The world is advancing in its digital transformation process

  Being innovative and decisive, persistently driving the change, will be basic traits for any organization planning to stay competitive and live up to the expectations of our technologically thriving world. The 2019 DXC Global Digital Enterprise Survey, written by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) and sponsored by DXC and Leading Edge Forum suggests that this will be “a year of decision-making and profound change”. This statement supports Diana Stefanova’s (Managing Director EMEA R&D VMware) views on digital transformation shared on the stage of Webit 2018: “Companies have to constantly innovate. If companies do not disrupt themselves, they will be disrupted by others.” Join Webit 2019 to hear more about current technological trends and how businesses cope with them

Surveying more than 600 executives on their strategies for digital transformation

EIU reveals that the majority of businesses (over 80%) plan to increase their 2019 investments in digital technology. As numbers suggest this is by far not a hazard as 70% of the respondents confirm that organization’s profitability has increased thanks to their digital strategy. Investments in cloud computing, mobile and applications are already considered entangled to modern business, so exploring emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, server less computing and others, could lead to greater agility and competitive advantage. On the matter, 75% of respondents state that a modern IT infrastructure positions their organization to produce stakeholder value. On the stage of Webit 2018 we also welcomed Mikael Conny Svensson - Vice-President Government Affairs & Public Policy, Mastercard Europe, who shared his vision for Europe in 2030-2050: “Innovation is absolutely necessary, not just to do business now, but to do it in the future too” Explore the report and find more interesting insights here By uniting data and analysis, an organization confidently adds value to its strategy and its further implementation, however, the adoption pace is still rather imperceptive. Only less than 30% of the organizations see their business units as “digitally enabled.” Thus, fundamental to a successful digital transformation is adequate cultural transformation. About 40% of respondents state that the process should be supported by significant initiatives related to organizational change, new recruitment and training programs, digital task forces activation, as well as strong understanding and commitment from core executives to keep and guide the “digi course”. As Igor Beuker, a professional speaker, serial entrepreneur and Angel Investor shared his thoughts on innovation at our 10th birthday: “Innovation is a culture, not a department!” Get the chance to hear about it,first hand experience at Webit.Festival Europe 2019, where attendance is 75% C-level. Evolving and moving forward to the digitization of the business has been proven to be a strategic benefit to any organization. So, if for any reason you still doubt the value of digitizing your company or industry, come to Sofia - the digital capital and get insights from the people implementing this transformation worldwide. Like what you read? Subscribe here and never miss Webit news and special promotions!

HAPPY 2019, Everyone!

It starts BIG for Webit! 1. We have just announced 50 global leaders (out of over 400) as speakers for the upcoming Webit.Festival Europe 2019 | May 13-15, 2019. You may still apply to join as speaker or to book  exhibition space or become a sponsor of Europe's Innovation and Tech Festival. 2. If you still haven't booked your tickets and trip to Webit - hurry up! Some hotels are getting already fully booked and prices go up! 3. Unlike others, Webit always publishes the list of 10'000 attendees from 111 countries who join us and who make Webit one of the few events on this Planet with 73% C-level attendance including: - thousands of CxOs - a fine selection of 1500 of the top European startup/scaleup founders - 480+ Investors covered by over 500 media reporters.

Here is a list of 10 facts about Webit.Festival you should know before you join.

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>>Watch the 2019 Webit Trailer<<

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4. Stay tuned for Webit's new AI powered state-of -the-art networking app and brand new networking and exhibition zones at the Festival. Because we take each attendee's and exhibitor's experience and the ROI on your time and money at Webit.Festival very seriously. 5. Europe's largest startup challenge Founders Games is open for the best startups and scaleups of Europe! Apply today and get a free expo area at Webit.Festival + opportunity to pitch your company to thousands of investors, media and global business leaders. 6. We strive to keep Webit.Festival a unique experience - a touch to the future - while we make sure it is among the most effective events for business. 7. I look forward to meeting some of the Webit community members in 2 weeks in Davos at the invitations only Webit.DAVOS Reception, powered by Youplus - The worlds first video opinion search engine.

A few days before the upcoming holidays, we will keep this very brief. We kindly invite you to watch the premiere of the Webit.Festival Europe 2019 trailer - and join us on this virtual journey. Hope you have also marked your calendar: May 13-15, 2019 and you will join us at the 11th annual edition of Europe's Tech and Innovation Festival along with 10'000 other founders, business, academia and policy leaders from 111 countries. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZGC-0zEXSk[/embed] Please accept our Season's Greetings! May you have the joy of shared love and warmth in your family!  Let 2019 be successful and peaceful! Yours, Webit team

While everybody is searching for the best gift: There is ONE that stands out from all amazing others - a ticket to Webit.Festival Europe 2019 - a chance to experience the future!

