On January 24, 2024, Katherine Maher announced her departure as CEO of Web Summit to become CEO of National Public Radio (NPR).[12] In April 2024, Web Summit staff were told Cosgrave had decided to return as CEO.[13]
Web Summit is set to debut a new conference in Qatar in February 2024. The exhibition will take place at the DECC and is expected to attract thousands of international entrepreneurs, investors, and leaders in the tech world.[14]"
2023
In October 2023, a number of sponsors and technology companies like Meta, Google, and Amazon cancelled their participation[15] due to the founder's statement on X (formerly Twitter) regarding the Israel–Hamas war, in which he asserted that he was "shocked at the rhetoric and actions of so many Western leaders and governments, with the exception in particular of Ireland’s government, who for once are doing the right thing"[16] following the Irish Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, saying that solidarity with Israel "will fall apart" if the response to Hamas' assault "goes too far."[17]
Hours after Cosgrave's tweets, Israel's ambassador in Lisbon, Dor Shapira, vehemently repudiated Cosgrave and publicly informed the city's mayor that his country would boycott the event.[18] Cosgrave later apologized, defending "Israel's right to exist and to defend itself", thus condemning Hamas.[19] Cosgrave resigned as CEO on October 21, 2023, stating that "my personal comments have become a distraction from the event, and our team, our sponsors, our startups and the people who attend".[20][21]Katherine Maher was later appointed CEO to replace Cosgrave.[22] In January 2024 it was announced that Maher would be cease to be CEO on 1 March to take up the position of chief executive at NPR.[23]
In November 2023, Web Summit announced the launch of a new conference in Doha, Web Summit Qatar. The conference will take place from February 26–29 in 2024.[24]
2022
Pertaining to the Web Summit 2022 here is item 21 from that year's revitalised Irish Annals, called De Reir Book of Moytura regarding an argybargy in which Mr. Cosgrave supported certain gentlemen of the press against pressured opinion.
2020
In December 2020, Web Summit announced the launch of a new conference in Japan, Web Summit Tokyo. The company also announced that the Asia-focused RISE Conference will be moving to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Both conferences are scheduled to be held as in-person events in 2022.[25][26]
2019
Web Summit 2019 took place in Portugal, from November 4 to November 7 at the Altice Arena & Fil in Lisbon, Portugal.[27] Some of the speakers included Edward Snowden; former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair; former professional boxer Wladimir Klitschko; Jaden Smith; Guo Ping (Rotating Chairman of Huawei) and Katherine Maher (former CEO of Wikimedia Foundation).[28]
Nutrix won Web Summit PITCH competition for the most ambitious early-stage startups. 900 startups participated.[29]
It was announced that Marine Le Pen of the National Rally would be one of the speakers, which caused controversy.[31][32][33][34] Paddy Consgrave initially argued that despite her "wrongheaded" politics, he felt that her views would be adequately challenged by professional journalists.[35][31][32][33][34] As a result of criticism, Paddy Cosgrave announced on Twitter that the invitation to her would be rescinded.[31][32][33][34]
Web Summit 2017 took place in the Altice Arena in Lisbon from November 6–9. The event promised to bring 60,000 attendees from over 160 countries together.[36]
A dinner that was held in the National Pantheon was criticised by Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa who said it was "unworthy of the respect due" to the National Monument.[39] He said that although it was legal, it was because the previous government had allowed what he called "offensive use of this monument".[39] Paddy Cosgrave tweeted his apologies.[39]
In September 2015 Web Summit co-founder and CEO Paddy Cosgrave announced that the event would be held in Lisbon for three consecutive editions, from 2016 to 2018.[40] Cosgrave cited the local startup scene and a "cosmopolitan city with better infrastructure conditions and a larger number of hotel rooms" for the decision.[41]
The three-day event held from November 7–10 at the Altice Arena, site of Expo '98, drew 53,056 attendees from more than 150 countries and more than 1,500 start-ups spread over 21 venues.[42]
Some of those who had paid up to €5,000 for tickets into the event were unable to get into the event and had to watch it on a screen outside.[45]
2015
Web Summit 2015
Web Summit 2015 was held over three days from 3 November until the 5 November at the RDS in Dublin. Over 42,000 people attended the event over the three days. Speakers included Ed Catmull of Pixar, Michael Dell, Bill Ford and Chris Froome.
