Happy Women's Day! On a personal note - I am a male feminist. Since we have founded the non-for-profit Webit.Foundation, Webit's mission has been improving the state of well-being through empowering entrepreneurship and women in business and politics! I am grateful to all global leaders and friends who support us during the past 11 years! I cannot be more happy to announce on 8 March 1000 free tickets for women for Europe's leading Innovation and Tech Forum - Webit.Festival Europe 2019: - 225 free tickets for women-coders - 225 free tickets for women-in-tech (general business, innovation) - 225 tickets for women in academia and research - 225 tickets for women in politics. But ... we believe communities are build around shared necessities! Thus we request every woman who takes advantage of this special present to give back as little as 10% of the price of the ticket to the community of Bulgarian disadvantaged women. We shall double on your donation and shall provide free Webit tickets to them.

APPLY OR NOMINATE A FEMALE FRIEND FOR A FREE TICKET*
*you pay only 10% of the ticket price and it goes as donation for tickets for disadvantaged women.

I am proud to share that Webit.Festival is a good example in regards to ratio between female to male speakers. And while we still strive to involve more and more women in business and politics as speakers, I am so grateful to all these global leaders - amazing ladies who have already accepted our invite to join Webit! Furthermore our 2019 host country Bulgaria (according to official statistics by Eurostat) is the leader in Europe with with 31.02% women in ICT.  The average for EU is almost 2 times less - 16.7%! Happy Women's Day and I look forward to see you over 13-15 May in Sofia @ Webit.Festival Europe! Warm regards, Plamen Russev

We just did! Announcing the new Webit.Festival '19 Venue - NDK in Sofia. We had to find a new (the biggest ever) venue for Webit.Festival Europe 2019 - Europe's Innovation and Tech Flagship Forum! Every year the forum and the expo outgrow every previous venue we hold the Festival and this happens for the past 11 years regardless of the country and the city host of Webit. The above empty conference theater will be filled with the 10,000 Webit attendees from all around the world. It is just one of the 15 co-hosted industry focused summits of Webit.Festival Europe over 13-15 May, 2019 in Sofia. When was the last time you have been speaking in front of such an international, selected audience of top executives and innovators? We kindly invite you to take the chance (in the next few days) and

• apply for a speaker
• join the sponsors / exhibitors
• if startup / scaleup - apply, get a free expo space and secure funding
•  or

Book your EarlyBird Ticket

  as prices increase shortly! By joining Webit.Festival you connect with: - 10,000 leading digerati from 111 countries - Top founders as part of World's biggest startup challenge - Founders Games - 73% C-level attendees - 450 First Class Global Speakers - 500+ Accredited Journalists - 500+ Investors Join the event (actually 15 co-hosted industry focused events) - symbol of thought leadership and vision for the future. The Festival where we all envision and create the desirable future together. Thank you and see you at Webit.Festival Europe | 13-15 May 2019, NDK - Sofia. The Webit Team  

Join us at the 3rd edition of one of the world’s leading gatherings of top experts who shape the future of healthcare, pharma and wellness. Also known as Webit.Health Summit & Expo, hosted by Webit.Festival 2019. Join us to explore and experience the future of healthcare. Expand your horizon. Get inspired by exceptional ideas. Join the community of people who improve the state of wellbeing and change lives.

Book Your Ticket

Webit.Health Programme Commitee is chaired by Prof. Shafi Ahmed - the most watched surgeon in the human history and world’s renown innovator in VR/AR

Daniel Kraft Physician-Scientist. Chair for Medicine at Singularity University & Founder & Chair, Exponential Medicine		Ali Parsa CEO, Babylon
Joseph Elborn President, European Health Parliament		Junaid Bajwa Global Lead for Strategic Alliances, Digital Centre of Excellence at Merck & Co
Dan Vahdat Founder & CEO, Medopad		Anu Acharya CEO, Mapmygenome

Agenda, Impact and knowledge areas:

• AI
• VR/AR, Imaging
• Exponential Medicine
• Personalized Medicine
• Genomics and biotech
• Well-being and Longevity
• Marketing & Communication in healthcare

Who attends?

