Web Summit, day 1: 10 key speakers you can’t miss

The event started off with a full house. Yesterday, around 15 thousand people witnessed the opening of the Web Summit in Meo Arena, in Lisbon, kick-started by the promoter Paddy Cosgrave and the Portuguese prime minister António Costa. Today, hundreds of speakers will be in the tens of stages of the summit discussing technology, entrepreneurship and innovation.

Therefore, ECO has selected ten key speakers for this Tuesday and tells you where and when you can hear them.

1. Mike Schroepfer, Facebook chief technology officer. The CTO of the largest social network in the world will speak in the main stage (Meo Arena) at 09:45 a.m., about what Facebook has to offer for the next ten years. Virtual reality will, for sure, be one of the topics to be discussed. And about this panel, Paddy Cosgrave advises: get there early, because it will be a full house.
2. Durão Barroso, non-executive chairman of Goldman Sachs. At 10:20 a.m., the former president of the European Commission will participate in a heated panel: Governments and entrepreneurs, a match made in hell? It will take place in the main stage and, together with three other orators (Daniel Saks, Rene Obermann and Karen Tso), will speak of the challenges startups go through concerning large companies and, of course, governments.
3. Ann Mettler, head of the EPSC (European Political Strategy Centre). Mettler will be in the Future Societies stage (FIL, Pavilion 1) at 10:25 a.m., to participate in a panel where there will be a debate about how the internet can impact the democratic process – on the day of American presidential elections. Gary Marcus, Paul Hilder and Charles Arthur are three other people who will join Mettler for the panel.
4. Carlos Ghosn, Chief Executive Officer of Renault-Nissan Alliance. In a conversation with technology correspondent for CNBC Arjun Kharpal, Ghosn will speak of the obstacles separating the project for a car without a driver with the technological application in real cities. It will take place at 10:40 a.m., in the main stage. Still taking place this morning, at 11:25 a.m., in the Talk Robot stage (Pavilion 2, FIL), he will also speak in a panel about autonomous cars. Are they the smartphones of the future?
5. Axelle Lemaire, state secretary for the French government. She was the French prime minister for Digital Affairs and, at 11:20 a.m., on the Future Societies stage, will make a presentation sharing her experience. Lemaire is well known for being a strong defender of startups and the internet’s neutrality.
6. Salil Shetty, Amnesty International’s secretary-general. Shetty is coming to Lisbon to speak of human rights, more precisely of how the internet intertwines with them: people are more connected and, therefore, more vulnerable, both online and offline. She will participate in a panel at 11:35 a.m, in the Future Societies stage.
7. Bob Greifeld, Chief Executive Office of Nasdaq. The man who heads Wall Street’s technology index is coming to Lisbon to, in a conversation with Charles Arthur from the newspaper The Guardian, speak of initial public offerings (IPO) in the stock market, as well as of the impact Brexit and the North-American elections will have in the capital markets from Europe and North-America. The conversation will take place in the MoneyConf stage, in Pavilion 2 in FIL, at 02:40 p.m.
8. José Neves, creator of the Farfetch. José Neves leads the first Portuguese unicorn – that is to say, the first Portuguese startup worth one billion euros. In a time where the company is preparing to enter the stock market in 2017, it is imperative to be at the main stage at 02:50 p.m., to attend the debate on the European technological scene and how to create synergies in a post-Brexit Europe.
9. Carlos Moedas, European Commissioner for Science, Research and Innovation. Moedas will be in the same panel as José Neves, at 02:50 p.m. in Meo Arena, to speak of the current technological scene in Europe and the future of the continent.
10. Ronaldinho, investor. The famous Brazilian soccer player will be in the SportsTrade stage at 03 p.m. (Pavilion 1, FIL) to explain how he went from a famous soccer player to an investor in startups and technology. Ronaldinho will explain why he chose this path and, most of all, why he chose technology as a favorite field.