Martin Wezowski talks about “WTF – What’s the future” @Webit.Festival 2018
"The future is very important, because we will kind of spend the rest of our lives there. So we better make it really good. :)"
Martin Wezowski is the Chief Designer & Futurist at SAP. He joined Webit to put some perspective on “what is work and what is human in a superhuman future”.Martin, being a fan of the Beatles, started with playing a tune that resembles the style of the iconic band. But later he revealed that the song was created by AI that mimics the Beatles.
"It listens to everything that The Beatles have ever done and makes new songs. It does it so successfully that it has over 2M views on Youtube. That should really raise deep and profound questions."
The main question is WTF - What’s the future?
One example of that is the healthcare."It takes 7-10 years to make a doctor, which gives us a severe shortage of doctors."
With the soon-future-AI, medical help will be in infinite amount everywhere, all the time for everyone. That should also change our minds about what is human work. Nowadays AI can diagnose heart diseases or lung diseases more accurately than humans. Funny enough, humans and AI combined are almost 100% correct. In the 90s we decoded the human genome. It took billions of dollars. Now there is a DNA sequencer for 1000$. What does this mean for research? What does it mean for animal testing?The NOW has never been so temporary as it is today.
Maybe we should start imagining the futures that we want and start creating them, rather than react to what we where we are today because thus we are too late. That might be a little scary because we see jobs disappearing. A hundred years ago almost everybody worked at farming, fishing, forestry. Now it's only about 2%. What did they do? What would they think if you'd tell them: "Most of you will not be in agriculture." What would hey imagine that they will do, accounting? Web development? We are in the same situation today. And it doesn't matter because we will imagine new jobs as they emerge. We can't plan for it. And the real question is this:What to teach kids to become relevant in 30 years from now?
How can we adapt to the change? What new values do we need? The stability of planning is a little bit of fake. The opposite to stability is not instability, it's emergence. It's risk, it's rock'n'roll. To transform, to challenge and take risks. Innovation is sort of rock'n'roll in business and we need more of that.One thing we rely on is the thinking of the 3 horizons.
- Continuous innovation - Ready to consume: Traditional KPIs (key performance indicators) of predictable outcomes and repeatable results and scalable efficiency.
- Adjacent innovation - Ready to Co-innovate: Forecasting your intelligence and resources to the near future, the next, the adjacent innovation where you co-innovate with your partners and/or customers.
- Transformative Innovation - Ready to Inspire: Thinking away from what you can do today and the tools you have. Your vision and thought leadership leads to ideas that you must articulate very clearly so you can have a decent discussion on executive and board level about these ideas.
Help the world run better and improve people's lives.
These two things go to the two sides of the spectrum with 4 dimensions:- The self running company
- Self organizing Business Ecosystems
- Augmented humans
- Purpose Led New Market & Business Models
“Everything from the beginning is an open end and it's up yo us to actually sit down and actually use this methods and look across all the 3 horizons, articulate futures that are desirable where we can play a significant positive role. That's our purpose. And if we do that I actually think we can design futures that we all want to live in. And we should remember to have some fun as well. :)”
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!
Rob Wolcott on “Innovating your life” at Webit.Festival Europe 2018
The human experience will change more in the next century than it has in the last ten millennia: Where is the discussion to accompany that change?
Mr. Wolcott returned to Sofia once again for the 10th anniversary edition of the Festival and wowed the audience with his keynote with special topic "Innovating your life". He started with a quote from the one and only Steve Jobs:
If your aspiration is to be a leader, to make mark, to create a legacy in some way than it's going to require doing something different. If you don't you're doing the same thing that everybody else already did. And how would that distinguish you? In Robert's opinion over the next 100 years the human experience will change more than it has in the past 10 000! We will be able to solve challenges that have been intractable for centuries but we will also create threads, some of which humanity has never seen before. But unfortunately our public dialog just isn't up to the task. On the one hand we hear ''The robots will steal our jobs and then kill us all in some kind of impending robot apocalypse". But on the other some people are espousing a coming technology infused nirvana. Clearly the truth is somewhere in the vast between and it's our responsibility to explore it for ourselves. The professor broke down the immense and complicated process of "innovating our life" in 5 simple steps:
"Innovation distinguishes the leaders from the followers."