Give yourself or someone you love this special present! To make it even more joyful - we give a special 30% discount for the first 100 people who book their tickets. First come - first serve 🎁!

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>>Get your present with 30% discount now<<

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What makes Webit.Festival Europe so special, that people from all over the world join it? With its 15+ parallel events and over 100 meetups, partners events, workshops and round tables, Webit gathers more than 10'000 of the worlds leaders and tech experts including heads of governments from 110 countries! Over 73% of all the attendees are C-level executives, founders, investors or top policy makers! Whoever you rub shoulders with is a decision maker with whom you may discuss business. The festival hosts over 300 exhibitors and sponsors. Webit is so BIG - we build a small city to host it. Check the picture gallery. The featured 200 startups as part of the Founders Games are selected from over 4000 applications! Unlike other events when you get lost in the "startup crowd" - at Webit you may go straight to business! Over 60% of all selected startups as part of the Founders Games receive funding up to 5 million up to 9 months after pitching at Webit. Ready to help shape the future? Get your Christmas ticket now  

In 2018 Webit.Festival Europe broke records with 10'000 attendees from 111 countries, establishing itself as one of Europe's most attended and impactful tech and innovation events.

If you are planning your 2019 marketing activities we would be happy to have a call and discuss our special early-bird offers for exhibition and sponsorship packages (valid by 23 Nov. 2018).

>>Become Exhibitor / Sponsor of Webit.Festival EU '19<<

This year Webit moved to double the size venue but still 3 weeks before the Festival it was sold out and many couldn't join.

>>Final week 2in1 ticket sale<<

While setting the scene for even bigger and more impactful 2019 edition, we share some recent news: In the news The Economist published Q&A on Webit and the state of the innovation ecosystem. Al Jazeera, Entrepreneur and many more covered similar stories. Forbes' article reflected on how "Webit has helped catalyze the rise of Sofia, Bulgaria as a credible location for technology talent and investment."

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Recognition This month our Executive Chairman, Dr. Plamen Russev has been  appointed as Goodwill Ambassador for Digital Affairs of Republic of Bulgaria for his role in establishing the country on the global digital map. A month earlier he was awarded with another Honorary Ph.D by one of South America's largest Universities - UDABOL.

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Super Earlybird tickets sale! Save from €350 to €1400  (depending on the ticket type you buy). Only by the end of this week you may book your Webit early-bird Pro ticket at as low as 50 EUR*! *The price of €100 for 2 tickets is valid by Nov 25, 2019 and is exclusive of VAT.

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Career @ Webit Webit grows! We have 10 open positions for talents from all around the world regardless of your location. If a high impact job and interaction with leaders from all around the world makes you happy, we are looking for you!  Apply today!

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Open call for new Webit host cities for 2019 - 2022. If you would like to host a Webit event in your city - please send us an  email to:partners@webitcongress.com and tell us what will make Webit a successful event there.  

Webit.Festival Europe is launching a new summit, topics of which have been discussed over the years. The mission of the Summit is to address climate change by uniting Technology Innovators, Academia, Governments in taking action towards a low-carbon world. Government representatives shall discuss their efforts and good practices in intense activity in climate policy and an indicator on the countries’ ambitions to reduce emissions and support climate protection. Innovation through legislation is a driving force for Webit.Foundation.

Despite the numerous statistics on climate change, we somehow remain blind folded and rarely take action to preserve the nature and follow expert’s advice.

By 2050, 2/3 of the global population will live in cities.

Аnd more than 70% of the global demand for infrastructure over the next 15 years is expected to be in urban areas. This predisposition will determine our economic future and climate security for the years ahead. How cities develop is important both for growth and for climate change. It is up to us to take action and make change today. According to a WEF survey, dirty air can prematurely kill 400,000 Europeans, not to mention the health costs and the new diseases like allergies in the recent years. The Climate|Tech Summit is Webit.Festival Europe's high-level gathering with a special focus on climate change, its consequences and how investors can change the status quo.

Webit.Foundation has dedicated its work to help solve global problems

It is our belief technology can greatly contribute. Thus, it is our mission to develop technology and digital ecosystems wherever we step foot in. The current state of technology is providing so many solutions that can be put into action. Our goal is to gather the enterprise leaders in the different industries together and plan how to transfer from the current Energy system to a new - clean tech world. Furthermore, we are investing in solutions to these world problems. Founder’s games’ 2018 winner, Bioo, developing a product in renewable energies, generating the greenest energy on Earth won €200 000.

