The founder of the Web Summit, Paddy Cosgrave, defended that, in the coming decades, the majority of the world’s growth will come “from the rest of the world, as opposed to the West” and that the technological conference could not be left behind.
“The world is changing, and changing fast. The BRICS [Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa], in particular, will play an increasing role, in terms of growth in the coming decades”, underlined Paddy Cosgrave, in an interview with Lusa, at the Web Summit held by first in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro.
In the opinion of the Irish entrepreneur, in the future, most of the growth will come “from the rest of the world, as opposed to the West”.
“As one of the most important technological conferences in the world, we have to be in these places”, he said, justifying the opening of the conference that will take place for at least the next three years in what is known as the ‘Wonderful City’.
“It’s a big country, a giant economy. If you are an ambitious company or an ambitious entrepreneur, you will probably want to come to Brazil”, he said.
In order to grow the Web Summit in Lisbon, he considered, it is necessary to grow the brand in markets “where growth will happen”.
“That is why we are in Brazil”, he stressed.
This first edition in South America will have an impact in Lisbon: “in November we will see the largest group of Latin Americans, companies and entrepreneurs” in Lisbon, he guaranteed.
About this first edition in Rio de Janeiro, Paddy Cosgrave said that it is being much bigger than they planned.
The ambition would be 5,000 participants in the edition that takes place from Monday to Thursday.
The end result: 21,367 participants from 91 countries, 974 startups, representing 28 sectors
“Much more than we expected, much more than Brazil expected”, he concluded.
Portugal is represented at the Web Summit Rio by 25 ‘startups’, linked to areas such as ‘software’, education or artificial intelligence.
BlockBee, Blue Insight Technologies, Deeploy.me, Dizconto, Enline, Frontfiles, Go Beesiness, Hoopers, IDE Social Hub, Infinite Foundry, ITERCARE, Knok Healthcare, LEADZAI, Mentorise, Modatta and Move, as well as My Data Manager, MyCareforce, ndBIM, Neroes, Sensei, SheerME, Swood, Vawlt Technologies and Wallstreeters are the Portuguese representatives.
The co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement, Ayọ Tometi, the president of Banco do Brasil, Tarciana Medeiros, top managers of Brazilian banks and companies, the executive president of the Onlyfans platform, Amrapali Gan, and the Prime Minister of Cape Verde, José Ulisses Correia e Silva, will join more than 300 speakers, around 900 ‘startups’, investors and journalists, from more than 100 countries, in a summit in which topics such as technology, society, artificial intelligence, climate change, between others.
Among the various speakers are the Portuguese Secretary of State for Internationalization, Bernardo Ivo Cruz, several Brazilian actors and presenters, the Minister of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, Sonia Guajajara, the former player of the Portuguese national football team Deco and the Portuguese presenter Cristina Ferreira.
The technological event, which was born in 2010 in Ireland, started to be held in the Parque das Nações area, in Lisbon, in 2016, and will remain in the Portuguese capital until 2028. The company recently announced its expansion to the Middle East , with the Web Summit Qatar scheduled for early 2024.