1. Always keep the mission in mind. What are you doing and how are you doing it?
When we stay focused on our dreams and give them new names like GOALS of MISSIONS they automatically become more realistic and more achievable.2. Ask better questions. We only see the things which we are looking for.
We start asking questions, we start looking for new things, for new clues. Clues that will help us get to the next step, but some of them will inevitably mislead us and we will make mistakes. Then comes the next lesson.3. Seek wisdom in mistakes. The very first reaction when something goes wrong is that we are trying to hide it.
The problem is when something doesn't go the way you expect it perhaps there's a problem with the way you see the world. Back in the late 19th century two researchers named Michelson and Morley did one of the most famous failed experiment in history. They were attempting to prove the existence of the "luminiferous aether". It was the dominant hypothesis of physics in the 19th century to explain the following phenomenon.Sound cannot travel through a vacuum because there's nothing for sound to travel through. Light however, can travel through a vacuum thus there must be something in the vacuum we cannot see.
The scientists did their experiment and when it failed, they couldn't figure out why. They changed the method, tried again, then other scientists tried again but it kept failing and nobody could figure out why. Then came Einstein who said: "Perhaps there's no problem with the experiment, perhaps there's a problem with the way we see the Universe." So when something doesn't go the way you expect it, you should step back and do an after action review: Why that did not work? What can we learn from it?
4. Create option paths. Yes, options come at a cost, but create some.
"As we each create our own paths, we together create the future." - says Mr. Wolcott - and he also adds the question to the public - "On which paths are you … and why?"5. Above all seek meaning. Human beings grow through challenges.
The question for each of us is, as lifespans increase up to even beyond a 100 years, as we encounter the remainder of 21st century, we will all be faced with the question: how should we use this time?"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!
Bioo won the big prize of € 200,000 in this year’s...
The Finalists
The top five companies "fought" for the big prize in the competition on stage at Arena Armeec Training Hall, where during the two days of the festival part of the conferences, the Plenary Session and Webit.Awards Ceremony were held. The finalists in the race were DataSine - which offers a client segmentation tool combining big data and psychometrics to help financial institutions understand their clients; ISCLEANAIR - a Clean-Tech innovative company that rethinks and redesigns the space we live, work and breathe in for a healthier, safer, sustainable future; Bioo - a clean-tech company that brings nature and technology together – as they provide technology which allows the production of electricity from plant’s photosynthesis in a sustainable way for daily use gadgets and Online.io – a platform that aims at revolutionizing the browsing experience by making it faster, ad free, more reliable, secure and non-trackable, thus marking a groundbreaking change of the Internet.”
The final decision for the winner was taken by the investors providing the seed investment - Vassil Terziev - Co-founder of Telerik (260 M exit); Ivaylo Penchev - Founder of Walltopia - the largest climbing wall manufacturer in the world; Stefan Gugushev - Managing Partner and founder of Gugushev & Partners Law Office; Peter Mitev - CEO and co-founder of Chaos Group, Academy Award Oscar Trophy Winner; Plamen Russev - Investor, Executive Chairman - Webit.Foundation
They all committed 40000 EUR each to the 200'000 EUR award.
Their assessments were based on five key factors - team capacity, project development capability, business approach, marketing approach and uniqueness of the idea, as well as the answers to a series of questions asked on Webit's stage.
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! Webit presented its annual awards during a Glamorous Gala Dinner

The awards were presented in 13 categories. The winners are:
See also: Official Winners page on our site Best use of Digital Innovations in Health Award Professor Shafi Ahmed made world headline news in 2014 by streaming a live operation using Google Glass to 14,000 students and trainees across 132 countries. He performed the world’s first virtual reality operation which was watched by 55,000 people in 140 countries, and reached 4.5 million on Twitter.and reached 4.5 million on Twitter. He is a Consultant Surgeon and Co-founder of Virtual Medics & Medical Realities. Security and Anti-Fraud Innovation Award Michele Mosca is founder of the Institute for Quantum Computing and a Mathematics Professor at the University of Waterloo. His early work in cryptography led him to study quantum algorithms at Oxford, after which he returned to Canada to start several research, training and outreach initiatives in cryptography and quantum computing, as well as two companies. He has made major contributions to the phase estimation approach to quantum algorithms, including the hidden subgroup problems, and quantum searching and counting. In the area of quantum security, he helped define the notion of private quantum channels and develop optimal methods for encrypting quantum information using classical keys.
