The mayor of Lisbon, Carlos Moedas, was speaking at the opening of the Web Summit, the technological summit that started today in Lisbon, and promised to found the Unicorn Factory in Lisbon next year. He also appealed to the technologies present at the Web Summit to “come and stay” in the Portuguese capital.
“I think the great thing about Web Summit is that this is where people who love details come together,” said Lisbon’s new mayor. “If you think about innovation – I told everyone, my dream is that Lisbon is the innovation capital of the world, but what are the details for me to be able to do that”, he said.
“We have to be able to go beyond the Web Summit, we have to make you and the companies stay in Lisbon” because you see “the opportunity”, stressed the former European commissioner.
“That’s why I promise that next year we will found, with the help of the Web Summit and many of you, what I call a dream – the Lisbon Unicorn Factory,” he assured. This factory “will be a place where we will teach the details and the process so that young people can transform their ideas into big businesses, create jobs and change the world and have a purpose, that’s what Unicorn Factory will be”, reinforced Carlos Moedas.
And he left a message for Web Summit attendees: “Whatever you do in life, whatever your project, dream big, go deep into the details.” Because “this is what can change the world, and if you do that I can only tell you one thing: Lisbon is the right place to do it”, he stressed. This is because the Portuguese capital “is the only city” that links “the details with dreams”, he pointed out. So, “come and stay in Lisbon, it’s a city open to you”, he concluded.
The Web Summit takes place between November 1st and 4th in Lisbon, in person, after the last edition was ‘online’ and the organization expects around 40 thousand participants, as revealed in September by Paddy Cosgrave, executive president of the summit. Comedian Amy Poehler, Microsoft President Brad Smith, European Commissioner Margrethe Vestager and footballer Gerard Pique will join more than 1,000 speakers, around 1,250 startups, 1,500 journalists and more than 700 investors, at a summit where topics such as technology and society, among others, will be discussed, according to the organization. Despite the expected number of visitors this year to be around 30,000 less than in the last in-person edition, in 2019, the authorities consider that this is the “largest event of 2021” to take place in Lisbon.