Tag: digital

Money and payments - an intriguing theme ever since way back in time, becoming more and more intriguing with each passing day. What makes it even more appealing is the never ceasing research and emerging tech innovations in the field. Blockchain, Bitcoin, international trade, digital currencies are in the focus and interest of not only corporations as a main actor, but for individuals too. That brings the questions Kristo Kaarmann CEO of TransferWise, was trying to answer at Webit.Festival Sofia 2017. What is the future tech of money? Is it going to be Bitcoin? Ethereum? Or another type of blockchain currency? Are we still going to have banks in 10 years time or we’ll do banking on Google? Who can make a 100% certain statement and predict what and when will replace a financial system which is working, trusted and being accepted by many all around the world? Kaarmann made an emphasis on an article published by The Guardian “Big banks earning huge profits from overseas money transfers”. Banks get their profits from different exchange rates, transfer fees, and fees on other services which are far from the cheapest option to manage one’s money. In recent years there has been a flood of fintech companies offering their solutions to individuals, corporations and banks themselves and at much more reasonable rate. There are very few problems where tech is the only possible solution. Very often the solution lies not just in technology, but in technology and the things around it - governments, legislation, working with different institutions. For example, in fintech, that could be as specific as blockchain patterns and the governments’ enforcements on them through the more global issues such as acceptance of the new models and novelties by people. In order to find the answers of all the questions the financial system has yet to clarify, we’ll just need to wait for it to present and see. You can watch the full keynote of Kristo Kaarmann here: https://youtu.be/CWhI7UgRJLw   If you want to stay up to date with the latest trends in fintech, money & payments, Webit.Festival Sofia 2018 is the place for that. Visit our website and check the different ticket options.   Feel the Webit vibe with some of the best photos from this year’s event!

“No matter if your business is in retail, bio, health or digital, if you want to stay relevant, focus on AI shouldn't be between the lines and done sluggishly but a top priority.” - Hristo Hristov, CEO of Netinfo

Hristo Hristov, CEO of Netinfo and IAB Bulgaria Chairman was one of the speakers at the Innovation Summit at Webit.Festival 2017. The company Netinfo is playing a major role in shaping the digital advertising landscape in the country and as such it has been a prominent spectator and actor in the digital trends and shifts locally and worldwide. Making the statement that mobile first is in the past and not a part of the future, Hristov made a point  by initially giving a little test to the audience at Webit's stage. He asked for a raised hand from everybody who has done a marketing campaign or developed products for mobile. Result was basically 80% of the audience of around 1500 in the hall. Artificial Intelligence on the hunt Mobile now is the standard, the future is in artificial intelligence, calls Hristov from the stage. Most companies now think mobile only, and if they want to stay competitive, grow and acquire new customers on a new level, they need to start thinking AI first if haven’t yet. Having a great mobile app, having a great landing page, doing an incredible marketing campaign are all essentials for a successful business but becoming quite not enough. Not to mention digitalization, communications and tendencies but every tech-related thing is changing and evolving with a hard to grasp tempo.

Beforehand, we were the “hunters” who used to find a niche and go after it, hire the best talents who will build the best products and marketing campaigns. whereas now, we are the ones being hunted. By AI.

Going a little back in time, Hristov recounted the story of a startup company - DeepMind technologies which got acquired by Google in 2014. They develop learning algorithms that use data or raw experience to better themselves and have created an engine which plays a certain game thousands of times better that any human being. In the beginning, the playing engine was losing every single round time after time. Things changed when the AI engine played the game for a hundred time, started getting better and better after each loss and reached a point of playing the best case optimal scenario for winning the game. Some would say that AI has a long way ahead of it until it reaches and affects each business but the development of AI is similar to the one of the game engine.

We see the progress of AI as a linear development but in reality, at some point AI will start growing exponentially, getting better after each downturn until reaching its full potential.