Best Innovation for Education Award
Jelena Djokovic is the National Director of the Novak Djokovic Foundation, whose mission is to change the world and status quo by investing in children, educators, parents, and youth through education. She believes in the lifelong learning concept and the strength that lies in empowering children, youth, and adults to be proactive, agile and positive about themselves which is what fuels her passion to do more. Under her guidance the organization has built 37 schools, supported 683 families, trained 1322 teachers and helped 20708 children.
Digital Entertainment & Media Special Award
ESL, formerly known as Electronic Sports League, is an eSports organizer and production company that produced video game competitions worldwide. ESL is the world’s largest eSports company. It has eleven offices worldwide and multiple international TV studios globally. ESL is also the largest eSports company to broadcast on Twich.tv.
Best Implementation of AI
Patrick van der Smagt is well-versed in the field of robotics, machine learning and neural networks. He is focussed on probabilistic deep learning for time series modelling, as well as deep learning for robotics. He provides Volkswagen Group with innovative tech solutions on common base as is the Director of the AI Research Lab.
Best Use of Technology for Accessibility & Inclusion
Nigel Ackland is an ordinary man with an extraordinary arm. He is the first person to trial RSL Steeper's groundbreaking, myoelectric prosthetic hand, the bebionic3. Before he could not imagine his future, now he is introducing the future to the others. Ackland is on a mission to disrupt how people think about prostheses and to challenge perceptions of people who wear prostheses.
Best Interactive Municipality
In becoming smarter, Lisbon’s main objectives include attracting more people to the city by promoting energy efficient housing, e-mobility, smart living and smart ageing solutions. All of the city's activities aim to contribute to a better quality of life in the city, through greater energy efficiency, mobility and improved social cohesion, along with localised regeneration efforts and citizen participation drives.
Special Smart Mobility Award
Yordanka Fandakova is the first woman to hold the position of Mayor of Sofia. She is known for initiating many municipal projects among which are the programs “Culture” and “Europe”, in which to date in more than 700 projects over 6 million Bulgarian Lev (3 million Euros) have been invested. In addition she implemented reforms covering municipal theaters and participated in the development of the long-term strategy for cultural development “Sofia-creative capital” (2013-2023). Sofia’s bid to become European Capital of Culture in 2019 was initiated by Fandakova as well.
Innovation in Payments
The innovation lies in the core of Mastercard vision. Ever since the beginning, they have been reinventing the definition of Fintech connecting and linking commerce with people and companies. Their projects never cease to amaze and intrigue their clients. As an example we could simply look at fitbit pay and garmin pay, allowing clients to pay using their electronic watches. A technology, that only 2-3 years ago would sounded futuristic. Mastercard find always modern challenges and create solutions.
Women in Tech - Digital Industry
Diana Stefanova possesses a well-structured set of skills and abilities, that have taken her to the top as she is now the Managing Director of VMware for EMEA R&D. She fuses her skills and abilities to bring out a significant industry experience with a deep focus in high-tech, from start-ups all the way to well-established corporations, like VMware, both in the Silicon Valley, USA and in EMEA. She is a true inspiration for women across the globe and a good example of the great benefit we take from gender equality.
Special Recognition Award for empowering and giving voice to women
The Award goes to Mr Shah Rukh Khan - the King of Bollywood for his inspiring work through the Meer Foundation and his advocacy and efforts in standing up for women’s and children’s rights and equality in India. His work is a great example for other leaders, celebrities and society how to use the impact for creating a better future, how to support female victims of abuse and attacks, as well as children who are battling one of world’s worst illnesses.
Long Term Partner
The award for long term partners was given to Nova and Netinfo - two companies that help with the media broadcasting of Webit.Festival for years and take the biggest event for digital economy and innovation to the Webit community.
Special Award - Outstanding Contribution to the Digital Industry
With a vast experience not only in politics but also in numerous initiatives related to society, she is the first Commissioner in the European Parliament responsible for the Digital Economy and Society. Mrs. Mariya Gabriel is the Patron of the EU Digital and Innovation Week and the initiator of "No woman - no panel".

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! … a picture tells a thousand stories! Webit.Festival Europe 2018 was...