In September 2015, Web Summit announced that they would be moving the event from Dublin to Lisbon. Following the announcement, organisers released email correspondence between the Irish Government and Web Summit CEO Paddy Cosgrave about hotel costs, traffic, and other issues surrounding the infrastructure in Dublin. This led to a debate in the Irish media about the support the Government had provided to the event since it began and what future promises they could make.[46]
Problems arose with the Wi-Fi,[47] but on a lesser scale than in 2014. The invitation to the Taoiseach was sent after 9pm on the Friday, with the event opening on the following Monday evening.[48]
Web Summit 2014 was held over three days and consisted of nine stages or Summits as they are known; Centre, Machine, Enterprise, Marketing, Builders, Society, Sport, Film, and Music. Eva Longoria, Peter Thiel, and Bono were among the speakers that spoke over the three-day event, with attendance of 22,000 people from 109 countries.[49][50]
On Day 1 there were problems with the WiFi network and Web Summit founder Paddy Cosgrave took to the stage on two occasions to apologise for the connectivity problems. The RDS defended their technical set-up 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." Attendees were mostly disparaging in their remarks, with some deriding it on social media as "the most Irish thing ever".[51]
International broadcasters including CNBC, CNN, Fox Business News, Bloomberg, Sky News, Al Jazeera and the BBC all covered the event.
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.[52][53]
The event was expanded in its scope with a number of side-events launching as part of it, including the Night Summit,[55] a series of after-hours events featuring musicians from throughout the world, and the Food Summit, a two-day showcase of gourmet Irish Food.[56]
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.[57] The event was covered substantially in the international media with Bloomberg Television, CNN, the Wall Street Journal, and Wired covering the event.[54]
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.[58]
2009–2011
Dublin Web Summit 2011
The first Web Summit was a mix of bloggers, journalists, and technologists in a hotel on the outskirts of Dublin.[59] Panelists and speakers included Iain Dale, the political blogger, Ben Hammersley of the Guardian, and Ian Douglas of the Daily Telegraph. In 2010 it was a meet-up for 400 or so of the local technology community in the Chartered Accountants House in Dublin. Speakers were mainly local entrepreneurs, business people, and investors.[60] In 2011, the event tripled in size and moved to the Royal Dublin Society. Speakers included Chad Hurley, Jack Dorsey, and Matt Mullenweg.
MEO Arena is a multi-purpose indoor arena in Lisbon, Portugal. The arena is among the largest indoor arenas in Europe and the largest in Portugal with a capacity of 20,000 people and was built in 1998 for Expo '98.
The history of the Jews in Qatar is relatively limited unlike some of the neighboring countries in the Gulf of Persia.
Wix.com Ltd. or simply Wix is an Israeli software company, publicly listed in the US, that provides cloud-based web development services. It offers tools for creating HTML5 websites for desktop and mobile platforms using online drag-and-drop editing. Along with its headquarters and other offices in Israel, Wix also has offices in Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Ireland, Japan, Lithuania, Poland, the Netherlands, the United States, Ukraine, and Singapore.
SAPO Codebits, also known simply as Codebits, was a conference held in Lisbon from 2007 to 2014, focused on computing and light-hearted geek culture content for a highly technical audience. It was organized by SAPO which, besides a news media brand, was also an internet-focused R&D division of Portugal Telecom at the time.
Charlie Muirhead is a Scottish Australian serial tech entrepreneur, investor and public speaker who has co-founded 8 companies spanning music, telecoms software, outsourcing, video streaming and social media, angel investment, artificial intelligence and business events.
Microsoft Ignite is an annual conference for developers, IT professionals and partners, hosted by Microsoft. The first conference, then known as TechEd, happened in 1993 in Orlando, Florida, United States.