AI systems are determining what results we get from our search, the order of their ranking and appearance, at which moment we will get a specific advertisement. It improves facial recognition and securing systems and privacy. AI systems are developed that spot Alzheimer’s brain changes years before symptoms emerge, writing music and novels.  And it’s not stopping just yet. Stay on the tide: AI against trolls Fake news and internet trolls are not an unfamiliar problem of today's digital space. Writers and news providers have bumped with the negative side of people from all parts of the world having the comfort of a “behind the screen” freedom. In a responсе to that, a tool has been developed which can rank the toxicness of the comments in blogs, news sites and pages on the vast space of Internet. API.com is an open source platform that can be added to content sites, landing pages, forums and whatever type of sites which ranks actual online conversations and determines the percentage of toxicity in them. Afterwards, the process of extracting users marked as top toxic is smoothed and done harmlessly with a minimum damage. No matter if you're business is in retail, bio, health or digital, if you want to stay relevant, focus on AI shouldn't be between the lines and done sluggishly but a top priority. The best developers, data scientists, engineers and logical thinkers are literally being hunted by the biggest players so that they can respond to the fast-changing environment. Not only that, but the level of advancement in this field has piled up a lot of open source tools and frameworks that can be freely used. Interesting enough, the biggest companies with the highest advancement in AI are the ones who are open sourcing these kinds of projects. AI investments have set its all-time highest point. Elon Musk has already launched Neuralink, a company that develops implantable brain-computer interfaces in order to connect brains with computers, the CEOs of eBay, Amazon, Google all say that not having an AI strategy will get companies out of business in ten years. The consumer journey and experience right now is not the greatest and AI is a way to make it better. Despite all the unknowns the artificial intelligence technology comprises, the benefits and chances ahead of it are immense and yet to be explored. More companies are gradually realizing this and working hard in adapting their strategy.   You can watch the full keynote of Hristo Hristov here: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQb59NdnI3k]   If you want to keep up with the latest trends in the world of digital economy and technology, then Webit.Festival is the place for you. Visit our website and book 2 in 1 of our Super Earlybird tickets for Webit.Festival Europe 2018. Have a peek at Webit.Festival 2017 in Sofia with some of our photos from the event. [easingslider id="4954"]

One of the most recognised brands of Webit.Festival, the Marketing and Innovation Summit, is once again bringing together the top CMOs, CTOs and CIOs from the advertising world, broadcasters, publishers, and ad/media/digital agencies. During the 25th and the 26th of April, Webit.Festival 2017 is the place to be in Europe if you want to hear about the latest trends in marketing, media and how the digital transformation is continuingly changing the whole business world.

We have 3 new top-flight speakers in our lineup for the Marketing and Innovation Summit! They include top executives from huge marketing agencies, so read our guide to taking part or find out more about our latest speaker additions below.

• Jason Jercinovic, Global Brand Director & President of Havas Worldwide.

Jason is a digital marketing guru with more than twenty years experience in technology and advertising. He had been working for the campaigns of sports giants like Nike, celebrities like Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift and so on. His previous experience includes heading up the Havas Worldwide in Australia, working on Global accounts at Intel and Dell and for clients like Sony Australia. Jason believes that the future is cognitive and the way we can use cognitive technology and virtual reality for brand development. "No one knows what will happen next. Success will come to those who are more adaptable. Respond to change and opportunity by knowing your user's pain and needs. Cognitive is the competitive advantage enabling partnership between people and computers”, he concludes.  

• Fara Warner, Global Editorial Director at Wall Street Journal Custom Studios.

This is the in-house content marketing agency of the media giant, exploring variety of topics. For example, Farah and her team were hired by Netflix to hype the huge successful TV series 'Narcos' with native-ad showpiece. Fara is also a professor of Journalism at the University of Michigan and is the author of the business book "The Power of the Purse: How Smart Companies Are Adapting to the World's Most Important Consumers--Women." As editorial director, she oversees all the aspects of the agency’s editorial from editing freelance work, thinking of new ways for distribution and taking and reporting for the project. In the past she has written pieces for the New York Times, Brandweek, Fast Company and other national publications. She has more than 20 years of experience and is the reciepient of the 2006 diamond Award from Women in Communications for her work illuminating women’s issues in media.