10'000 people from 111 countries visited the Webit City
Don't miss the 2019 edition. Book your ticket now


Webit.Festival Europe 2018 in numbers:
- 10'000+ ATTENDEES (7200 Webit.Festival participants and 3000 Webit.X visitors) - 231 EXHIBITORS - 422 SPEAKERS - 110 HOURS of conference agenda & amazing content - 75% C-level (executive) ATTENDANCE - 111 VISITING COUNTRIES - 150 of THE BEST EUROPEAN STARTUPS AND SCALEUPS - 1000+ POLICY MAKERS The European Tech, Digital Economy and Policy event for 2018 was a huge success!
The Innovate! Summit and the Plenary Session, chaired by the European Commissioner for Digital Agenda and Society Mariya Gabriel, hosted some of the worlds digital, tech and policy leaders gathered to re:Invent Europe's Future.
The Webit City has welcomed 10'000 global leaders and they all requested a residency :)
Here are just 5 quotes out of over 1000 interviews with the Webit City residents: "Unparalleled global business and policy networking at its highest level!" "The most amazing business event with a festival experience" "We basically do business here" "This is the only event where top EU policy makers and global business leaders exchange thoughts and share valuable discussions" “We got more investors visiting our expo booth compared to any other event we have been to”
200+ exhibitors at over 20'000 sq.m Webit City expo & business networking area
From global tech, health, fintech, cybersecurity, mobility, blockchain, entertainment, AI, cloud leaders to smart jet fighters - they all were at Webit.Festival Europe 2018 represented by their global or EMEA HQs. Also hosted national pavilions.
12 independent summits and over 50 meetups
421 speakers have created over 110 hours of conference agenda & amazing content within 12 independent summits.
Founders Games winner of 200'000 EUR cheque is BIOO from Portugal.


Cities 4.0 Summit, Digital Entertainment and Media Summit, Money Summit and Blockchain Summit


Webit Night Urban Summit

The Global Webit Awards Ceremony and The Chairman' Dinner by Dr. Russev

The World Famous Webit Party, powered by Playboy, Fashion TV and Dorcel
Webit.X - gathering and inspiring 3000 young future leaders
Missed the 2018 edition? Don’t miss the 2019! Book your ticket now at super earlybird rate
Prices increase tomorrow! Chairman’s Dinner + Webit.Awards Ceremony
Join Webit.Festival and connect with global tech and digital founders, CEOs, Presidents, innovators, inventors and regulators!
1 Ticket for
- 10 independent summits on 5 stages - 110 visiting countries - 200 exhibitors and sponsors - 420 speakers - 6000 attendees (75% senior level attendance)
Go Platinum to have access to the who is who of the tech and digital world!
For the first time we are opening the Chairman's Black Tie Dinner and the Webit.Awards Ceremony to non-platinum-pass holders. As this is our 10th anniversary we decided to provide opportunity to non-platinum pass holders to book a seat at this special dinner and to get a feeling of what is to be Platinum at Webit! This is the ultimate opportunity to network and connect with the crème de la crème of the tech, digital and policy worlds @ Webit.Book your seat at the Chairman's Black Tie Dinner and the Webit Awards Ceremony
See you @ Webit.Festival! The Webit.Team
Chairman of Huawei joins Webit.Festival 2018!
More global leaders join Webit.Festival Europe 2018!
With over 75% senior attendance among the 6000 people audience from 110 countries - the speakers can only be global leaders and shapers! Join Webit.Festival Europe to meet with them, including Mr. Liang Hua, the newly elected Chairman of Huawei - the world-leading telecommunications provider, just over $90 billion in global annual sales in 2017, Huawei is also the world’s third largest smartphone seller.STILL NOT TOO LATE!
Join the Festival and explore unparalleled business networking
A warm welcome to Thibaut Gregoire, General Counsel, Europe, MasterCard, who joins along with his colleagues - both Vice-Presidents - Mikael Svensson and Louise Holden after the President of Mastercard Europe Javier Perez already joined Webit. Presenting you some of the newly announced speakers of the upcoming Europe's tech, digital economy and policy event for 2018 - Webit.Festival!
The Blockchain world joins Webit to challenge the future of the decentralized economy! Webit.Festival is the place to involve policy makers, all major tech companies and the blockchain ecosystem to innovate through collaboration!
With over 200 exhibitors and sponsors the 10th Webit.Festival is the largest ever European edition, double in size compared to last year.
A warm welcome to Huawei, Red Bull, Google, Amatas, Cogni, Jelurida among the newly joined sponsors and exhibitors of Webit.Fetsival 2018.
