Reflection on Web Summit Rio

With my work having strong focus on Latin America, I excitedly bought a ticket soon after Web Summit Rio was announced.

I must admit, I was initially surprised at the choice of Rio for Web Summit to plant its flag in South America.?That it be in Brazil was always on the cards given it shares language and cultural ties to Web Summits’ home base of Lisbon, and the past few Web Summits have increasingly seen a strong Brazilian presence. Rio De Janeiro, however, has never had much of a start ecosystem by comparison to other Brazilian cities.?

Not to be deterred, I began wishfully looking at Airbnb’s with balconies overlooking glorious Ipanema, before I thought I had better check where the RioCenter venue was located.?To my surprise, it was nowhere near the heart of Rio, and instead was 90mins away at the Olympian Village. Given the well-publicised challenges of the 2016 Olympics, I’m sure the organisers got a good deal for hosting the event there!

Given all this, on arriving in Rio my expectations weren’t particularly high. Web Summit Lisbon has become more like an Iron man event for investors due to its scale, combined with sheer number of aggressive startups pitching their latest Web3 App at you, even though you’ve politely, twice, let them know that you only invest in sustainable transportation. In fact, we have taken the decision to avoid Web Summit in Lisbon this year as we feel the value of the event is decreasing compared to others.?

The opening night in Rio didn’t help my impressions, with really poorly organised crowd control and queuing systems, followed by a sound system which didn’t led itself to quality acoustics, and I was now regretting the trip.

The next morning, getting to venue early for a full day of meetings, I was pleasantly surprised at a lack of queues, a ship-shape venue, and really efficiently run investor-startup meetings. The investor lounge, a location in Lisbon which has become a free-for all, was well managed in Rio and ?a pleasure to visit.?One issue did come to the fore – the Wi-Fi was rubbish, which actually made me nostalgic for the good old days of the RDS! There was no standing on stage and blaming the government on this occasion however!

I had really productive meetings, and actually enjoyed myself meeting some fascinating startups, so much so that I didn’t get lunch on any of the days.?There was a real warmth and openness from the startups and attendees in general so it was a joy to walk around the startup stands for a genuine conversation rather than a rehearsed pitch.

I polled some of the startups to ask why they came to Rio. Some proudly proclaimed it was because they were invited, a line I’m sure we’ve all heard before, but mostly they were there out of curiosity, as there just aren’t startup events of this scale in South America. Some like the fact that the Summit seemed apolitical, so let’s hope it stays that way.?My favourite conference, SLUSH, restricts numbers to 20,000 and I think this is almost a magic number as this event also had 20,000 in attendance. This means its big, but not so big to feel that you are running a marathon or feeling a constant sense of FOMO.

The only Irish person I met was Charlie Taylor from the Sunday Business Post, which is a pity as it could be a good opportunity for Irish companies to gain exposure to massive markets and potential of South America.

Web Summit Rio was a success. I left feeling significantly better about the event then when I first arrived. South American has so much to offer, and I’m delighted we may all learn a little more about it now.

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