Tag: festival

Webit.Festival - a place for minds to meet. Marius Ghenea, the Investment Director of 3TS Capital gave a keynote at last year’s edition about seizing opportunities and avoiding pitfalls in the fast-growing Central & Eastern Europe risk-capital ecosystem. 3TS Capital has been investing in countries in the CEE region for quite some time and Marius, as a serial entrepreneur and angel investor himself has gained deep insight on the specifics of this market. Though being quite underestimated in the years back in time, CEE is slowly but surely getting its footprint in business, tech and innovations. The region has drawn attention not only with unicorns such as Skype, Avast, Transferwise and AeroMobil but also with the emergence of multiple, active and growing startup ecosystems across and around.

CEE sure has its historical, economical and national challenges to overcome

The diversity of this region consists of countries in the EU, countries yet to join the EU, countries with an “on the way” developed startup ecosystem and ones that have yet to work towards the achievement of it. This calls for quite a turbulent, hard to define business environment with ounces of political, ethical and cultural differences ranging for each country. Despite the tiny late development, things are starting to look more and more promising. The IT sector has been rapidly growing, adding to a growing GDP for some of the countries. In the last years, we have seen business association networks popping up in the region. One of the things happening more often now is that a growing number of these national and regional associations have been connecting with large organizations and business angel associations on a European and worldwide level. Webit.Festival gathers exactly the people, entrepreneurs and investors involved in this ecosystem mixed with players in the worldwide scene to create a colorful mix. Check our website for more details of the 2018 upcoming edition.

Artificial Intelligence and Automation are the two biggest threats to the job security in the age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. According to a report, released by the Obama administration in the end of the last year, nearly 47% of the jobs in USA are at risk in the next 20 years.

Signs for what is coming are all over the news and even the notorious astrophysicist Stephen Hawking predicted that the increasing automation is going to decimate middle class jobs and worsen the already big inequality and political instability worldwide.

This process has already destroyed some jobs in traditional manufacturing and the development of AI is going to extend this trend to the service sector, when only management and supervisory roles remain safe, at least for now. Of course, the US administration report notes that the new technology will open new career opportunities for those with higher-level skills. But even they will need government-supported re-training programs to help mitigate the negative impact of automation by preparing displaced workers for their new jobs. Last week Japanese insurance company Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance laid off more than 30 employees and replaced them with artificial intelligence system that calculates payouts to policyholders. The firm management believes that this will boost its productivity by about 30% and will return the investment in less that two years. The annual cost savings will amount to about £1m and the cost of the system installation is £1.4m. It is based on the IBM’s Watson Explorer. Late last year the world’s largest hedge fund Bridgewater Associates announced that it is building software that will automate the daily management of the company and will deal with the hiring and firing of employees and other strategic decisions. The company’s founder Ray Dalio assigned to his software engineers the task to ensure that the firm is managed according to his vision when he is not at work. They have built a tool that incorporate different rating into personal profiles of employees that show their strengths and weaknesses. Another app set goals for them and monitor their implementation. Although there is no unanimous opinion about the exact impact of AI on the labour market and the industry in the coming years we can certainly say that it will be more than great. To understand more about the application of artificial intelligence techniques in products and business you can listen to the leader of IBM Watson Partner Innovations Europe Christoph Auer-Welsbach. He is one of the confirmed speakers in the Tech Summit of Webit.Festival 2017 in Sofia. The expert will also talk about the best practices of high-growth startups on going from tested ide to scalable company. The main topics of his lecture will focus on Machine Intelligence, Cognitive Computing, FinTech, IoT and Smart City. During the Tech Summit you can learn the latest trends in Digital Transformation, IoE, BigData & Cloud, Security & Privacy, FinTech, Money & Payments. So, don’t waste 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.

One of the most popular stages 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 continuously changing the whole business world.

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.

We have 3 new top-flight speakers in our lineup for the Marketing and Innovation Summit! They include top executive from one of the most influential research and advisory firms in the world, the CMO of one of the biggest business media worldwide and the chief digital officer of Wi-Fi security and privacy providing company, so read our guide to taking part or find out more about our latest speaker additions below.