• Healthcare, pharma and biotech Innovators
• Founders and new disruptive healthcare, pharma and wellness entrepreneurs
• healthcare marketing agencies
• Investors
• Governments, Policy makers and regulators

Partners (sponsors and exhibitors)

Webit.Health is proud to be supported by some of the world leading industry innovators including:

Become a Partner

---

World's Biggest Startup Challenge

Webit.Health is the place to meet the hottest startups and founders of health, biotech, pharma and wellbeing starups around the world! Over 4000 startups apply for the Webit.Foundation grants. A significant number of them are in the health domain. Join Webit to withness the future of healthcare. If you are founder/work for disruptive startups - apply below and get a free exhibition slot and opportunity to pitch at the Webit.Health Stage in front of the global leaders and investors. Stay tuned for the BIG winers of the Webit.Heath Awards in 2019. The winner of the special Webit.Health Awards 2018 was Prof. Shafi Ahmed, the 2019 Chair of Webit.Health Programme Committee and global role model for and innovators. See more information here See you at Webit.Festival Europe over 13-15 May 2019 in Sofia. Warm regards, The Webit Team

Join us at the 11th edition of one of the world’s leading gatherings of top innovators, inventors, founders, policy makers and marketeers: Webit.Innovate! Summit & Plenary Session, hosted by Webit.Festival 2019. Expand your horizon. Grow your business! Meet 1000 policy makers. Get inspired by exceptional ideas. Join the community of people who improve the state of the world. 10,000 attendees from 111 countries and YOU?

Book Your Early Bird Ticket - prices increase soon

    The Innovate! Summit & Plenary Session are chaired by Mariya Gabriel - the European Commissioner for Digital Economy & Society, European Commission. Among the 400+ speakers are:

Mark Cuban Serial Entrepreneur, Investor, Celebrity - Shark Tank		Sandy Carter Vice President, Amazon Web Services
Joanna Riley 100 highest-ranking women in tech globally; Co-Founder & CEO, Censia		Paul Willmott Senior Partner & Founder of Digital McKinsey, McKinsey & Co
Per Pedersen Global Creative Chairman, Grey		Filippo Catalano Group Chief Information Officer, Nestlè
Guido Jouret Chief Digital Officer, ABB Group		Raj Samani Chief Scientist, McAfee
Keith Strier Senior Partner, Innovations, EY		Leila Janah Founder and CEO, Samasource and LXMI
Chuck Porter Co-Founder & Chairman, Crispin Porter + Bogusky		Karthic Bala Chief Data Officer, Condé Nast
Ashwini Karandikar Global President, AMNET, Dentsu Aegis Network		Iliyana Tsanova Managing Director, EU Strategic Investment Fund
Paul Misener Vice President, Amazon		Martin Wezowski Chief Designer, SAP
Thomas Arnoldner CЕО, A1 Group		Anette Schaefer Vice President, Deutsche Telekom
Mark Oleynik Founder, CEO, Inventor, Moley Robotics		Rachel Wolfson Journalist, Forbes & Bitcoin Magazine

... and hundreds more (see first announced speakers)

Agenda, Impact and knowledge areas:

• What companies and the nations need to do to make the most of the AI revolution?
• How is artificial intelligence changing leadership, finance, health, communications and all areas of life?
• What will be the future powered by AI, 5G, and IoT developed infrastructure?
• How data is further affecting enterprises' bottom lines?
• AI regulation and ethics. Where do the greatest dangers lie, can they be regulated away, and by who?
• Digital Transformation
• Future Of Work
• Vision for Europe 2030-2050
• Protecting the People
• Extreme Innovations
• Infrastructure 4.0
• Empowering Women in Business & Politics
• Storytelling, Marketing & Communications in the Digital Age

Who attends?

