South Summit Madrid 2023 Recap

A bit more than a week ago, Edi Grbac , Marko Skunca and I had a privilege to attend #southsummit23 conference in Madrid, Spain.

The overall theme of the conference was TODAY 2030, which should be one of humanity’s all-time greatest milestones - reaching a 55% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. This futuristic outlook brought together an impressive lineup of speakers, entrepreneurs, innovators and disruptors across the globe. Some of the key takeaways from inspiring panels and keynotes that we attended are underneath:

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• AI remains to be a buzzword across the board, but one of the applications where AI can probably make the greatest impact is healthcare, by improving doctor – patient relationships, enhancing treatment planning and monitoring, or transitioning from disease prevention in hospitals to disease prediction from home (e.g., interesting use case of using computer vision to remotely check the status of dental health). However, we still have a long way to go due to impediments, such as “AI not working with paper”, transparency, regulation, bias and trust.
• As for the insurance industry, there is a great potential in managing unstructured and semi-structured data, but also a significant gap between legacy systems and UX demands from today’s consumers. Underwriting, claims and customer support remain to be areas with the greatest potential for automation, while next-gen insuretech companies and startups are bringing real-time (e.g., pricing and product personalization) and automation (e.g., automated claim processing) capabilities to this traditional industry.
• Sustainability is not only on the top of the agenda, but now it has a deadline (to cut down on emissions or reach carbon neutrality). One of the ways of achieving this is by improving the efficiency in existing mobility infrastructure with the use of new tech. In logistics, data is used to optimize packing, manage fleets, and optimize routes, but also for better city planning as part of the smart city initiatives, while TCO on electric vehicles has finally become investment positive. Flixbus and Cabify argued that building eco-friendly transportation of the future should not be the burden of end-consumers. Both shared interesting perspectives, where Cabify stated that it is their responsibility as a company for environmental impact and reducing the emissions, while Flixbus shared their perspective of manufacturers being the ones to bear the responsibility by producing better eco-friendly vehicles.
• We learned (once again) that blockchain is not a “one size fits all” solution, its primary use cases are related to math and cryptography, i.e., solving the trust problem, a big problem in nowadays society.
• Remote (only) work is here to stay and as a result, companies shift focus to building cultures of accountability, rather than fighting the remote work battle.
• Being a top entrepreneur and a top athlete is not too different from one another, they share similar traits, which we learned from Pau Gasol and Iker Casillas, who are both running successful business after their professional careers.
• Innovation hubs are very much alive and some countries, like UAE, are using mandates to build hubs to facilitate entrepreneurship and innovation. France on the other managed to bread 30 unicorns over the last 10 years by primarily getting access to gross equity capital and changing the mindset of entrepreneurs.
• Apart from the dangers posed by quantum computing to encryption and cryptography, there are numerous opportunities. One of which is speeding drug discovery, which is currently a process that takes biopharma companies on average 10-15 years and $1-4B, with a 40% - 70% fail rate in the clinical trial stage.
• VCs are very much alive and kicking in the bear market. It is saddening though that apparently only 2% of VC funds go to women founders. However, things are looking up as VCs are shifting their focus to a long-term lens with not only caring for growth and profit, but also taking into account the impact on the environment and planet (ESG), diversity and inclusion (as we know that in general diverse teams typically over perform).

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All in all, these three exciting days flew by really fast and we already look forward to next year's edition of the #southsummit conference.?Muchísimas gracias Madrid! ?Siempre un placer!