Interested in exhibiting / sponsoring? Contact us asap!
See you on 26-27 June in Sofia! The Webit Team
Chief Security Officer of Cisco – Edna Conway joins Webit this...
Here you can see a full list of the confirmed speakers at Webit.Festival Europe 2018, while here you can get all the information you need about the tickets for the event. Managing supply chain risk requires a comprehensive approach over the complete product or process life cycle, and Cisco is looking at the potential impact of new technologies such as blockchain and the “internet of things” as part of its solution.Digitization is driving each of us across all industries to make dramatic changes to how we approach customers, products, services, and the always-on, real-time information rich marketplace. This digital economy is gender agnostic. And, it is highly dependent on a connected global ecosystem. The message is clear—no one person, enterprise, industry, government or region can stand alone any longer.
Prior to Cisco, Conway was a partner in an international private legal practice and served as Assistant Attorney General for the State of New Hampshire.“We define the value chain as the end-to-end life cycle for any solution. In order to build trust, you need to understand the risks you are taking, and those risks need to be measured in the language of business.” says Conway
She is recognized domestically (US Presidential Commissions) and globally (NATO) as the developer of architectures delivering value chain security, sustainability and resiliency. Her insight is featured in a range of publications, analyst reports, and case studies, including Forbes, Fortune, Bloomberg, CIO Magazine and the Wall Street Journal. Conway is constantly using her expertise to leverage new tools in an ever-expanding digital arsenal. She has turned her attention to the security potential in blockchain. With the ability to track data through networks, blockchain becomes a highly effective digital ledger, or “passport for the data” according to her.My path to security was built on a foundation of protecting intellectual property; enhanced by a legal background and rich engineering and operational leadership roles afforded to me by Cisco. Each of these opportunities, including leaving a successful legal practice to join Cisco, required faith. Faith in my own ability to learn an entirely new discipline and trust that my colleagues would support me in that effort.
Recognition of her industry leadership includes membership in the Fortune Most Powerful Women community, and awards including: a Fed 100 Award, Stevie “Maverick of the Year Award,” a Connected World Magazine “Machine to Machine and IOT Trailblazer” Award, an SC Media Reboot Leadership Award, a New Hampshire Tech Professional of the Year 2018 Award, and CSO of the Year Award at RSA.“A chain of custody of your data and your actions across the full spectrum of a life cycle adds a degree of integrity we’ve never had the ability to do easily before”
Join the glamorous Webit.Awards Ceremony at the 10th Anniversary of Webit!
Book your Platinum Webit Experience and join the ceremony
Webit hosts Prime Ministers, global innovators, industry, civil society, policy and academia leaders from 110 countries. The Awards Ceremony and the Black Tie Dinner are the place to meet the leaders of the Europe's digital and tech ecosystem along with top policy makers and regulators.The other Webit awards Industry categories include:
- Best Use of Digital Innovations in Health - Best Security and Anti-fraud Solution - Best Smart Cities Mobility Solution - Women in Tech Award - Outstanding Contribution to the Digital Industry - Sustainable City Award - Best Use of Digital for Accessibility & Inclusion - Best Implementation of AI - Best Innovation for Education - Most Innovative Smart Cities Platform - Best Smart Mobility Award
This year over 2800 startups applied and among them a global jury of investors, enterprise leaders, media and founders selected Europe's top 200 Startups/Scaleups.
During a special event and a ceremony at Webit's Plenary Stage on 27 June the top 5 companies shall make a final pitch and the winner shall be selected and awarded a 200 000 EUR investment cheque.
Looking forward to meeting you at Webit.Festival Europe!
Warm regards,
the Webit team
Special thanks to our sponsors: General Partner: MasterCard Strategic Media Partners NetInfo and Nova TV Platinum Partners: SAP, Microsoft, UBB, KBC Group Gold Partners: VISA, VMWare, Novartis, Bayer, European Commission, Samsung, Wolf Theiss, Google, Ryalto, Amgen, Astellas, Generali, Ambrosus, Italian Trade Agency, UK Innovate, Bulgarian SME Executive Agency, FiBank, Philli Morris, Garanti Koza, Here. Silver Partners Fox, Turner, Fashion TV, Kaon, Hellas Sat, Mall Advertising, Telelink









