My Impressions From The Web Summit 2020
By: Rahilka Simonova
Tags: Tech, Conference, Web Summit 2020

Every part of our lives was affected by the pandemic and we had to find new ways to live our lives.

One thing was for sure — we were going to sit in front of our computers a lot more than usual. Our laptops have become our window to the world and for many people, they were the only way to get in touch with the outside world.

Businesses have adopted this way of functioning quite fast and weren’t ready to let things take their own course — they took the matters into their own hands and organized countless webinars, online seminars, and conferences just to keep things as normal as possible.

One such conference was the Web Summit, one of the biggest tech conferences in the world.

As someone who’s in the IT industry for over 4 years and attended other conferences as well, I wasn’t going to miss this one — even if that meant missing out on Lisbon, the hosting city of the Web Summit.

However, aside from watching the program in my sweatpants and from my favorite working chair, the experience was equally unique, exciting, and packed with exclusive content and insightful interviews.

This is my recap of it all and the events that left me speechless and inspired at the same time.

Flawless Organisation

The organizers really outdid themselves with this year’s Web Summit.

Even before the beginning of the Web Summit, the organizers made sure to develop a completely user-friendly mobile application, available for weeks in advance, so that we could meet new connections and bond with each other.

Some of the most popular app features were: list of recommended and trending people, list of our connections available for exporting to our email, list of all the attending companies, chat, send connect requests, request a meeting, conference schedule, add sessions into our schedule — all of these and much more.

Also, for every added session on our list, the app notified us, just before the session started, in case we forgot.

I have one small note in regards to the notifications for new messages — I could only see the new messages once I reached the chat tab and that’s not very user-friendly. But otherwise, everything else was working smoothly.

The ‘main stage’ was the web app, where the live sessions were streamed. Basically, all features from the mobile app were available here as well — connections, chat, schedule, etc.

The talks were divided into four channels: Centre, Creators, Society, and Builders.

There was something for everyone and here are my key takeaways!

Celebrities, Entrepreneurs, Coaches — The Summit Hosted Them All!

The guests were as diverse as they come.

From politicians and footballers to managers and entrepreneurs, all of them made an appearance at this Summit.

Sessions on trending topics, like sustainability, human rights, the future of AI, and the Internet of Things, were rolling round the clock. Such a versatile program was bound to attract all sorts of characters, personalities. Some of them left quite the impression on me — like Kira Komshilova from Huawei, or the first woman ever to join the Lamborghini board — Kattia Bassi and even Jacklyn Dallas, the famous YouTuber. All of them had something unique to share about their career journey and they were more than happy to share some tips with the audience as well.

However, we did more than just listen to the sessions. It would have made this conference far less enthusiastic if that was the case and luckily, the organizers thought of this moment as well.

There were Roundtables sessions — interactive sessions with founders and entrepreneurs.

This was our chance to get a glimpse of someone else’s entrepreneur journey and take notes — who knows, maybe one day, we could speak our founding story from a summit.

All things aside, it was a terrific moment that added a whole new level of humanity to the entire conference.

We had a chance to meet the Microsoft startup team, to see Chris Evans and the team behind A Starting Point, or talk with Ana Rocha de Sousa on what it was like to direct during a pandemic.

If anyone wanted to gain extra knowledge, the program offered Master Classes — an hour-long session hosted by many companies. In here, we had a chance to learn all sorts of things — find out which Amazon tools we need for building our MVP, discover Huawei’s petal maps, or to understand the role of a sustainability manager at ABB.

As I said, flawless organization.

But even this wasn’t the best part.

Mingle Sessions, The Coolest Thing At This Web Summit

Ah, the Mingle Sessions — the best part of the Summit for sure.

As the name itself suggests, Mingle sessions created an opportunity for us to do a virtual mingling with other people. They were 3-minute video chat meetings, but they were more than enough to get excited, meet new people, learn something wonderful about them in a short amount of time and if you’re lucky, maybe even find a mutual interest.

The mingle matches were made based on an algorithm.

It was the feature that brought the conference to a new level. I had a chance to meet extraordinary people from all over the world. Surprisingly, I was even matched with Paddy Cosgrave, the Web Summit CEO, which is an indication that the Mingle algorithm had the highest review for me :))

However, there were two moments that I will definitely cherish for a long time.

The first one was José Mourinho’s talk. To be able to see one of the best football coaches in the world in such a humble mood and even showing more emotions than what we usually see from him, was beautiful. His journey and the way he spoke about it were awe-inspiring, and I think that everyone in that session felt as emotional as me.

But the second one really outlined the core of this Summit — original entrepreneur stories that change people’s lives.

The story is about Zipline, a product delivery company that designs, manufactures, and operates delivery drones. They have been delivering essential medical supplies in isolated places across the world, including Rwanda.

The founders are really proud of their innovation because with their drone delivery system, they were able to save people’s lives and if that’s not a highlight of a business purpose, I don’t know what else is!

The Wrap-Up!

I could write many other stories from the Web Summit, but the bottom line is this one — it was spectacular. Even though it’s been a week, I’m still under the impression from most of the talks and the content I’ve witnessed and learned. I hope that most of the talks will be uploaded to the Web Summit’s YouTube channel as I would love to rewatch some of them again.

For me, this was a great three days experience and an awesome way to spend some of my holiday days, as nowadays, traveling is not really an option. Even though the experience itself can’t be compared with an on-site conference, for the current conditions, it was more than enough.

But for the next year, Lisbon, wait for me!