Once again this year, one of the world’s leading tech conferences opened its doors to bring together representatives from the industry, companies and start-ups. The Web Summit took place in Lisbon from November 11 to 14, 2024. Over 1,000 investors, more than 3,000 companies and 70,000+ participants – these are the official figures for this year’s event.
Once again this year, a delegation from the Digital Hub Initiative traveled to the Portuguese capital, where a total of ten Digital Hubs from the de:hub Initiative and their start-ups were able to present themselves at the German Park. This year’s participants included the Digital Hub for Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity from Karlsruhe EDIH-AICS, the Digital Hub Logistics & Commerce from Hamburg, TechQuartier from Frankfurt am Main, the startup accelerator SpinLab from Leipzig, InsurLab Germany e.V. from Cologne, ZOLLHOF – Tech Incubator from Nuremberg, the hub for the Digital Health Medical Valley from Erlangen, the InsurTech Hub Munich, the Digital Hub GreenTech Düsseldorf and MotionLab.Berlin. The MediaTech Hub Potsdam was represented on site by our Community & Partner Manager Luise Schröter and our Program & Project Manager Olympia Tsakiridou.
On the first evening, we accepted the invitation of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection (BMWK) and took part in the “Startup Germany Rooftop Conversations with Vice Chancellor Dr. Robert Habeck” on the opening evening. The topic was innovative strength in the GreenTech sector and the importance of female entrepreneurship. Here, the founders, guests of the de:hub and international participants had the opportunity to exchange ideas with Federal Minister of Economics and Climate Protection Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck. The evening was a successful start to the tech conference.
As part of the German delegation of the Digital Hub Initiative, several start-ups from MTH Potsdam also had the opportunity to travel to the Web Summit. The following teams from the MTH community took part: Bluevace, DealEngine, Mitigant, promiseQ, Sensit!, Trueffles, Wavery, XR Bootcamp, Yoona.ai and ZAUBAR.For all startups, participation in the Web Summit offered an ideal opportunity to present themselves to conference participants, make contacts and generate leads.
On the first day of the conference, Robert Habeck paid a visit to the German Park. Among other things, he had a closer exchange with Mitigant and took a moving digital journey to the Stasi prison in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen using VR glasses at the ZAUBAR stand.
What became particularly clear to us again this year is that the local community is incredibly supportive and open. There was also a particular focus on female entrepreneurship this year. There were more female founders on the stages than before and the importance of female founders for the ecosystem has become even more apparent. It also became clear at the Web Summit that artificial intelligence is finding its way into all areas and will reshape almost every industry and every business field.
Review | SLUSH 2024 in Helsinki
One week after the Web Summit in Lisbon comes the next event highlight of the year: SLUSH 2024 in Helsinki. The SLUSH conference is a non-profit event for international start-ups, scale-ups, investors and press representatives.
This year, it took place under the motto “METAMORPHOSIS-A Call for Radical Transformation” from November 20-21 in Helsinki. The conference claims to be “the most founder-focused event on earth” and once again invited start-ups, venture capitalists and other participants to embark on a journey of change.
A delegation from the Digital Hub Initiative was on site and had the opportunity to give 45 de:hub start-ups a stage for their ground-breaking ideas at a 110 m² stand. