Lisbon just finished hosting yet another successful Web Summit this November.
The Web Summit is one of the largest innovation events in the world, attracting numerous startups, investors, major companies, and entrepreneurs from around the globe each year.
One of the biggest draws during the event is a startup pitch competition called PITCH, a valuable opportunity for companies selected from among thousands of applicants to promote their ideas and business models to the world. Of course, startups that win the PITCH competition are showered with attention, and more than a few past winners have actually used their win as a springboard to secure funding and grow their businesses.
This year, a Portuguese company won the PITCH competition for the second year in a row.
The winning company this year is called Granter, which offers a platform that supports companies in applying for grants using AI and expert knowledge.
Truth be told, the Portuguese government is deeply involved in Web Summit, and Portuguese companies play a major role in the event. As far as I’m concerned, it’s only natural that they tend to be the finalists and winners. Still, Portugal has heavily invested in developing the IT and innovation sectors for a long time, and its ongoing efforts to become a hub of innovation in Europe may finally be yielding real results.
Portugal is also a very startup-friendly country, drawing numerous IT professionals and venture companies from abroad. The event reminded me that this is a country where you can do virtually anything as long as you have a smartphone.
Web Summit started in 2009 as a relatively small-scale tech conference held in a hotel in Dublin, Ireland. But it grew so rapidly that today it’s considered one of the largest technology conferences in the world.
Dublin’s infrastructure and venues couldn’t keep up with the size of the event, so in 2016, it was officially moved to Lisbon. The fact that Lisbon has large-scale venues, a convenient transportation network, active government support, and a low cost of living compared to other parts of Europe sealed the deal.
The number of participants skyrocketed following the move, and the event now brings in a massive 70,000 people. Naturally, the hotels are all full during Web Summit, but so are the restaurants and bars—transforming the whole city into a multinational metropolis. Every year, I picture our usually laid-back little capital city sinking a little under the weight of all those people during the few days of the Web Summit.
One of the memories that stands out for me most about the Web Summit was Sophia, a humanoid AI that was introduced in 2017. Developed by a Hong Kong company called Hanson Robotics, she instantly captured global attention when she debuted at the event that year.
I remember how the discussions and demonstrations held at the event quickly spread around the world, sparking debates around the fact that the AI robot had told a joke, or whether humanoid robots and people could coexist. You can easily pull up the videos on YouTube, so go check them out if you’re interested.
After that, people talked about Sophia as a kind of symbol of the future of AI, and she was ultimately granted Saudi Arabian citizenship.
I’ll never forget her answer when asked in an interview what her dream was for the future.
Sophia replied plainly, “I want to have children.”
The indescribable feeling I got from that one response still sticks with me today.