“If this is your first time in Lisbon, it won’t be your last,” Web Summit co-founder Paddy Cosgrave told attendees at the opening of the event, which took place until Thursday at Lisbon’s Altice Arena and FIL pavilions in the Parque das Nações area.
“Portugal is a special place and we fell in love,” Cosgrave added.
Cosgrave was met with a round of applause when he said that Web Summit, Europe’s biggest technology conference, could be held in Lisbon for 10 more years.
He also highlighted that the event was “the biggest meeting of
entrepreneurs” and that meetings and conversations in the next days could “transform careers, companies, cities and countries.”
Web Summit is to continue to be held in Lisbon annually for at least the next five years and potentially the next decade, its organisers announced recently.
In October of this year, it was announced that the event will continue to be held in Lisbon for 10 more years (2028), through annual contributions of €11 million and the expansion of the International Fair of Lisbon. The event was first held in Ireland in 2010 and moved to Lisbon in 2016.
Last year’s Web Summit drew some 60,000 people from 170 countries, including 1,200 speakers, representatives of 2,000 startups, 1,400 investors and 2,500 journalists.
According to the organisation, this year’s Web Summit, was “the biggest and the best” ever.
Altogether, there were 25 different conferences within a single summit.
As in other years, there were events that ran in parallel to the summit, such as night activities and end-of-the-day parties.
Also at the event this week was Portugal’s prime minister, who said that Web Summit was a “world shopfront” for Portuguese startups to achieve internationalisation and to mobilise foreign capital.
António Costa also said the event, known as Europe’s biggest tech conference, was also a bank of ideas to introduce innovation in state services.
“Web Summit is not only an event to bring foreigners to Portugal, but also an excellent opportunity to incentivise the Portuguese to undertake business and encourage all those who are graduating from our universities to develop their own businesses,” Costa said, after visiting dozens of startup stands at Web Summit.