•  Victor Milligan, CMO, Forrester Research.

As the CMO of Forrester, the American advisory company, executing technology and market research, Victor Milligan aims to drive clients’ growth by combining all kind of marketing operations, analytics and customer experience. Previously, Victor was responsible, again as the CMO, for the marketing development of two other companies: Nexage, a marketplace in mobile advertising relying on the forces of mobile revolution and programmatic technologies; and Lavastorm Analytics, a company combining enterprises-grade business applications with the potential of analytics. His professional approach lies on analytics as a key to early discovery of risks and delivery of transparency and liquidity to both buyers and sellers. Previously a Senior Managing Partner and Vertical Industry Leader at Gartner Consulting, another information technology research company, Victor developed and led $125M global vertical industry team. Before Gartner, Mr. Milligan led the architecture and planning team as Senior Associate at Booz Allen Hamilton for 9 years. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the University of Vermont and have started his career in the US Air Force Space Command, contributing to the launch of the Global Positioning System, which is the base of so many location-based services today.   Bruce Rogers, Chief Insights Officer and Head of the CMO Practice, Forbes Media. Currently responsible for Forbes Media's Insights division, Mr. Rogers works on the company’s leadership practice engaged by blue-chip companies like IBM, KPMG, Google, EY, Deloitte and Cisco. He also deals with content and events for senior marketers. His career at Forbes started as a VP Marketing at Forbes Magazine in 1991, continued as Chief Brand Officer at Forbes Media in 2008 and led to his current role of Chief Insights Officer and Head of the CMO Practice at Forbes Media. Mr. Rogers is the author of a regular column on thought leaders changing the business landscape, several articles and reports. He is also the co-author of three books: “Profitable Brilliance,” “In the Line of Money” and “I Win You Whatever”. His business thoughts may be read under intriguing titles like “Publish or Perish”, “Using Thought Leadership to Grow“, “Why Companies Need a Chief Reason Officer” and so on. Bruce Rodgers is a member of several organizations such as Adtech, Business Marketing Association, SBV Solutions. Another proof of his effective marketing ideas is receiving the Gold Effie Award from the American Marketing Association. Baglan Rhymes, Chief Digital Officer & SVP Global Revenue, AnchorFree Inc. Ms. Rhymes’ CV is rich not only in job titles and successful work projects, but in continuous volunteering experience too. Ms. Rhymes has played a key role in the history of her current company - the Wi-Fi security and privacy providing company AnchorFree. She actively contributed in raising $53M in Series C funding and in launching four new products, currently representing 98% of the company’s revenues. Besides her main job title of Chief Digital Officer & SVP Global Revenue, she is an experienced speaker, lecturer and panelist in the field of entrepreneurship, innovation in technology and digital media. She contributes to the development and branding of some of the hottest tech startups in Silicon Valley. An active member of Forbes Agency Council, Ms. Rhymes is named as one of the most Influential Turkish Women in the USA. She is the author of several white papers like “Customs Union & Turkey”, “Customs Union & the Aegean Region”, “The Expectations of Turkish Newspaper Readers”, “The Role of the Universities in Establishing and Maintaining the Democratic Foundations in a Society: The Turkish Case". She has recently published her first, co-authored book - “Of Love, Autonomy & Wealth: Work and Play in the Virtual World”, named as one of the best in self-help and business. 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.

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.

