Tag: speakers

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.

Andy Tsao (Managing Director Global Gateway at Silicon Valley Bank) took us on a journey through some of the emerging markets where he had the opportunity to spend time and build the case for innovation economy. He calls it Adventure Capital.

United States vs Emerging markets

What's happening in US in terms of tech and innovation investing?

The US market has been on a 8-year up-cycle. In 2017, 82,9 M USD were invested and for historical context that is the most amount of Venture invested since the year 2000. But then again by looking at the first quarter of 2018 (28.2B USD) if we do a simple annualization - we may be on a course to exceed a 100B USD venture invested in US this year and perhaps we may eclipse the 105B USD from 2000.

"The US economy is doing well, the stock markets are at all time high, unemployment is at historical low, why are then our investors and entrepreneurs increasingly looking outside the US in emerging markets in terms of creating valuable technology companies?"

If we look at the global set of unicorns - more than half of them reside outside of the US while just 5 years ago nearly 75% of all global venture was invested in Silicon Valley.

Global innovation wave is growing.

➡️ 49% of Global unicorns are outside of US (CB insights) ➡️ 57% of new unicorns are outside US ➡️ China has 55 unicorns, Idia - 9 ➡️ 40% of YC is international ➡️ Less than 45% of global VC is in Silicon Valley Last year, venture commitments in China exceeded $50B for the first time, funded largely by domestic RMB investors. Venture fundraising in china matched US fundraising in 2016, which was the highest total in 15 years. By some measures China is already the largest Venture market in the world. Certainly China is the second largest economy in the world. India is also a good example of "tropicalization" meaning that entrepreneurs and investors can choose business models from developed markets apply innovation to take those models locally to their home market. Flipkart is a good example of that. The company raised billions of dollars and have been competing vigorously with Amazon in India for the e-commerce market.

"As I travel around the emerging markets, one of the sectors that really pops out is Fintech."

It seems like in many of the emerging markets the banking landscape is very similar - usually dominated by a handful of large powerful banks that act in a monopolistic sort of manner. That means they don't take a lot of risk, they don't treat their customers very well and as a result it gives the entrepreneurs the opportunity to really disrupt, innovate.

Secular trends that drive the acceleration of innovation in emerging markets:

➡️ The amount of capital that you need to launch a business today has drastically reduced from a few years ago. ➡️ Entrepreneurs can leverage cloud based technologies using lean startup models, they can get to Proof of concept much quicker than before with much less money. ➡️ Entrepreneurs don't need to go to the large money centers like the Silicon Valley ➡️ Increasing availability for best practices - Endeavor, Techstarts, YC ➡️ Proactive government funding ➡️ More funding available from US and other developed markets ➡️ Rise of the rest - you'd no longer have to be at one of the traditional US tech hubs to launch a relevant high growth technology business.

---

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!

 

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

---

 

Only today (29 May) you can join Europe's tech and digital policy event for 2018 and have access to 10+ independent summits and 50+ meetups with 1 ticket at half price! Webit is welcoming this new era of data privacy by providing all our subscribers a special "DATA present” - 50% off from all tickets for Webit.Festival Europe 2018 only today - 29 May.

Register here and get your ticket

to join Prime Ministers, EU Commissioners and EU top policy makers, global innovators and enterprise executives, Ministers,  Mayors, investors, media and Europe's top 200 startups and scaleups - all at Webit.Festival Europe with a special discount of 50% on all tickets with code: GDPR 6000 global experts (67% senior attendance) join Webit from 110 countries.

Check who is speaking

Over 200 exhibitors and sponsors join Webit this year. A warm welcome to the group of new partners who join Webit including Microsoft, SAP, Samsung, Fox, Novartis, VISA, UBB, part of KBC Group, Superhosting . BG, VMware, FOX, Turner, Novartis, Bayer, Amgen, Generali to name a few. Special thanks to our General partner MasterCard and our strategic media partners Nova TV and NetInfo.

Happy to help.

Should you want to join as exhibitor and sponsor -  please contact us.  

Stamen Popov, the Novartis Oncology Business Unit Head for Bulgaria & Macedonia was a keynote speaker at Webit.Festival 2017. His keynote covered the topics about the “from cost to value ” conversion in healthcare and treatment.

Healthcare spending is increasing faster than than the current economic climate’s capabilities

Many countries are concerned that higher spending doesn’t lead to proportionally better outcomes. Healthcare systems waste a significant amount of resources that limits the fiscal space and hinders performance. The largest percent of wasted resources goes to over-hospitalization, over-examinations and over-prescription of pills. Waste is also created by inefficient or flawed rules, overly bureaucratic procedures and poor execution or lack of best practices, e.g. effective preventive care or patient safety, low volume for specific treatments per hospital, etc. Mr Popov made a point that the most expensive pill appears to be the one which hasn’t delivered any positive effects to the patient. The pricing in the industry has to start evolving with accordance to the fast paced changes in technology and the development of new ways of treatment. Companies should to be paid for a result delivered, not for a specific pill. A shift needs to be made in pricing, away from what has been a transactional approach to a value-based approach. That should mean focusing on the outcomes and really communicating the value of the medicines and pricing them accordingly. Care routed in outdated habits, ignoring scientific findings and motivated by something other than optimal care shouldn’t be the care of today.

Focusing on value-based care, reducing waste and directing investments to the point where greater value can be produced is critical for sustainability.

Universal health care aspirations will be hard to materialize if we don’t shift to value-based care and change policies to support this shift. This change requires collaboration with every member of the healthcare ecosystem and better public-private partnership. Healthcare systems should stimulate more effective treatment results with the help of all parties involved in the process - patients, medics, researchers, healthcare providers and pharma companies.   If you want to stay up-to-date check the Webit.Festival website for upcoming speakers and our ticket options.

Webit.Festival Europe 2017 shaped the milestones for all things digital in healthcare

The topic will be continued in 2018 with a separate 2-day event called Webit.Health co-chaired by Plamen Russev, the Chairman of Webit Foundation and Prof. Shafi Ahmed, Co-founder and surgeon of Medical Realities. Make sure to book your tickets now, at the Super earlybird price here. 2017 health Summit saw some of the biggest companies’ representatives in the world sitting together in a panel discussion - Rumyana Trencheva, Managing director SAP SountEast Europe, Mr Omer Saka, Partner at Deloitte, Dr Stamen Popov, General Manager Oncology of Novartis and Milena Stoycheva, CEO of JA Bulgaria, moderated by Dr. Rosen Dimitrov, Public Affairs Manager at Novartis. You have a vast experience in healthcare and innovations and wish to tell us about it - apply for speaking here. Ms Trencheva gave a good start of the discussion assuring that megatrends all over the world are not something selected, they are not happening in selected, VIP, countries - they are spreading. The contemporary consumer is demands more and more from the pharmaceuticals, from the technology companies and it is becoming ever more challenging to make sure consumers’ needs are met.

The change of our perception on what healthcare is

Another megatrend that was clearly stated by Mr Saka is the change of our perception on what healthcare is do we mean a pill, a medical device of some kind or a hospital bed. The key solution is finding a way for these three elements to work together in the modern healthcare system. Furthermore, the matter of how much we, as consumers, pay for healthcare came to forefront. It is expected that in the next 10 years or less patients will be treated and will be provided with solutions that go beyond the pill - and this is for the mass, not only for the selected ones who can afford it. Dr Popov clearly stated that pharmaceutical companies no longer rely on the pill as a method of treatment - they broaden their vision using the digital technologies and these solutions will very soon come to patients who need them. This gives a huge advantage - transparency. Each of us, as human beings, is a data center, based on the choices we make every single day. In fact, transparency in healthcare system is a major block each of the technology companies all over the world are trying to achieve.

With this follows one of the most important Megatrends - prevention as the form of treatment

It is considered that people nowadays take more and more care of themselves - in the form of wellness. We will have a huge number of population taking great measurements to maintain their health; in order to survive, people will take ownership on one’s health, environment and the ecosystem as well as putting efforts into changing the ecosystem. Finally, all these megatrends are impossible to happen without collaboration of technology companies, startups to bring fresh ideas and doctors. There’s no need for an engineer to develop an app by himself when they clearly don’t know specifics, rather, it is the healthcare industry to develop and change the ecosystem. Going out of the pharmaceutical industry, the biggest companies are also working on building connections with physicians and to use these relations to  integrate new type of companies into this world. Webit.Health will continue this kinds of discussions in 26th - 27th June with ever more interesting guests who will show in action and demonstrate the modern healthcare - something that is happening now, not some time in the future. If you have an interesting idea and your company is less than 5 years old  - show it by applying here.  

Creating a brand strategy can be among the most difficult tasks in the process of creating a marketing plan. It is an integral aspect of the business development of every company and has the power to increase the voice and consumer awareness of a brand, while giving it an identity and worth. When it comes to developing your marketing strategy and tactics, all you need is the right balance between the three key components - purpose, consistency and emotional impact. The first will give your business its functional and intentional goals, the second will help the company to survive, while the third is connecting the customers with your brand and develop the emotion you are going after. At this year’s Webit.Festival you can listen to some of the top marketers in the world. During the Marketing & Innovation Summit of the event they will share their thoughts on topics, such as Programmatic, Mobile, Video and Native Advertising, Brand Strategies, Metrix & Data, Mobile Marketing, OmniChannel & Personalisation Strategies and Media & Digital Entertainment. During the Brand Strategies track, recognized experts will give you insight information, that can help you transform your business into the enterprise of tomorrow. The event will begin with a talk between the Founder of Snowfire Ditte Hammarstrom and the CEO of the company Emil Sundberg. They will discuss the flaws and the nitty-gritty of the design work that happens after you ship a product as a startup. The experts will explore how design can affect the business model and enhance the ability to convert visitors into customers. Right after them, the Chief Creative Officer of DigitasLBi Chris Clarke will speak about the death of empathy and will explain why global brand consistency doesn’t matter anymore. Chris will talk about the emergence of filter bubbles and show how this has impacted politics, culture society and by extension, brands. Whether we like it or not, this phenomenon means we no longer understand the world outside our own network, so brands must increasingly play a game of channel authenticity over brand consistency. The Founding Partner of Ready Set Rocket Aaron Harvey, will explain why the consumers make purchase decisions based on brand values and authenticity, as much as they do convenience and price. Twice Reply’s Partner and Managing Director Volker Glaeser, will talk about the most efficient ways of creating and testing future products. He will tell us more about the two most important approaches of today’s leading global innovators - Rapid Prototyping and Constant Beta. The Vice-President for Marketing at TELUS International Europe Gregorie Vigroux will tell us how to use LinkedIn most effectively in our business to business communications. The professional social media now has more than 433 million registered users. Each month it is visited by at least 106 million unique users. The Senior Director for Group Digital Strategy at DHL - Global Headquarters Cristian Citu will talk about the digital marketing capabilities in a Top 20 B2B brand and how to realize them in the best possible way. At the very end of the track, the Vice President for Digital Strategy at DAC Group Nasser Sahlool will share his experience in winning the hearts, minds and wallets of digital consumers. The expert is sure that the path to personalization goes through localization of content, campaigns, creative and calls to action. 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.