• World's largest brands and  Innovators
• Top Executives Fortune 500 companies
• Digital Transformation leaders
• CEOs; Chief Data, Information, Technology, Innovation, Digital, Transformation, Security, Finance, HR... Officers
• Investors
• Governments, Policy makers and regulators

Become a Sponsor / Exhibitor

---

World's Biggest Startup Challenge

Webit.Festival Europe is the place to meet the hottest startups and founders fromaround the world! Over 4000 startups apply for the Webit.Foundation grants. A significant number of them are in the health domain. Join Webit to withness the future of healthcare. If you are founder/work for disruptive startups - apply below and get a free exhibition slot and opportunity to pitch at the Webit Stages in front of 500+ investors, global business leaders and investors.

Startup? Join Webit.Festival and Get a Grant

---

  Stay tuned for the BIG winers of the Webit.Awards in 2019. See more information here See you at Webit.Festival Europe over 13-15 May 2019 in Sofia. Warm regards, The Webit Team  

---

 

Webit.Foundations provides grants to over 1500 startups/scaleups! For the past 10 years Webit is selecting the best of the best founders and we help them with mentoring and funding rounds through direct introductions, 1:1 meetings, opportunities to pitch at Webit stages... Apply today and get an opportunity to connect with over: - 500 investors - thousands of potential partners and clients - global business leaders from Fortune 500 companies - 500+ accredited journalists

Apply today for free

Mark Cuban

the world famous entrepreneur, investors and celebrity from Shark Tank is joining Webit.Festival and will spend 3 days in Sofia with us. Are you?

   

Connect with 500+ investors

We host many family offices, corporate ventures (BMW ventures, IBM Ventures, Intel Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, Novartis Ventures Fund, Pro Sieben Ventures, Time Warner Investments, GE Ventures, Microsoft Ventures to name a few), VCs including 500 Startups, Happinnes Ventures, Speedinvest, LUMA Ventures, CREDO Ventures, Early Bird Capital, Open Ocean, many business angels and best accelerators from all around the world @ Webit.Festival Europe and the Founders Games. 200 of them are members of the Founders Games Jury and will hear your pitch on the stage if among the selected startups/scaleups.

One last thing.

5 of all selected startups will pitch in front of 3600 people auditorium for the Founders Games prestigious award - to be named Webit's top startup and ...guess who is going to be the jury!  

... and unlike anywhere else - at Webit all this comes for free!* Webit.Foundation is committed to improving the state of the well being through empowering entrepreneurship! Our grants are funded by the success of Webit.Festival and we provide all these opportunities for no price to the selected startups. * (If selected a single transaction of 80 EUR is expected to cover your branding package.) The keyword is selected - we only select the best! Apply today and join the Webit list!

---

 

17 hours remaining to take advantage of the Promo Webit Ticket at only € 120 (75% discount).

Join Europe's Innovation and Tech Festival, bringing together unique mix of top global business and thought leaders, innovators and policy makers from 111 countries.

---

>>Get Your Webit Promo Ticket Now<<

---

and join the 11th edition of Webit.Festival Europe along with

Webit is not the usual Tech and Innovation event. Click on the video below to explore the unique Webit.Festival experience!

Your ticket will give you access to 15 industry focused summits, 150 side events and 400+ speakers, including:

Mark Cuban Businessman and investor. Owner of Dallas Mavericks. The Shark in the Tank @ Webit (Startups/Scaleups)

Mariya Gabriel Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society, European Comission (Policy)

Dirk Hoke CEO Airbus Defence & Space (Enterprise)

>>See the first 100 announced speakers<<

We believe that only by supporting the development of the entrepreneurial ecosystem and empowering the women in business and politics - we may improve the state of well-being globally. Thus for the past 10 years Webit.Foundation is providing millions of Euros in grants to startups and innovators.

We select and present 1500 of the best European startups out of over 4000 applications!

When was the last time you have pitched in front of such audience of investors, global business leaders and media from 111 countries?

