Tag: business

If there is one thing that is slowing down or evolution as social species for the last centuries, it is the lack of inclusion and equal opportunities for every person on this planet, no matter of its race, gender or nationality. Inequality is something that the future generations will most certainly view as a major stain in our history. And it is also something that we need to eradicate, in order to use our full human potential and reach the limits of our capabilities. Just take the example of the first image of a Black Hole’s event horizon. This amazing accomplishment for humanity would not be possible without the efforts of Katie Bouman - a 29-yeas old postdoctoral fellow at Harvard, who helped develop the code to find the black hole in the haystack of data collected from Event Horizon Telescope. Imagine how many amazing discoveries we could have if we are able to grant equal opportunities for education and work for every woman on this planet. In fact, many experts believe, that the process of including women on the labor market will be the main driver of economic growth in the years to come. During the last decade, Webit Foundation has made its efforts to foster this process and not just talk about empowering women in business and politics, but doing so! For the upcoming Webit.Festival Europe, we gave 1000 tickets to women in technological industries. Of course, this became a catalyst for some backlash towards us. Our Executive Chairman Plamen Russev even received an email, in which he is called a sexist for not providing the same amount of tickets for the event to men in different industries. Regardless of such views, we are more than confident that or efforts for promoting the role of Women in Tech are a step in the right direction. That is the reason why for the second year in a row Webit.Festival is doing its best to improve the ratio of women to men speakers globally. According to the annual Global Gender Gap Report of WEF, it will take 108 years to achieve overall gender parity and 202 years to achieve full equality in the workplace. As we can’t just accept such dark predictions for our future, Webit became the platform for discussing the changing role of women in business in politics in a times of dramatic changes, caused by tech advancements in areas, such as AI, Blockchain, Automation and Robotics. Eurostat’s data analytics show that Bulgaria takes the second place in EU with 49% women managers. We think that this makes Sofia, the Digital Capital, a perfect place for such discussion that would shape the future corporate and government actions towards a future that treat every person as equal. Come to Webit.Festival Europe and learn about the major steps that world’s policy makers and corporate leaders will need to take to equal opportunities for everyone. During Innovate! & Plenary Session you will get the chance to listen to top enterprise, science and policy leaders, such as the Serial Entrepreneur Mark Cuban, the Airbus Defense and Space CEO Dirk Hoke, the Senior Parther at McKinsey & Co Paul Willmott, The VP of Amazon Web Services Sandy Carter and VP of Amazon Paul Misener, the EU Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society Mariya Gabriel, the Deputy Director-General of World Trade Organization Yonov Frederick Agah and many others. Here you can see a full list of the confirmed speakers at Webit.Festival, while here you can get all the information you need about the tickets for the event.

Edna Conway currently serves as Cisco’s Chief Security Officer, Global Value Chain, creating clear strategies to deliver secure operating models for the digital economy. She has built new organizations delivering cyber security, compliance, risk management, sustainability and value chain transformation. She drives a comprehensive security architecture across Cisco’s third-party ecosystem.

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.

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.

“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

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.

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.

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.

“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”

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.

The Theory of Evolution’s author Charles Darwin once said that it is not the strongest of species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one that is the most adaptable to change. And more than any other aspect of human society, these words are relevant to the world of business, especially in the years of the next industrial revolution. The new economic environment in the information age is putting additional pressure for businesses to change, while the new players on the market are disrupting whole industries. J.P. Morgan’s CEO Jamie Dimon thinks that all the major banks are endangered by the Silicon Valley. And if they don’t manage to up their game, the tech companies will take over their business. Right now there are hundreds of startups with ideas and money for creating alternatives to traditional banking. And if the banks don’t act quick with the digital transformation of their services, they can be overtaken by the emerging tech companies. According to Cisco System’s Executive Chairman, John Chambers, at least 40% of all businesses will die in the next 10 years, if they don’t figure out how to change their entire company to accommodate new technologies. This forecast includes even the companies in Fortune’s 500. Many experts expect that between 40% and 60% of them will not be on the list by the middle of the next decade. The process of digital transformation quickly became mandatory for anyone, who wants to survive the changes. We can see examples of that everywhere, and even industry’s biggest are trying to adapt to this next generation of computing. For most of the businesses this transformation end up with simple solutions, like using automated software for the processes, that were previously manually-driven. But there is much more. For retail and financial institutions the new technology gives the opportunity of omni-channel programmes for selling products and services in new ways, while adding more analytics. All this helps for finding new paths to the customer, and in the digital age importance of his experience is growing rapidly. Customers are more cautious than ever and are ready to turn their back on any brand that don’t align with their values and needs. Innovation and agility are the best ways to stay competitive in evolving market, and this needs constant assessment, testing and analysis of new technological solutions. But to know the most effective practices of digital transformation, you most certainly must learn from the best. This year Webit.Festival is the place, where you can meet policy makers, innovators, entrepreneurs, investors, scientists and experts fascinated by technology and fostering the digital transformation in the business and the society. During the two-day agenda of the event you can listen to top level speakers like the CEO of JetPack Aviation David Mayman and the VP Digital Transformation at SCA Gael De Talhouet.

