It is hard to imagine that the recent Web Summit, held November 6th to 9th 2017, which brought together over 60,000 attendees, 1,200 expert speakers, and many of the top global companies and investors, grew out of an idea and small gathering in the Edmund Burke lecture theatre in Trinity. Of course the Web Summit is now held in Lisbon, Portugal, but the summit is truly something that all associated with Trinity should be proud of.
Few could have predicted that when co-founder Paddy Cosgrave initiated that first Web Summit in Dublin, it would grow to this scale and level of global success in less than a decade. Trinity, being the seedbed for such a global success, should be the envy of many innovative universities worldwide.
While some may lament the fact that the location of the summit has moved out of Ireland from 2016, the Irish and Trinity hallmark is still very much in evidence. Cosgrave, once President of the Philosophical Society (the Phil), and now CEO of Dublin-based Ci, the company that organises the Web Summit, reflects the continued Irish and Trinity connection. Many Trinity participants who attended the recent summit described to me how they felt quite at home at the event, partly due to the fact that they had so many Trinity friends and colleagues working on the organisation of the summit.
Speaking to The University Times, Dr John Whelan discussed the Trinity origins and phenomenal growth and success of the Web Summit. Up until recently the Executive Director of Blackstone LaunchPad and LaunchBox at Trinity, Whelan is now taking up a different role as Technical Transfer Case Manager in Technical Research and Innovation. He helped support the initial fledgling Web Summit and saw it move across to a larger building on Pearse Street as the numbers grew to around 600, and then out to the Royal Dublin Society conference facilities in Ballsbridge in 2011, where it attracted over 2,000 attendees. By 2015 this had grown to a staggering 30,000 participants and the limitations of Dublin as a venue for this rapidly expanding event was beginning to show.
Whelan’s enthusiasm for the whole Summit tech experience is infectious. “Augmented reality, virtual reality, artificial intelligence – that’s what it’s all about now. The summit is quite a unique opportunity to see trends in the technology space, to see what the really large players are putting on their stands”, he said. He added: “Then you also see companies you haven’t heard of before with very large stands and significant innovative products, and you ask yourself where have they come from? You see other areas slipping back, the whole gaming area doesn’t seem to be as dominant a presence as it was a few years ago.”
One of the many presentations he sat in on at the summit included one with Prof Steve Blank, a Silicon Valley serial entrepreneur and academic at Stanford University. He summarised that Blank emphasised the need to be open to failure. Organisations that are not open to a level of failure will struggle with innovation. He continued: “Failure means experience. If you live in a city that doesn’t accept failure – then move!”
Whelan and others I spoke to considered the sheer organisation of the latest Web Summit and its efficiency to be very impressive, especially considering the scale it has grown to. Everything from registering on arrival at the airport in Lisbon in order to smooth your entry to the conference venue itself to the clever use of apps for linking up interested parties reflected this striving for efficiency.
The networking possibilities for startups and all participants was wide-scale, from the summit venue itself to numerous additional venues well into the late hours. Whelan would advise potential participants to have clear objectives and to plan as much as possible in advance concerning what you want to see and who you want to meet. He also described how once you are at the summit there are always those wonderful random meetings and encounters that can prove so fruitful.
Several startups from Trinity were present at the Web Summit, including one called Syze. Final-year BESS student Eoin Cambay, along with his Trinity colleague, Oisin Carroll, established the startup. It involved the development of a web app to enable customers to be able to accurately measure their clothing size, and use this information when shopping online to help cut down on people purchasing clothes that don’t fit. It ultimately should be of benefit to both the customer and the supplier.
Cambay explained that Syze had an Alpha stand, the entry-level stand for startups. He found the whole summit experience very worthwhile. He said: “We went with clear objectives and had lined up numerous meetings in advance. For us, being at the summit was mainly about seeking validation with regard to the approach we were taking with Syze, by speaking with a broad range of relevant organisations.” He also viewed the summit as a great place to get ideas and further inspiration. Cambay felt it really accelerated his whole learning experience and he would definitely go to another one. Syze, as a startup, went through the LaunchBox process in Trinity. Cambay emphasised that he found this really helped them bring their idea forward and position themselves for a worthwhile participation at the Web Summit.
A recently graduated Trinity student and entrepreneur, Kevin Murray, from the startup TicketChain, also participated in the summit with an alpha stand. With TicketChain Murray aims to develop a white-label, business-to-business ticketing platform that allows events and venues to control their own primary and secondary ticket markets. He explained that the idea is to help eliminate fraud and ticket touting, and that the system has been tested with numerous ticketed events through societies in Trinity.
Once again, Murray had lined up meetings in advance and had a well-positioned stand. He found the sheer interest in the product was beyond all expectations. He also emphasised the accelerated learning experience by participation at the summit for a young startup. He said: “I quickly found myself adjusting my pitch according to the different needs of the organisations who approached us.” He explained that they have so many leads and contacts now that effectively processing these in the weeks and months following the summit will be a big job in itself, but one he considers could lead to worthwhile developments in the medium to longer term.
A question probably in the back of every Irish person’s mind who attended the Web Summit is whether it could ever return to Dublin. Speaking to several people about this, the answer was unanimous: the feeling was that Dublin just doesn’t have the infrastructure and facilities to manage the summit at its current scale.
Having lived and worked in Lisbon myself for a couple of years, it is clear that the city has numerous obvious advantages over Dublin with regard to its suitability as a location for the Web Summit. In Lisbon, the particular conference facilities are far larger and more appropriate for such an event. The transport system is more effective, with a modern metro leading right to the conference venue, and the cost of accommodation and the cost of living generally is much more reasonable. Finally, of course, Lisbon generally also has quite pleasant weather. So it seems for the foreseeable future that Lisbon trumps Dublin as a more suitable venue.
However, Trinity can rightly be proud of the child it helped bring into the world. The Web Summit still clearly boasts its Irish and Trinity DNA in it. The Trinity tradition and commitment to encouraging, nurturing and supporting innovation and entrepreneurship continues. The plans for the new Trinity Technology and Enterprise Campus (TTEC) at Grand Canal Dock perhaps reflects the scale and ambition of this commitment. Plans are also underway to strengthen the possibilities for undergraduates to undertake innovation and entrepreneurship modules, through the Innovation Academy in Trinity.
Reflecting on the growth of the Web Summit from the Edmund Burke lecture theatre to a global phenomenon, one wonders what other great ideas and potential global successes may be incubating just under the surface waiting to spring from the Trinity seedbed.