Qatar established unofficial trade relations with the State of Israel in 1996, the first amongst all nations of the Arabian Peninsula after Oman reportedly did, concurrently with Israel–Jordan peace treaty. Until 2009, Qatar and Israel maintained trade relations, but due to Operation Cast Lead, Qatar broke the trade with Israel.
XOXO was an annual festival and conference held in Portland, Oregon, that described itself as "an experimental festival for independent artists who live and work online". XOXO was founded in 2012 by Andy Baio and Andy McMillan with funding from prepaid tickets and other contributions via Kickstarter. In 2016, technology website The Verge called it "the internet's best festival".
MyMusic.com.ng is a commercial music download service that aims to provide a legitimate means of digital distribution of Nigerian music. It was founded by three Babcock University alumni; Damola Taiwo, Tola Ogunsola and Dolapo Taiwo.
The Startup Europe Summit (SES) is a pop-up conference that brings together entrepreneurs, investors, academics, policy makers and major corporates. It showcases new EU-funded initiatives designed to boost Europe's tech and web startups. The first SES was held in Berlin in 2015.
Patrick "Paddy" Cosgrave is an Irish entrepreneur. He is a co-founder of Web Summit, an annual technology conference. He was CEO of Web Summit until October 2023 when he resigned and was replaced by Katherine Maher. Maher left after three months and, in April 2024, staff were told Cosgrave had decided to return as CEO.
Tech Open Air is an annual interdisciplinary technology festival that takes place in Berlin, Germany. It started in 2012 as the very first tech festival organised through crowdfunding. The festival has developed into a well-known tech conference in and out of Europe. The main concept behind Tech Open Air is to bring together the areas of technology, music, art, and science by providing a platform for multi-disciplinary knowledge exchange, collaboration, and development. Tech Open Air is organised every year in June or July and gathers a number of influential speakers, entrepreneurs, artists, scientists, start-ups, and attendees from Germany and 55+ other countries.
Garry Tan is an American venture capitalist and executive who is the CEO of Y Combinator and a founder of Initialized Capital. He previously co-founded Posterous and Posthaven. He was an early employee at Palantir Technologies, and previously a partner at Y Combinator. Tan is also known for his engagement in San Francisco politics, both as a commenter on social media and as a political donor.
Katherine Roberts Maher is an American businesswoman. She is the chief executive officer (CEO) and president of National Public Radio (NPR) since March 2024. Prior to NPR, she was the CEO of Web Summit and chair of the board of directors at the Signal Foundation. She transitioned to the role of non-executive chairperson at Web Summit in March 2024. She is a former chief executive officer and executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation.
The Dublin Tech Summit (DTS) is an international technology conference held in Dublin, Ireland. The first summit took place on 15 and 16 February 2017, at the Convention Centre Dublin in the city's Silicon Docks area.
Eric Thich Vi Ly is a Vietnamese-American entrepreneur and investor. Ly was co-founder of LinkedIn, a social networking site designed specifically for the business community, where he served as its founding chief technology officer. He is currently the CEO and founder of a blockchain based trust protocol Hub, as well as the CEO and co-founder of KarmaCheck providing candidate's background checks.
PagerDuty is an American cloud computing company specializing in a SaaS incident management platform for IT operations departments.
Dogpatch Labs is a startup and innovation hub situated in the Silicon Docks area of Dublin. The company's headquarters are located in the CHQ building. Dogpatch Labs consists of over 500 members from 100+ startups.
Tilo Bonow is a German tech investor and entrepreneur. He is the founder and CEO of the communications agency Piabo and a speaker at Startup and tech conferences. He is considered a digital pioneer in the Business and Startup world.
The Ditch is an Irish political news website established by journalists Eoghan McNeill, Roman Shortall, Chay Bowes, and businessman Paddy Cosgrave in April 2021. The website has focused on investigative journalism and investigations into politicians and since its creation has broken news stories in Ireland relating to politicians which have resulted in two Ministers of State resigning from office.
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