#WebSummit Day One; From Snowden to Smith And Lisbon As The New Tech Hub

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This is one of the hardest reviews of an event’s first day ever because it has surpassed my expectations and I do not know where to start. 

Let’s start with the organization. The volunteers were kind, helpful and they showed that they knew what they were doing. The registration and entrance of thousands of people were done in order, everyone queued and then went directly to their seats without problems or at least not obvious ones.

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The start-ups that presented today were companies from different countries, showing us how becoming a tech entrepreneur has become a trend not only in Silicon Valley and the UK but in many other countries around the world.

It was great to see so many women presenting their start-ups and already doing so well.

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One of the 3 talks today was the Chairman of Huawei talking about 5G+X and the future of this Chinese company in the 5G industry.

But of course, the cherries on top were Edward Snowden’s (former CIA) interview live from Russia and Jaden Smith (Will Smith’s son) talking about his passion for making clean water available to as many remote places as possible.

To start with Snowden, he talked about his interesting experience in the CIA and the difference between data protection with data collection. 

Another topic he talked about was  how “Data isn't harmless, data isn't abstract when it's about people”

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You can find the full interview here https://youtu.be/gHETGZzJZjQ forwarding all the way to 1:40:00 or watch the full video to catch up with all the interviews.

To finish today's speakers' review we have to mention Jaden Smith’s interview live on stage tonight. As you might know, he was passionate about the lack of clean water in many places in the world and how this affects children and humans in general. He researched and worked hard to find solutions and today he talked about 501cTHREE & JUST Water.

It is always so inspiring to hear young people not just protesting for a change but actually doing something about it. 

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I personally believe there is always something we all can do even without Jaden’s connections and financial means.  

And we could start by getting our heads together just as we can get together to complain but to find solutions and do something about it.

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To finish the day’s events the Mayor of Lisbon together with Paddy Cosgrave pressed the button on stage that started the countdown to get the Web Summit officially started and together with all the staff and teams that have helped to put this event together and with lovely pyrotechnics and confetti the Summit was started and they invited everyone to go out to the Waterfront and enjoy the #NightSummit.

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One of the best news shared tonight was that the government of Portugal has signed and agreed to have the #WebSummit in Lisbon for the next 10 years.

Did you know that Portugal is one of the fastest-growing technology hubs in Europe?

Well, they are fully embracing it and that was shown on stage with so many tech start-ups presenting this year.

Comments around?

From the media, I could only hear comments about how well organized it is and how fast the internet in the Media Village is!

From the attendees, we heard nobody around complaining about anything but talking about how exciting it was the first night and how they look forward to the next days.

Watch the entire day interviews on https://youtu.be/gHETGZzJZjQ

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