Ricardo Cabral Blog - English Version: November 2018

I was at the Web Summit 2018 and I can say that this Summit is not just for Investors and Startup's.

In this Web Summit I saw a great focus on Machine Learning, Blockchain, Crypto Coins, Gaming, Artificial Intelligence, among others.

Skycoin Blockchain

Many was said to me that the Web Summit is only to be visited by investors, many of the exhibitors are looking for capital or a partner to finance and/or improve their product.
Well, I'm not an investor, I'm a person who loves technology independent of the brand/manufacturer, I'm not a fanatic by Apple, Microsoft, Sony, XBOX. That is, I do not enter into fan wars

The Web Summit is much more than investors.

Networking
It is the must important component. I met many companies (startup is a company) with excellent products developed. Products I can use in future projects and/or solutions. The official application allows you to scan the QR CODE of the Summit Pass to add the contact list on the official APP.

Pass de Acesso

App Oficial

Workshops
Has Workshops of various types. You can say that it's annoying, boring, or a waste of time to hear a person talking for 15 to 40 minutes on a stage. But many of them leave us to think that we are doing things the wrong way and we can improve.

AWS has held several workshops and can be viewed on official AWS's Twich channel.
The official Web Summit channel Youtube you can view some of the conferences.

AWS

Growth Summit Stage

Google

Diversity
Every day I saw different companies whit different technologies, projects, and so on.

Café Grátis
He need Coffee.Delta, a Portuguese coffee company, sponsored the machines and cafes throughout the Web Summit and even walked among pavilions to distribute coffee.

Delta

Free Wi-Fi
In all the pavilions had free Wi-Fi, but sometimes it sucks (does not work). I did not test wireless security (DNS spoofing, Rougue-AP, ...).

Is everything at the Web Summit perfect??
Of course not.

There are reserved areas. For example there was an investor area that was not available for all attendees. It was sponsored by Samsung. This area included new Samsung products, but you could only see / experiment if you had access to this area. For Samsung the equipment area should be public and I saw Samsung as a business monopolist and saw the brand with other eyes.
Food, the fast-food available were not very good there. Quite a lot reduced to average and with a monetary value higher than average. Sometimes it was more than lukewarm, fried past the point among other situations. Did not like.

Fun
In this kind of conference we also have fun. For example on the last day I chose to have some fun. Seeing the Web Summit not as a consultant /entrepreneur but as a different visitor, for example admiring the quantum computer from IBM or Formula 1 car brought by Siemens.

Play with existing technology. This year there was a major focus on Artificial Intelligence. Microsoft, Cisco, IBM, SAP, and other companies had demos that one could interact with.