If you run a startup - you never have to pay* to join Europe's innovation and tech event - Webit! You just need to apply here and in case you are selected - you receive everything for free, including: - 1500 free tickets to Webit and - 200 free exhibition slots to present your company in front of 10,000 global business leaders, investors and media. Webit is among the very few global, large scale events where the enterprise partners and attending investors and media meet and connect with pre-selected and already vetted startups in 3 stages: - pre-seed - post seed - scaleups (with up to 10 million EUR investment). ... and investors don't have to hide their badges to protect themselves from the wannabee millionaires' meaningless pitches :) ... but the opposite - the investors visit Webit's startups expo with top selected startups as they don't  want to miss even a single opportunity to meet with the best European founders at Webit and invest!

Investor/Enterprise leader?

Should you want to join the Webit's Founders Games sponsors and partners and have first access to the most innovative European companies in areas such as AI, Mobility, Health, Energy, Blockchain, Automation, Fintech... to name a few - contact Aniela Ruseva by fill in this form and the Webit team shall contact you shortly.

If you look just 10 years back...

you can easily see the rapid evolution of digital industry. Everything is smart - phones, watches, we even have home AI assistants so that our homes can be smart. At this point we cannot and we don’t want to imagine the world without the technological advantages. More or less, this is normal: for the century we live in, for our jobs, for our life nowadays. So 10 years in our century is a period in which A LOT can change. Just a few months ago Webit celebrated its 10-year anniversary. The festival grew rapidly to become one of Europe’s (and even world’s) largest forums for innovation, technology, entrepreneurship, policy and startups. /You can watch the trailer here: https://youtu.be/695bBvsv6vQ/ Webit.Festival gathers tech, digital and policy elite to re-invent and pave the digital future of Europe.

This year is no exception.

We would like to introduce you to some of our confirmed 2019 speakers. So in the next few weeks we will share some interesting information about the amazing line up that we are preparing for this year’s Festival.

Today we’d like you to meet 5 Innovation Gurus:

On the Innovate Stage you will see: Dr. Goertzel is one of the world’s foremost experts in Artificial General Intelligence. (It is a subfield of AI oriented toward creating thinking machines with general cognitive capability at the human level and beyond.) Ben also has decades of expertise applying AI to practical problems in areas ranging from natural language processing and data mining to robotics, video gaming, national security and bioinformatics. He has published 20 scientific books and 140+ scientific research papers. He is also the main architect and designer of the OpenCog system and associated design for human-level general intelligence. Dr. Viral Shah is CEO of Julia Computing, co-creator of the Julia programming language and winner of the 2019 James H. Wilkinson Prize for Numerical Software. He implemented a risk management system for derivatives trading on the National Stock Exchange in India. Viral co-authored Rebooting India with Nandan Nilekan. He is also co-founder of Infosys and founding chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India, which has delivered unique bio-metric identification to 1.2 billion Indians in the past decade. Rebooting India describes Nandan and Viral's experience implementing a large-scale technology project in government. Viral and his co-creators started Julia as a hobby but it is now their full time occupation at Julia Computing. Julia is the fastest dynamic programming language for numeric and scientific computing, including artificial intelligence and machine learning. Julia is free and open source and is used by more than 10,000 enterprises and 1,500 universities with over 2 million downloads, 1,900+ packages and 800+ open source contributors. Leila Janah is the Founder and CEO of Samasource and LXMI, two companies that go beyond charity to #givework to low-income people around the world using cutting-edge social enterprise models in technology and luxury skincare, respectively. She is the author of the book Give Work (Penguin/RandomHouse). Leila is a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum, a former Director of CARE USA, a TechFellow, recipient of the inaugural Club de Madrid Young Leadership Award, and also the youngest person to win a Heinz Award in 2014. She is one of Fortune’s Most Promising Entrepreneurs. And she was the subject of cover stories in Entrepreneur, Fast Company, and Conscious Company Magazines. Oisin Hanrahan is a serial entrepreneur with deep knowledge of two-sided marketplaces and a keen interest in technology and politics. Oisin is currently the co-founder and CEO of Handy which he founded in 2012. Handy is changing the way that people book and provide home services. From home cleaning to TV mounting, smart home setup to furniture assembly, people turn to Handy for a seamless, fast and top-quality experience that provides them with access to the home services they need. Oisin also advises and invests in startups, particularly in New York City. Major media extensively featured Oisin’s work, including CNBC, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times.

