The Web Summit took place in Dublin last week and already, tickets are available for 2015. OSD’s Samanta Dieterle gives the low-down on possibly THE convention of the year!
If you didn’t spot them or cross their paths in another way, pretty much every big hitter from the Industry was represented – CEOs from Dropbox, Twitter, Evernote, Hootsuite, The Huffington Post and celebrities like Bono, Eva Longoria, Adrian Grenier and Pro-Skater Tony Hawk (who caused a bit of a twitter stir when he was spotted buying a Christmas jumper).
The Irish Times gave a nice summary of the stats: a total of 603 speakers, 1191 journalists and press people, 700 investors, start-ups from 85 countries and more than 2,000 companies on the exhibition space. For the Food Summit deliveries included an estimated 10,000 Irish apples, 2,000 kg of cheese, 4,000 baby carrots and 82,000 cups of coffee– 22,000 ticketholders are (coffee-) hungry.
A favourite amongst music fans was undoubtedly the Mash Machine at the Machine Summit. An interactive Lightbox-lookalike imitating DJing with blocks in primary colours which are being moved across the surface. Melody, drums, vocals and bass become a fusion of literally hand-mashed tunes.
All those Gamers out there would’ve loved to give the Oculus Rift a go. Virtual reality headsets have been hailed by Apple Co-founder Steve Wozniak as “the greatest thing as a gaming platform” and brings 3D to a whole new level.
The Web Summit turned out to be great exhibition opportunity for local artists. “From L.A. to Dublin” hosted a collection of paintings, sculpture, prints and drawings from Ireland’s most exciting emerging artists and was curated by Rebecca Wilson, Chief Curator and Director, Art Advisory at Saatchi Art.
And for Movie-lovers, “The Imitation Game” premiered in Europe at the Cinema stage. The World War II movie based on the life story of Alan Turing and his team and their incredible task of breaking the Enigma code – coding on an international level.
But back to the tech side of things – John Underkoffler, CEO of Oblong Industries might not ring a bell with everyone, but gesture-sensitive screens from the movie Minority Report might get you more excited. He is the man behind the design and development of commercial versions of those computers and screens to open up your possibilities in your very own meeting room!
Oblong Industries: Our Story from Oblong Industries on Vimeo.
The list could go on and it is quite remarkable how extensive and versatile this year’s summit was.
WebSummit 2015 here we come!