What’s the common between diabetes, fitness, medical researches and style? Well, actually, there’s a lot linking them. But maybe we will surprise with something you still don’t know. What all those have in common, is the name of one of our WEBIT.FESTIVAL’2017 lectors, Sridhar Iyengar. He is founder of three different companies, harnessing power of biotechnologies in an unique stylish way or in other words, a serial entrepreneur, definitely loving style, paired with high functionality. Starting with the AgaMatrix company, whose blood glucose monitoring products are the first medical device connected to iOS; continuing with Misfit, whose beautiful tracking fitness bracelets partnered with Coca-Cola, Victoria’s Secret and Swarovski; and ending up (for now) with Elemental Machines, a network of innovative sensory devices connected to a software so that environmental parameters in laboratories can be controlled from a distant location - this is what Mr. Sridhar Iyengar have left a part of himself in. Have you heard about the Misfit bracelets? Maybe you have even used or still use them too?  The company producing them, founded by Iyengar, has been acquired by Fossil Group (creating original accessories for brands like Adidas, Emporio Armani, Karl Lagerfeld, Burberry, DKNY, Diesel) for $250M in 2015. But have you been wondering what do successful people do once they get (a) baby company sold? Of course they’re not likely to settle and cry, but easy find another great idea to develop. This is exactly what Sridhar Iyengar does - very soon after Missfit have been sold, he launches Elemental Machines. Partnering with former Apple  and Pepsi CEO John Sculley, the new company of Sridhar raises $2.25 million in initial funding and maybe the tagline of Elemental Machines has a lot to do with this fact: “Helping scientists accelerate discovery using sensors and machine learning,” The idea of the sensors and the devices is to improve the complex biology and chemistry-based processes and making the results clear, transparent and consistent. Mr. Iyengar holds more than 30 US and international patents and is also Ph..D. from Cambridge University, keen runner and drummer. What’s the common between those above and his three innovative companies, and is there a fourth baby company on the way? Maybe he will tell us straight from the WEBIT.FESTIVAL’17 stage. Or who knows, maybe we all will help him to get a new idea born. Because inspiring, is one of the things WEBIT does best! 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

Will you trust a tech pro with 25 years of experience if he tells you IoT should actually be IoH? Yes, it’s not a random mistake, but one on purpose, and maybe one of the factors shaping this guy’s opinion is his long professional path. Jonas Jacobi, Vice President, Cloud and Mobile Technology Strategy at IBM is another great speaker of ours at WEBIT.FESTIVAL 2017, and he finds the importance of the Human in today’s IoT era extremely important. He is one of those men who have seen technologies dying, rebuilt and born, uses tech every day and knows how important nowadays it is. But he says innovations are not the main ingredient to success for startups, nor for big companies. Instead of proving how far technologies can go by themselves, “Focus your effort, innovation, and company on how to best help your fellow man, and you might win the grand prize”, Mr. Jacobi advices. Maybe everyone have made the same conclusion in a certain moment without being a professional in the area of technologies. But what makes us trust Jonas’s words are his long-lasting work experience and proved strong interest in the area. Mr. Jacobi’s professional life includes key positions as owner, adviser, co-founder at corporations like Oracle, IoT Expo, and, of course, IBM. With his co-founded company, Kaazing Corporation, and the established W3C's WebSocket standard, he have participated in rewriting the way Web and and Mobile applications are being designed today. Jonas is globally known as a Web, mobile and IoT expert, frequent speaker on tech events, writer and author. Since American Airlines have recently chosen to rely on IBM’s cloud platform, we’re impatient to see and hear how Mr. Jacobi contributes in an even more tangible way to developing the current and future (Cloud) technologies market. Even if America is at (a Cloud) distance from Europe - Jonas Jacobi is coming to WEBIT.FESTIVAL Europe 2017, Sofia. 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

Meet the founder Nadine Levitt and her Wurrly, helping you turn your phone into a professional recording studio. 300 000 users with 1.5 million recording sessions did it already.

Nadine Levitt, who will be speaking during Webit.Festival 2017, is a professional opera singer and if the name doesn’t ring any bells in your mind, you should know that she performed on one stage with people like Steven Tyler, David Foster, Christina Perri and Roger Daltry. So, she decided to create Wurrly, trying to erase some of the barriers for entry in the professional music world. Wurrly is an app, which transforms your phone into a recording studio – easy to use and delivering HQ records of performances on it. That’s an easy way to record good performances without paying huge sums for studio time. All you have to do is download Wurrly. “Location and economic differences should not be a barrier to entry for self-expression,” says Nadine about her try to disrupt the sector.

So here is the answer : because more than 80 % of all jobs and professions will be totally transformed within next 5-10 years. And we have to be ready so to take the advantage. It's not bad – it's just challenging and since yo read this and attend Webit – you will be among the prepared once.