• Chris Clarke, Chief Creative Officer of Digitas Lbi.

He is responsible for the agency’s creative production worldwide. He is famous for his bold views on number of topics published in worldwide media. Chris is an award-winnig creative with more than 20 years of experience in the digital industry. He has worked with major clients like Sony, Samsung and Coke. Chris is often in list of the most influential creative directors of the year. He has received accolades from Cannes in the Cyber Lions, D&AD, LIAA, Campaign Digital, Campaign Direct, Campaign Big Awards, Revolution, BIMA, Webby and Lovie awards. Chis is regularly asked to speak about digital culture and advertising at events as diverse as Cannes Lions and Bestival. He came to Lbi from Publicis owned Digitas, where he was President and Executive Creative Director of the UK agency following a stint as European Executive Creative Director for Modem Media. Prior to that Chris was Executive Creative Director at Wheel, a company he joined with its acquisition of Swedish hotshop Abel & Baker which he had helped to set up in the UK.   Main topics on the agenda of the summit will be the rising use of virtual and augmented reality, especially in the digital entertainment, how consumer empowerment is driving new brand opportunity, brand social strategies, digital and programmatic advertising, metrix and data, video and mobile video marketing, the future of artificial intelligence in marketing, creating relationships with audience, benefits of storytelling in marketing and many more. Previous speakers at the Marketing and Innovation Summit are top level executives like Ward Van Duffel, VP and General Manager Direct to Consumer Lego, Benjamin Faes, Managing Director PBS Google, Anosh Thakkar, CTO Philips, Jim Rosenberg, Chief Digital Officer UNICEF, David Moore, Chairman of Xaxis and President of WPP Digital, Jay Altschuler, Director Global Media Unilever, Pete Blackshaw, Global Head of Digital Marketing and Social Media Nestlé, Norm Johnston, Chief Digital Officer Mindshare Worldwide, Dr. Torsten Wingenter, Head of Digital Innovations Lufthansa, Tom Bowman, VP, Strategy&Operations, Global Advertising Sales BBC World. The Marketing and Innovation Summit is also great for networking – the next business opportunity could be waiting for you right there. Listening to the great presentators, you can also learn a lot about the way you’re a running your business and its marketing. So, don’t waste your time, these are all the important links you need: To buy your tickets for Webit.Festival Europe 2017 (EarlyBird expires soon), click here. To apply for speaking, click here. To apply for partnership, click here. To apply for exhibiting, click here. StartUP? Apply for the Founders Games Challenge by Webit.Foundation and get an opportunity for free festival tickets (500), free exhibition table (100) and opportunity to win 200 000 EUR (only 1), 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 more information on the Global Webit Series and our events in Dubai, Singapore, New Delhi and Istanbul: www.Webit.Org.

Marketing and Innovation Summit is the name of one of the panels at CEEDS`15. There our speakers will talk about how marketing changed recently. To be more specific, what we have witnessed in the last few years is a digital transformation. If you think about it you will realize that what we called digital in 2001, we call old fashioned today. Digitalization made the digital economy to enter a new age where everything happens at a quick pace. Digital tools are invading the business environment, provoking significant changes in the way we work, communicate, and sell. Chronologically, for less than half century we saw computers, laptops, tablets, smartphones, phablets, wearables etc. Only for half of a century. Digital transformation can be seen as business transformation as well. Because most of the time it’s about people rather than about digital tools. Every year, we face new digital trends, people work about them and make them happen. Next year people create new trends and make them happen again. This is an endless process and the tendency for it is to happen faster and faster. What’s next? What we should expect or how we should adapt to the quick changes, this is what Marketing and Innovation Summit is about. Be there, analyze the past and predict the future with our speakers. Take advantage of the 100 EUR Early bird price per ticket. Regular price will be 200 EUR while the last price will be 350 EUR. So think wisely and do not miss the opportunity.