And last but not least, a dear Webit friend -

Martin Wezowski, has been loving and living design and tech his whole career. As Chief Designer for SAP's Innovation Center Network & Chief Innovation Office he crafts future outlooks, strategies and products, defines and runs innovation frameworks to find out what’s next for SAP and the future of work. He frequently shares his passion for the future of technology and design (TEDx, SXSW, CES, Ada Lovelace, CeBIT, MOBx, Grace Hopper, SIME, MLOVE etc.). He builds on his international adventures stretching from Poland, Sweden, China to Germany and across companies like SAP, Sony and Huawei, working with consumer electronics, media services and business software.

---

Тake advantage of the special Early bird prices and book your ticket for Webit.Festival Europe 2019 for as low as 100 EUR!

This is the message that Webit’s Executive Chairman and Goodwill Ambassador for Bulgaria's Digital Affairs - Plamen Russev sent to the world from Davos and shared upon his landing at Sofia Airport. He shared his impressions from the past week at the World Economic Forum in Davos. This year Dr. Russev hosted a special forum and reception - Webit.Davos 2019.

Apple's Chief Executive Officer among Webit.Davos 2019 guests

More than 300 guests from the world elite accepted Dr. Russev's personal invitation, including Apple's CEO Tim Cook, the President of Harvard University - Larry Beikou, presidents and CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, and many other government and NGOs representatives, as well as media, among which CNN, Forbes, and others. Such elite of global leaders are seldom brought together. The forum took place in the area with the highest level of security at the Davos Forum in Hilton Garden.

“There are dozens of events happening in Davos every minute, and the competition for the attention of the world leaders is extremely high. It was an exceptional honor for me that over 300 global leaders were with us and respected us with their presence. This is also a signal to others about Webit's influence and next year we expect even more interest.“ - said Webit’s Executive Chairman Plamen Russev.

The development of artificial intelligence, the future of work and blockchain technologies were among the main topics of the event. As a Goodwill Ambassador for the Digital Affairs of the Republic of Bulgaria, Dr. Russev introduced his high-profile guests to the exceptional opportunities Bulgaria provides as a hub for new technologies. Webit affirmed Sofia as a digital capital in the global media and continues to promote the city and Bulgaria as a place for innovation and opportunities for opening development centers and creation of new high tech jobs.

"Mercedes Benz creates its entire platform for autonomous cars based on artificial intelligence in Sofia. 1300 Bulgarians will write such a platform, again based on artificial intelligence, for another world giant - Bosch. After attending two consecutive editions of Webit.Festival, the creator of the world's most used database - MySQL, chose to invest in a local company that is working on his new, extraordinary project ... I can give dozens of other examples. Bulgaria is becoming a local technology superpower and that is completely in unison with the long-standing efforts of Webit and our partners to improve people's lives by developing entrepreneurship and increasing the influence of women in business and politics. For the last 11 years, Webit builds and affirms the image of our country through our global community of over 800 000 people, who receive Webit news and are part of our global family. " Dr. Russev continued.

"Although the tone of the discussions in Davos was a bit pessimistic, I am moderately optimistic about Bulgaria and the creative role of our country in the region. The main challenges are to work together and for the common good; education is a key factor and much has to be done in this area. Webit Foundation has already gathered over 3000 young people - the color of the nation and enlighten them about the future. We have many plans and a lot of work to do together in that direction!"

Plamen Russev has also hinted at another big update, which is to be officially announced soon. From his words, 26 European cities are currently bidding to host Webit.Festival 2020. Which are the cities, what are their proposals to Webit, and whether Sofia will remain on Webit’s world map, are questions yet to be answered.

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!