Web Summit Experience

The last week at the Web Summit in Lisbon was hectic with 70,000+ attendees, but an incredible experience nonetheless. It was my second opportunity to wear the badge of CI&T at this event. As before I was filled with inspiration and food for thought. The depth and breadth of the event content ranges from climate tech to adtech with start-ups and big techs from all over the world showcasing the latest tech and vision.

This year the topics related to Web3, Metaverse and AI received a fair share of attention. A lot of parallels were drawn between the early internet boom of the 90's and the emergence of Web3. A decentralised internet is an appealing concept and investors and entrepreneurs alike are bullish about the prospect of an internet owned by ordinary people not by billionaires. Tech pundits forecast that the transition from Web2 to Web3 is unavoidable but in my opinion, the message about use cases/applications of Web3 needs to be clear, simple and not shrouded in mystery. 

The debate about the Metaverse and its application in practice was intriguing. There was a promise that it’s not here to replace physical world connection and according to the Head of Product at Meta, it will not be owned by a single entity. The questions about digital safety in the virtual world are work in progress. One thing that there seems to be consensus about is that Metaverse is a big bet and may take 5-10 years before it becomes mainstream. I am left with more questions than answers about the value we are creating.

On the AR (Augmented Reality) front, the application of technology in healthcare was straight out of a science fiction novel. Philips showed us how AR is being used in operating theatres, assisting doctors and nurses. It was promising to know that the tech is already mature, applied and eagerly waiting to be used. The use of AR in F1 was particularly thrilling where engineers (remotely) use AR to perform “open heart surgery” on F1 car engines.

Among all the start-up pitches, a session from South Korea drew my attention. Young entrepreneurs are tackling bold, complicated problems with a mix of hardware and software. Pitches ranged from applying sensors and computer vision to Road Safety, sustainable building construction, near real time speech to text etc. I found their ambition and presentation genuine, a trend aligning with Gen Z conscientiousness and tech with purpose values. 

In my view, the presence of climate tech was muted, which was both surprising and concerning. However, Brad Smith (Microsoft) stoked our interest with examples of climate tech startups solving some of the processing challenges from carbon capture to satellite data. The main message was “It is possible”.

As a Product person working in the digital marketing space, it was evident to me that digital ad spending is only going to increase in the coming years. Although, the key is to diversify! It was interesting to see the power of audio based ads and influencer marketing and their growing prominence. The Metaverse brings new concepts to personalised brand experience but it’s still not clear to me how it will work.

The pitch competition was one of my favourite events at the Web Summit. It was even more special because the winner was a woman entrepreneur from Georgia with a developer experience product. Theneo, her company, creates API documentation automatically from the code repository in a few minutes saving days or even weeks of the developer’s time and effort. The beauty of this product is that it is simple and tackles a problem that every API led company faces every day. Kudos to them! 

At CI&T, we work with technology every day to solve the challenges of tomorrow’s problems and to build the future. Agility is in our DNA, we know how to adapt to new technologies and strive to bring value to our customers. It will be quite interesting to see today’s innovations becoming mainstream in 5-10 years. We are at a unique crossroads now; there has been tremendous innovation, but now it is up to us to build and create technology that solves real problems, that is inclusive, ethical and purpose driven.  

 

Koushik Panda

Product Manager ⋅ CI&T