The LAB Group arrived in Lisbon over the weekend and after checking out the city, testing the coffee and pastel del nata's, we were all prepared and pumped for the summit. And oh my, the opening ceremony set the bar high!
With an incredible opening from Edward Snowdon and the night summit kick-off at the Waterfront, we're set for an awesome week ahead. Here are some of my highlights from day one...
Start-ups
The ceremony began with a unique lineup of startup speakers from a whole range of industries. For me, one business particularly stood out - Mutiny.
Co-Founder Jaleh Rezaei, spoke about how Mutiny is a simple solution that personalises messaging on websites for different visitors with the aim to increase conversion and close more leads.
As a marketer, her talk really resonated with me as she touched on the difficulties of generating messaging that will appeal to such a wide audience. She discussed the issues that companies experience when striving for growth and how often visitors to a website bounce because they didn't realise why the service or product was right for them and how users don't always relate to the messaging.
Mutiny is a solution that measures and analyses the websites traffic and conversion data and understands who is visiting by using internet history and data to generate messages that will change the user's experience, by implementing just a single line of code to the site.
Check out the Mutiny here.
A conversation with Edward Snowdon
Wow, what an inspiring talk! This is one of the speakers that I was most keen to see, so I was thrilled when we managed to grab seats in the Altice Arena.
Snowdon tuned in from Moscow and gave insight into the world of big data and how it's important to remember that it's not always about protecting data but protecting people. He covered everything from government to tech giants and GDPR. He shared his thoughts relating to GDPR and how the problem is not data protection but is data collection, and that it's not data that can get exploited but the people.
Snowdon expressed his concerns with surveillance and collection of data and how we should look at redesigning the current model to protect data.
5G + X: Creating a new era?
A super interesting talk from Huawei President Guo Ping outlining the future of the tech company.
He spoke about the recent integration of 5G and how it enables users to have freedom by essentially having the cloud in their pocket. Ping spoke about the companies commitment to enabling application development and their desire to empower app developers and drive the industry forward in two areas:
- Mobile devices
- The cloud
The company will invest 1.5 billion dollars to extend their developer programmes working to make AI development easier and give developers the opportunity to focus on their code work and designing and creating the best possible products.
He spoke about smartphones and how they have had the biggest impact on our daily lives and the companies plans to connect all kinds of devices so that users can switch seamlessly between smartphones and screens with a simple touch and how this will be a next-generation device.
Saving the planet one drop at a time
An interesting panel interview with Jaden Smith co-founder of 501cTHREE.org and JUST water, Gary White CEO of Water.org and WaterEquity, and Paul O'Callaghan CEO of BlueTech Research.
The panellists discussed their passion for the ecosystem and their drive to provide a sustainable solution for water sanitation globally and the different methods of doing so. The talk explored the ways of creating an agile business model that works as an alternative to just giving to charity. It was inspiring to see such drive and passion from the 3 panellists and how tech and research can be used to innovate and solve a global issue.
Watch Brave Blue World to find out more.
Night Summit
The incredible opening ceremony was followed by an evening at the Waterfront to kick-off the Night Summit. The LAB Group team networked with some amazing businesses and joined some conversations with companies from software developers, startups to mentors - it was great to mix with like-minded people.