Digital transformation is the process of adopting digital technology in all aspects of human society. Right now it sits atop the strategic agenda for businesses around the world and two-thirds of the top executives worldwide predict that their organizations will be vastly digital after the next two years. This will not be easy task, but it may bring huge opportunities for emerging and already established businesses. In the next 10 years between 40% and 60% of the companies in Fortune’s 500 will not play the same role on the world. Their places will be taken by new enterprises that manage to adapt best to the economic realities of the future. Over the last 8 years Webit.Festival has been all about creating density of opportunities for the business and entirely new entrepreneurial ecosystem. Among the 5000 guest of this year’s event in Sofia you can find top level speakers from all over the world, that will talk about the latest trends in the world of digital transformation. During the event’s Digital Transformation Summit the CEO of JetPack Aviation David Mayman will tell the audience about the smallest and lightest jetpack ever created and the change it can bring to the transportation industry. The chief designer of SAP Martin Wezowski will share his thoughts on how to build the future we want to live in and the merging meaning of what to be an innovator and designer. He will also talk about the designer’s role in creating of everything, including social and political systems in a space between cutting edge technology and humanism. The partner for Europe and Innovation at VCI Roby Stancel will talk about the digital transformation in the most real world. He brings to the stage two decades of experience in innovation, services, strategies, roadmaps and cultural transformations for over 100 partner companies. Now Stancel offers a unique combination of design thinking innovation and business strategy. As founder of Change Sciences, Pamela Pavliscak advises designers, developers and decision makers on how to create technologies that promote well-being. On Webit’s stage she will tell the audience how to design happiness - which has been the promise of technology right from the start. Researches suggest that technology has negative impact on our lives instead of aspiring us to get better at our work and augmenting human abilities. Pamela will share her thoughts on how we can start designing a long-term well-being rather than short-term goals. The Chief marketing officer of AngelHack Brian Collins will tell the best options for the existing communities to leverage their resources and build up their well-being. Right now AngelHack is the world’s largest and most diverse global hacker community. The company helps drive open innovation of tech products, platforms and brands with extraordinary smarts, scale and speed with tech education and hackatons. The CEO and Founder of SignAll Technologies Zsolt Robotka will speak about the first automated sign language translator that can improve the lives of 70 million people and unlock services for the deaf. Furthermore, the expert will share his thoughts on how to accommodate sign language users in smart cities. 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.

Europe is changing. Look at the vibrant, exciting and productive startup communities in Berlin, London, Helsinki and Sofia just to name a few and you will be pleasantly surprised with what is going on there and the opportunities presented. The reasons for these bustling activities of the startup communities in Europe and huge interest of individual investors and VC’s are manifold. Europe has tech talent, great ideas, good interwoven communities that are self-replicating and growing stronger. The interest of investors and VC’s are there and money flows to the European tech community. To find out why and what are the future trends of Venture Capital at the blue track of the Global Webit Congress we bring prominent and established speakers from the entrepreneurial, investor, startup and tech world. Under the topic Capital Talks and Future Trends, Dmitry Chikhachev, co-founder and managing partner of Runa Capital will share his vision on why Europe has a bigger potential than Silicon Valley. Dmitry is one of over 400 investors and C-level executives who will take part in the topic and discuss experience and future trends. Among them are such prominent figures as the CEO of Microsoft ventures, partners of Qualcommm Ventures, Welington, Y Combinator and many others.  Do not miss the Global Webit Congress! Dmitry Chikhachev is a professional venture capitalist with more than 18 years of extensive cross-functional experience. Dmitry holds an MS degree in Applied Mathematics and Physics from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. He also completed an MBA curriculum, graduating with highest honors from the American Institute of Business and Economics. His investment interests span complex software, mobile, virtualization and could computing. He led deal execution for NGINX, Jelastic, LinguaLeo, Ecwid, Cellrox, Capptain and other Runa companies. Dmitry is a ‘hands on’ investor and helps portfolio companies with fundraising, recruitment, strategy and technology. Just recently, Dmitry and partners launched the $200M Runa Capital Fund II looking to invest in the best tech-companies across the Globe. At the blue track, Dmitry will focus his talk on the power of the European educational system. The role it has in tech. He will also talk on the increasing capital flow to Europe and the opportunities investors are looking for in Europe, the emerging and fading trends. Here is what Dmitry shared with us:

" It is clear that the old school investment teams are changing. As entrepreneurs take place as VCs, especially in Europe, their deep tech expertise can influence the funding approach. We should look into the hard-tech technology and see its market potential, speak common language with entrepreneurs.

Meet Dmitry at the sixth Webit Global Congress, and book your tickets with the early bird prices!