By Benjamin L. – TheExpert UX/UI Designer at Squad
Every year, Lisbon hosts WebSummit, a huge event in the world of technology. I had the privilege of attending the 2019 edition. Read on to find out more about this event and my experience there.
The WebSummit
1,000 investors, 2,000 startups, 70,000 visitors, and 1,200 speakers: WebSummit is anything but a small event. It is based in Lisbon due to its European location and the capacity of its infrastructure: the Altice Arena consists of four pavilions and a central arena that can accommodate 20,000 people on its own.
The event consists of an opening night and three full days of conferences of all kinds. A total of twelve rooms are used for talks throughout the day. The four pavilions of the Altice Arena are also filled with promotional stands, mixing startups and large companies (Google, Amazon, etc.). In addition to all this, there are of course numerous food and drink stands between the pavilions so that you don't miss a thing.
The opening night
After a very long queue, we filled the central arena for the official launch of WebSummit 2019. The program included speeches by the event organizer, the mayor of Lisbon, and the prime minister of Portugal. The event was rounded off with the very first presentations by startups, Huawei presenting 5G, and a video discussion with Edward Snowden. Snowden emphasized privacy and data collection, mentioning that the GDPR is not sufficient because it only deals with data protection and never with data collection.
The WebSummit was officially launched!
My experience
That left three days of conferences. And knowing that there were a dozen presentations running in parallel throughout the day, I had to make some choices. The rest of this article will therefore be very subjective, based on the presentations that interested me.
There are many topics covering a wide range of areas: privacy, health, politics, music, video games, ethics, accessibility, feminism, marketing, etc. Each topic is addressed for a broad audience, so technical aspects are never discussed, or only superficially (which, in my opinion, is much more enjoyable!).
Let's take a closer look at the major themes that I have seen emerge or observed.
Artificial intelligence / robots / deep learning
Examples of presentations: "Can AI cure cancer?", "Ethics and the future of sex robots," "Should robots have rights?", "Machine learning at Amazon."
Artificial intelligence is on everyone's lips, and major web companies are using it extensively. The use of AI is becoming commonplace and data is becoming increasingly rich, making it possible, for example, to detect individuals who are likely to develop cancer, even long after.
Robots are a subject of debate, and it is certain that as they evolve, it will become necessary to regulate their use through legislation. Ethical questions also arise with regard to sex robots, particularly in terms of access by minors and the normalization of degrading acts.
As for machine learning, it is already being used by large corporations such as Amazon, which uses it to forecast sales based on numerous factors external to the site, or to help drones detect anything that might interfere with their flight plan.
Women and inclusion in the tech world
Examples of presentations: "The future of women's soccer," "Restoring the balance between men and women in digital content," "Testimony on adversity between a boxing champion and a business executive."
Sexism is unfortunately everywhere in our society, and new technologies are no exception. It is therefore important to be able to talk about it at an event as big as WebSummit in order to acknowledge the problem and continue the fight to improve the situation.
Women's soccer, for example, has had its share of glory and media coverage, but this position is not lasting. It is important that investments made in women's sports are on par with investments made in men's sports, in order to grow the audience and revenue generated by both sports, and above all to give visibility to the games.
In media and other videos/digital content, AJ+ has succeeded in reducing the gap in representation between women and men. Their solution is simple: 50% of the agency's employees are men and 50% are women, with roles of equal importance. In general, a diverse team (according to whatever criteria you want to use to define diversity) helps to avoid blind spots and produce inclusive content, which is then reflected in the audience.
Finally, being a woman in a position of responsibility (such as the head of a large mobile gaming company, for example) is a daily struggle, because some people will trust you less than they would a man. Motherhood also often has a significant impact on women's careers, even though it only involves a few months' leave.
Community management
Presentation examples: "The future we are building must be open (Wikipedia)," "How to build and scale products for and with users (Reddit)," "Content moderation at Google"
The power of Wikipedia lies in its neutrality, according to Wikimedia Executive Director Katherine Maher. Indeed, anyone can help build or access a vast encyclopedia of informative and neutral content. Knowledge should be a public good, and Wikipedia strives for greater inclusion.
For his part, Chris Slowe of Reddit analyzed the communication failures of certain large companies in order to avoid repeating them. His conclusions are as follows: Show progress (a beta version) rather than just talking about it, make the beta available to a large number of people, and regularly update the software, taking feedback into account to quell any complaints.
For Google, the issue of moderation is an important one. Generally, Google does not remove content, or removes very little (YouTube is managed by a different moderation team), but modifies its index so that certain sites do not easily appear in search results. One worrying point raised is government intervention in moderation. Governments make recommendations directly to Google, which reviews each case individually before making a decision.
Conclusion
WebSummit is a huge event, and it's humanly impossible to summarize it in one article. Certain topics recur, but it is still difficult to identify any trends, and every experience of WebSummit is personal. If you are passionate about technology, debates, or conferences, and if the price doesn't put you off (between €600 and €900), then go and see the 2020 edition!