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Do you have a revolutionary idea to preserve the environment? >> Apply to Founders games here. <<

     

Pablos Holman (a World-renowned Hacker, Inventor, Technology Futurist) joined Webit.Festival Europe this year. He works at the Intellectual Ventures Laboratory (IVL) where a wide variety of futuristic invention projects are under way.

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There were not many humans for like thousands and thousands of years until about 200 000 years ago when we hit the hockey stick growing curve.

We went from millions to billions almost overnight

It's that curve that defines everything we are experiencing today. How do you keep 7B people alive without additional planet? What happened?

We solved hard technical problems that kept humans from thriving

How do you feed these people? How do you eradicate the diseases that are killing them off? How do you give them jobs? How do you give them homes? Every single time we invented new technology and brought it to the world to solve those problems. It wasn't government policy, it wasn't religion.. it was new technology.

"Our job is to figure out how are we going to invent on that scale. Because if there is one thing all these extra humans are good for - it's making more problems!"

Intellectual Ventures Lab invented a system for reversing some of the effects of global warming.

It isn't a solution to Global Warming, but plan A is to stop emitting greenhouse gases - we are not doing that…This plan is: Maybe we could put a little bit of particulate in the stratosphere, little white dust that reflects like 1% of the sunlight. before it gets to earth's atmosphere, before it heats up greenhouse gasses. It's like a sunblock for the earth. It could bring Earth's temperature down by 1 or 2 degrees. Just enough to restore arctic ice caps to pre-industrial levels. There are things we can do to buy time.

They also invented antenna technology which is using meta-materials - a new area in science - materials that don't exist in nature but which we can manufacture to give us cool new superpowers. This antenna has no moving parts but it can electronically steer a beam. So it can aim a beam at a satellite.

"We have these things in the roofs of cars - driving all the way across America - coast to coast, streaming 4k video of the satellite both directions, uncompressed."

Every new satellite we put up these days has more wireless communication capacity than the entire satellite network had 5 years ago.

"At the intellectual ventures Lab we bought one of every tool in the world and we hired one of every kind of scientist and we put them all in the same team and we started trying to invent for the biggest problems that we can find. We don't make any products, we just invent new technologies."

When you are inventing you are pretty much wrong all the time

"I'm working on a 10-year horizon, I have to guess what problems are going to exist ten years from now, what's gonna be technically possible and what the right solution is going to be. I am wrong almost all the time. We try to come up with around 500 inventions a year and hope one of them pays for all the failures. That's a lot worse odds than a VC - they put 100M USD and into a dozen startups and hope one of them pays for all the failures. I take 100M USD and put it into 1000 inventions and hope one of them pays out for all the failures."

We need to do this kind of work and we need to do it in a large scale. If you are lone scientist in a garage you only get a couple of inventions a year.

If you have a soup can full of depleted uranium, there's as much energy there as 12M USD of Gas

But, you know, it's radioactive, and dangerous and makes a lot of nuclear waste which we just stockpile into the horizon and we like saving it for our grand kids cause we don't know what to do with it.

"We invented a new type of nuclear reactor that is powered by nuclear waste."

What a lot of people don't realize is today's reactors were invented before we were born. They have problems and we can do better than this. IVL design their reactors on a giant supercomputer they can model every neutron and understand what's going to happen before they build it and can make modern safe reactors.

"We solve Energy, we solve a lot of other problems for free."

We call companies like Uber, Facebook, Airbnb and Alibaba tech companies, but they are not tech companies.

What technology has Uber invented? Or Facebook?

These are the logical extensions to what you get when you invent internet, mobile phones, wireless data. But something important is happening. These are very successful products and very successful businesses. When you look at the economic value in the world when we were kids it was in energy companies, oil companies, biggest companies in the world. Now? It is in Tech companies. Think about how your clothes are made. They grow cotton in one country, ship it to another country to be beaten down, bleached out. Ship it to another country to be spun into yarn, ship somewhere else to be made into fabrics, just before the shipping to somewhere else to be cut and sewn into t-shirt and then back to Europe, where you wear it 3 times, throw it to the bottom of your closet and that is 4 euros. Think we can do better? This industry has been avoiding technology and innovation for about a 100 years.

We pretend you are a unique and special snowflake but you are really a small, medium or large snowflake.

