web Summit (originally Dublin Web Summit) is a technology conference held annually since 2010. The topic of the conference is centered on internet technology and attendees range from Fortune 500 companies to the world’s most exciting tech companies. This contains a mix of CEOs and founders of tech start ups together with a range of people from across the global technology industry, as well as related industries.

Web Summit is run by Ci, a company that runs events throughout the world including F.ounders Dublin,^[1] RISE in Hong Kong, Collision in the US and MoneyConf in Belfast.

For the first 6 years the event was held in Dublin, Ireland. In September 2015 Paddy Cosgrave, Web Summit co-founder and CEO of Ci, announced that Web Summit would be held in Lisbon starting in 2016.^[2]

2015

Web Summit, 2015

Web Summit 2015 was held over three days from 3 November until the 5 November at the RDS in Dublin. The event was sold out for the three days.^[3]
The lead up to the 2015 summit was marked by sharp exchanges^[4] between the organisers and the government.
The organisers accused the government of giving only lukewarm support to the event. In his opening speech Paddy Cosgrave claimed^[5] that 'lies' were told by government and government sources accused the organisers of making excessive demands.
The Taoiseach (prime minister) did not receive an invitation to the event until late on the Friday before it was to start, and then only in his capacity as an elected politician, which he declined.^[6]
Problems arose with the wifi,^[7] but on a lesser scale than in 2014.
There was disquiet at the cost of food vouchers, costing €20 a day or €50 for three days, which was included with the attendance fee in previous years, but charged for in 2015, at a perceived excessive rate for what was provided. Widespread perception of price gouging was expressed ^[8]

2014

Paddy Cosgrave and Taoiseach Enda Kenny at the 2014 Web Summit

Web Summit 2014 was held over three days and comprised 4 Primary Summits; Machine, Enterprise, Marketing and Builders.^[9] The event was attended by 22,000 people from 109 countries.^[10][11] The WiFi network collapsed during the first day of Web Summit 2014, and Web Summit founder Paddy Cosgrave took to the stage on two occasions to apologise for the connectivity problems. “We have been working tirelessly behind the scenes to get the wifi working; it’s incredibly disappointing,” he said, encouraging guests to take part in a letter writing campaign calling on the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) to fix the problem.^[12] The RDS defended their technical set-up against criticism, with CEO Michael Duffy saying, "The wifi has successfully responded to the exceptional demands placed on it. This is an unprecedented wifi density compared to similar European tech events." Summit attendees were mostly disparaging in their remarks, with some deriding it on social media as "the most Irish thing ever".^[13] After the announcement of the decision to move the 2016 Web Summit to Lisbon, several Irish technology correspondents cited the WiFi debacle as one major push factor behind the move.^[14][15]

2013

Web Summit, 2013

In 2013, over 10,000 people attended the Web Summit, the vast majority from outside Ireland.^[16] Speakers included Elon Musk, Shane Smith, Tony Hawk, Drew Houston, and Niklas Zennström.

The event expanded in its scope with a number of side-events launching as part it, including the Night Summit,^[17] a series of after-hours events featuring musicians from throughout the world, and the Food Summit, a two-day showcase of gourmet Irish Food.^[18]

Irish Prime Minister, Enda Kenny, also opened the NASDAQ Market from the Web Summit, the first time it was opened outside of New York since the Facebook IPO.^[19] As a result of this and the high-profile nature of the attendees, the event was covered substantially in the international media with Bloomberg Television, CNN and others broadcasting live globally from it.^[16]

2012

Web Summit, 2012

In 2012, 4,200 people attended Web Summit, approximately 40% of these came from companies based in Ireland (which provides a European HQ for several major tech companies) and 60% came from companies based elsewhere in Europe. Speakers included Tim Armstrong, Wael Ghonim, and Arkady Volozh.

A number of companies from across the world also launched their new products or made announcements as part of the event.^[20]

2010-2011

Dublin Web Summit, 2011

The first Web Summit was a meet-up for 500 or so of the local technology community in the Chartered Accountants House in Dublin. Speakers were mainly local entrepreneurs, business people, and investors.^[21] In 2011, the event tripled in size and moved to the Royal Dublin Society its current venue. Speakers included Chad Hurley, Jack Dorsey and Matt Mullenweg.

See also

• SXSW
• Web 2.0 Summit

References

Bibliography

• "Web Summit". News and Events. Microsoft BizSpark. Retrieved 23 March 2013. 
• "Web Summit 2013". Events. Advantage Australia. Retrieved 23 March 2013. 
• "Adrian Weckler on the importance of the Web Summit". Irish Independent. Retrieved 9 November 2013. 

External links

• Official website