And if you are still not impressed, Wurrly had already collaborated with the 'Lip Sync Battle’show, hosted by LL Cool J and airing on Spike TV. As we all know, celebrities appear on the show lip-syncing worldwide hits for the amusement of the audience. This is the place, where Channing Tatum is channeling Beyoncé, Joseph Gordon-Levitt can be seen performing as Janet Jackson, Anne Hathaway as Miley Cyrus and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson searching for his inner Taylor Swift personality. The app is based exactly on Wurrly’s engine and will help fans of the show record themselves and this way become part of the fun, challenging each other to a lip-sync duel. For just one year, Wurrly has tracked more than 1.5 million recording sessions and over 300,000 users. So, Nadine can really tell us more about her way of changing ways music is made, we are really impatient to hear more on the topic. 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

BASSCOM, the industry association of leading Bulgarian software development companies, presented today its annual report on the IT industry in the country. Among the guests during the press conference was Mrs Aniela Russeva, Senior Vice President of the Webit Global Series.

Georgi Zahariev, member of the Managing Board of BASSCOM, pointed out that the annual turnover of the members of the association is now over 1 billion US Dollars. Another interesting fact is the growth of the software industry in Bulgaria – 16.9% for 2015, 5 times more the growth of the country’s GDP. The members of BASSCOM also reported 278 milion leva of paid taxes during the last year. Outsourcing companies have a growth of 21% during 2015 – 217 million leva – an all-time record for the country. The people, working in the industry, are 19 000 and that makes it one of the most effective in the country. BASSCOM provided information that the salaries in the industry are 4 times bigger than the average in Bulgaria.

BASSCOM is a long term partner of the Global Webit Series of events and they both as communities support the growth of the market and industry and help the establishment of Bulgaria as a hub for the region of CEE, which already was proven by the title given to Sofia as The Digital Capital of the New Markets by Forbes after last edition of Webit in Sofia. BASSCOM also stated that in all industries there is already a need of IT specialists since all businesses are now transforming or started to adapt to the digital economy. Thus BASSCOM also announced a launch of special pilot of educational programme for IT specialists that will start not in the Universities but in the secondary school. First results will be visible on the market in the near future, when more young people will be ready to be part of the continuing growth of the industry in the country. We expect more companies to relocate their operations for the CEE region in Bulgaria as we have all the ingredients needed.

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.

No, it’s JetPack man. He will fly over Webit Festival 5000+ attendees! And not not by plane! He will just fly! Watch out because David Mayman, the creator of “The World’s First True Jetpack” and CEO of JetPack Aviation is coming to Webit.Festival’2017! And who knows - maybe will do a storm by landing on scene by his untraditional vehicle. Have you ever wanted to fly? Maybe as a child you’ve wanted to fly with a pair of wings, to see all the beauty that birds see from above and to feel the ultimate freedom of the sky? Then real adults life comes and you learn you can only fly by plane, or eventually parachute or something else of the kind. But David Mayman, one of our great speakers, didn’t settle and worked hard to make flying possible nowadays. “I've always dreamt of creating and flying a jetpack - to me this is the ultimate expression of flight - no wings, minimal airframe and very compact.”, he says. If you have recently heard of that vertically flying man in New York, London, and Monaco but you still don’t believe it, you can trust us, he’s real. “It really is like having a motorcycle or a bicycle in the air.” by his own words. Not only he proves flying is possible, but what’s more, he thinks he can teach you, even if you have never piloted a plane before. David is a professional pilot with a curious career path combining aviation, internet technologies and commerce but he have always found real passion in aircraft. He devoted 25 years of discovering the ultimate freedom feeling by creating “The World’s First True Jetpack” - light enough to be carried by a man and small enough to fit in a car. David have completed more than 400 test and a couple of real flights, armed only with his Jetpack on back. The most recent model ot JetPack, JB-9, could reach 10,000 feet (3,050 metres) and a highest speed of 102 km/h with duration of the flight for about 10 minutes, says JetPack Aviation. The company wants to raise £300,000 in order to invest in further research and development for its JB-10 JetPack and VTOL aircraft. And if today JetPack flying symbolises distant future, Mr Mayman says will work hard to create a commercial use JetPack so that one day JetPack could be a usual way of hanging around used by next generations. 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