We make t-shirts for the winning team and the losing team. Sell half of them and send the other half to South Africa and write it off as a charitable donation. We are guessing what's going to sell, what colors what designs, what sizes. Think about how we made software in the 80s. We made software on an 18 month development cycle the same way we make shoes and cars and sunglasses. But we don't anymore. Here's how it it today: I dream something up, I roll out of bed, I code and I launch it by lunchtime. All afternoon people are emailing me pissed off "doesn't work on android phone". I fix some bugs and go to dinner, fix some bugs, go to bed. We don't need to guess a year in advance what the market wants.

"If we can make self driving cars and make surgical robots, how long you think it will be before a self running sewing machine exists?"

When it does, the entire industry will be re architected in a way that they can't see coming. Two trillion dollar industry, every human being is a customer. This is a road map for disruption.

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Missed the 2018 edition of Webit.Festival Europe? Don’t miss the 2019! Get your super early bird 2in1 tickets – 2 for the price of 1 here!

Andy Tsao (Managing Director Global Gateway at Silicon Valley Bank) took us on a journey through some of the emerging markets where he had the opportunity to spend time and build the case for innovation economy. He calls it Adventure Capital.

United States vs Emerging markets

What's happening in US in terms of tech and innovation investing?

The US market has been on a 8-year up-cycle. In 2017, 82,9 M USD were invested and for historical context that is the most amount of Venture invested since the year 2000. But then again by looking at the first quarter of 2018 (28.2B USD) if we do a simple annualization - we may be on a course to exceed a 100B USD venture invested in US this year and perhaps we may eclipse the 105B USD from 2000.

"The US economy is doing well, the stock markets are at all time high, unemployment is at historical low, why are then our investors and entrepreneurs increasingly looking outside the US in emerging markets in terms of creating valuable technology companies?"

If we look at the global set of unicorns - more than half of them reside outside of the US while just 5 years ago nearly 75% of all global venture was invested in Silicon Valley.

Global innovation wave is growing.

➡️ 49% of Global unicorns are outside of US (CB insights) ➡️ 57% of new unicorns are outside US ➡️ China has 55 unicorns, Idia - 9 ➡️ 40% of YC is international ➡️ Less than 45% of global VC is in Silicon Valley Last year, venture commitments in China exceeded $50B for the first time, funded largely by domestic RMB investors. Venture fundraising in china matched US fundraising in 2016, which was the highest total in 15 years. By some measures China is already the largest Venture market in the world. Certainly China is the second largest economy in the world. India is also a good example of "tropicalization" meaning that entrepreneurs and investors can choose business models from developed markets apply innovation to take those models locally to their home market. Flipkart is a good example of that. The company raised billions of dollars and have been competing vigorously with Amazon in India for the e-commerce market.

"As I travel around the emerging markets, one of the sectors that really pops out is Fintech."

It seems like in many of the emerging markets the banking landscape is very similar - usually dominated by a handful of large powerful banks that act in a monopolistic sort of manner. That means they don't take a lot of risk, they don't treat their customers very well and as a result it gives the entrepreneurs the opportunity to really disrupt, innovate.

Secular trends that drive the acceleration of innovation in emerging markets:

➡️ The amount of capital that you need to launch a business today has drastically reduced from a few years ago. ➡️ Entrepreneurs can leverage cloud based technologies using lean startup models, they can get to Proof of concept much quicker than before with much less money. ➡️ Entrepreneurs don't need to go to the large money centers like the Silicon Valley ➡️ Increasing availability for best practices - Endeavor, Techstarts, YC ➡️ Proactive government funding ➡️ More funding available from US and other developed markets ➡️ Rise of the rest - you'd no longer have to be at one of the traditional US tech hubs to launch a relevant high growth technology business.

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Missed the 2018 edition of Webit.Festival Europe? Don’t miss the 2019! Get your super early bird 2in1 tickets – 2 for the price of 1 here!

Ralph Simon, who came to Bulgaria for the first time in 2018 after having been a long time friend of Webit is an amazing speaker, professionalist and visionary.

Ralph was the moderator of the panel named Digital Identity and the Future of democracy where several main point were tackled from different perspectives:

On the one hand, the Bulgarian Minister of the EU Presidency, Ms Lilyana Pavlova and the former Belgium Prime Minister, now Secretary-General of IDEA expressed strong points re: challenges and opportunities for the democracy, and on the other hand, Ms Monique Morrow, former CTO of Cisco and now founder and CEO of The Humanized Internet along with Mr Yonov Agah, a Deputy Director-General of the WTO (World Trade Organization) and responsible for the Doha Round as Chief Negotiator saw the citizens as driving force for change in democracy.

