By Business & Finance 
Over 10,000 national and international attendees descended on the RDS on October 30th and 31st for Europe’s largest technology conference, newly renamed ‘The Summit’.
A record number of attendees from Ireland and around the globe attended this year’s two-day festival of ideas, which saw some of the world’s leading company founders, investors and start-ups come together at more than 60 events organised right across the city.
Founder and CEO of The Summit, Paddy Cosgrave said of this year’s event: “This is an event like no other. It is a melting pot where entrepreneurs can share experiences, collaborate on new ideas and have the opportunity to meet people who have blazed a trail in their respective fields as well as pitch their business ideas to some of the leading investors in the world… The Web Summit’s success has provided a superb platform from which to showcase Ireland and its start-up culture to the world’s foremost technology companies, but what is very exciting this year is how we have expanded the Web Summit to provide a platform for Ireland’s food producers to showcase their produce to an international audience with the Food Summit. It also provides a new and unique experience for Web Summit attendees.”
Cosgrave added: “We’re also promoting over 30 of Ireland’s best established and up and coming music acts during the Night Summit, a music and arts festival which takes place alongside the main event.”
This year, The Summit offered some 950 start-ups from Ireland and Europe the opportunity to meet with over 300 investment groups who between them manage billions of dollars in venture capitalist funds. Initiatives for start-ups at the event included PITCH presented by Box and the ESB Spark of Genius award, which this year was won by Viddyad, a cloud-based video ad creation tool.
Highlights at the 2013 event included keynote addresses and fireside chats with a who’s who of web entrepreneurs, including Tony Hawk; Phil Libin, founder and CEO of Evernote; Drew Houston, co-founder and CEO of Dropbox; Aaron Levie, co-founder and CEO Box; Jay Bregman, founder and CEO of Hailo; and Vice Media CEO, Shane Smith.
The closing panel discussion was not to be missed and included billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk and An Taoiseach Enda Kenny. The Summit also marked the the first time that the NASDAQ opening bell has been rung in Ireland.
All images from The Summit