An app that can make it possible for you to live stream for a living just raised $25 million Series A funding! We are talking about Next Entertainment, Taiwanese startup, founded by Andy Zhong. Mr Zhong is very popular in the region, he already sold his previous startup FunPlus to Zhongji fo nearly 1 billion dollars. And now FunPlus is one of the investors in Next. Learn more about it here.

Meanwhile, there is information that Amazon is secretly building an app that matches truck drivers with shippers. It's a $800 billion industry, according to Business Insider. More on the matter, here.

Airfare prediction app Hopper has grown from 1 million downloads to over 10 million in the course of a year – a trajectory that’s allowed it to pull in $82 million CAD (~$61.2 million US) in additional funding to continue to grow its business. The Series C round was led by North American pension fund manager, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, and includes participation from existing investors, Brightspark Ventures, Accomplice, OMERS, Investissement Québec and BDC Capital IT Venture Fund.

NextView Ventures, one of few seed-stage venture firms in Boston, is looking to raise at least $50 million for a third fund, shows an SEC filing that was processed yesterday. The firm closed its second fund with $40 million in 2014 and its debut fund with $21 million in 2012.

IBM announced that it would be working with BMW on R&D where Watson sensors and computing will be integrated into BMW cars to pick up car data and help with new systems aimed at vehicles running more efficiently and with more personalisation for specific drivers and passengers.

Have a look at some of the interesting news from today, regarding the tech and business world. First of all, we should point out the 100 million euro raised by Devialet,  the French developer of high-end speakers and the IP behind the sound systems that make them go boom.  The investment comes from Foxconn, Jay-Z, Rubin's Playground and even more investors. See more about it here. And let's talk about wireless VR, sounds like a fantasy, right? Well, the researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) may have a solution in MoVr, a wireless virtual reality system. Instead of using Wi-Fi or Bluetooth to transmit data, the research team’s MoVR system uses high-frequency millimeter wave radio to stream data from a computer to a headset wirelessly at dramatically faster speeds than traditional technology. Learn more about it here. Meanwhile,  one of the hedge fund industry's hottest new funds is betting on Disney. Samantha Greenberg's Margate Capital Management is investing in Walt Disney Company – even as many peers are shedding the stock. If you want to see more about the interesting investment, click here. Proficio, a cybersecurity startup specializing in managed detection and response (MDR) services, has raised $12 million in a round led by Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors. More about it here. About Webit.Festival 2017: Webit.Festival is the European edition of the Webit Series of events, which will take place in Sofia, Bulgaria, from the 25th to the 27th of April, 2017. The festival consists of several parallel conferences and events, workshops, roundtables and exhibitions. The event is under the patronage of the Mayor of Sofia Mrs Yordanka Fandakova and the European Commission. The agenda includes Tech Summit, Marketing and Innovation Summit, Developers Summit and Smart Cities Summit. Separate area of the festival will be dedicated to startups from Bulgaria and other countries in the world. The agenda for the founders includes conference, meetings with investors, academy for startups and special stage for them to pitch their companies in front of a jury of investors, journalists and leaders of Fortune 500 companies. Webit.Festival is the most influential event on the tech and digital industry in the region. To buy your tickets for Webit.Festival 2017, click here. To apply for speaking, click here. To apply for partnership, click here. To apply for exhibiting, click here. To apply for our Founders Games, click here. To see the video gallery from Webit.Festival 2016, click here. To learn more about the events that are part of the festival, click here. To see pictures from our previous events, click here. For all this information and even more, visit our website www.webit.bg. Contact: Aniela Russeva

aniela@webitcongress.com