When we’re looking at the question of democracy in the digital age, it’s essential for the politicians to ask themselves and to be asked:

Ho do we run a government when each citizen is digitalized?

Minister Pavlova sees the ever changing environment as an opportunity, rather than an threat. She says the government is closer to its citizens - which for both sides is an advantage. From her point of view, one of the biggest challenges of the Presidency of the Council was working on digital transformation, digital skills and digital Europe as a follow up from the Estonian Presidency, the leader in digital transformation in Europe. Minister Pavlova admits that while the first steps are undertaken, there is still  lot to be done when it comes to e-privacy, free flow of data, data security, е-presidency and substantial framework. Mr Leterme’s experience shows that representative democracy is one of the challenges nowadays - where decision making has completely changed. Contrary to the verticality of the representative democracy, i.e. citizens giving confidence and trust to policy makers, today we have horizontality; Another major difference is the informal interaction between citizens and politicians. While Mr Leterme agrees there are many risks, there are much more opportunities and advantages.

Politicians are still using 19th century ideologies, 20th century tools and we still haven’t found the 21st century ways with our outdated decision-making, like the ones in a political party with all the congresses and membership conditions. What was 15-20 years ago, when I was starting my political career is long gone, as president Macron is doing now, but generally in politics there is some delay.

The whole question is how can we turn the new realities into positive change impacting new elements.

The importance of data and consumers protection came up in the conversation - the biggest companies in the world control our data and when we put trust, they mustn’t betray us, unlike Facebook which was supposed to take care of our privacy and it publicly failed.

It’s important for the governments and authorities to act, instead, we leave it too much to the initiative of the private companies to self regulate.

The GDPR may have frustrated lots of companies - some bigger, some smaller, but it’s a step towards establishing a solid ground for further regulations.

Democracy 3.0. Citizens are coming much closer together and want to have participatory interaction. They don’t want to see opacity.

All of the centralized systems we’ve trusted have been hacked. What is the real approach to tackled these issues? There’s a serious mismatch between the speedy developed world and the tools representative democracy has been using to make decisions.

We need to understand the whole agency of technology before us from a government and from a citizen perspective. We need to think what democratization looks like in the 21st century that it all happens very fast, in terms of a minute.

When we talk about technology and innovations, we usually have in mind the digital transformation in companies, numerous apps and the hidden formulas behind our portable devices. However, technology influences health industry and bionic humans are no longer a product of sci-fi films and stories. In 2018, Sofia welcomed an ordinary man with extraordinary arm. He and the people behind his bionic arm proved that injuries are no longer a fate to regret, rather than once in a lifetime experience. Mr Nigel Ackland is using a bionic arm after a work incident 10 years ago. His stories are usually very passionate and personal. He shared one @Webit stage.

Is it life-changing?

No, it isn’t. But it’s changing the perspective of others and often our injuries making them uncomfortable. As Mr Ackland puts his arm on stage and shows it, he says:

What I’m seeing is smiling faces. It doesn’t get much more positive than that.

Let’s look at the specifics:

• It has a vacuum plug, to ensure maximum stability
• plus a charging point, just like a phone
• It has a wrist band for rotation, without using your other arm
• You can still feel some harsh movements, but it has no sensitivity
• The fingertips glow in the dark so it’s useful because the arm itself is black

If you have something that’s not accessible and affordable to many people, why bother?

The usual injuries with the loss of a limb happen to manual workers, mostly men, who have manual salaries and have manual health insurance that doesn’t cover such prosthetics. This arm, although the elder version, costs about £25 000 in the UK, $98 000 in the USA. It’s expensive.

If you change attitudes, you can change lives. Perhaps it’s about time we did start to innovate and change attitudes.

In Europe, about 4 billion Euros is spent on such arms, but not quite the same as this. To all the political leaders out there: it’s time for you to innovate, change your attitudes, re-write your policies and focus on better quality of life.

Will it happen? Nobody knows. But somewhere out there people are innovating.

Before being given the arm, Mr Ackland was asked to picture himself in the next year or two and he couldn’t. He had to think hard to come up with the image of a country house, field and a very peaceful life. Exactly one year later, he stood up before an audience talking about his experience with the new arm. It was June 2013.

Today I’m here at Webit, one of the largest innovation, most provoking summit in the whole of Europe and it’s got to be positive.

Every single one of you, whether knowing or not, just by coming here and listening, is part of the positive change for me.

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Missed the 2018 edition of Webit.Festival Europe? Don’t miss the 2019! Get your super early bird 2in1 tickets – 2 for the price of 1 here!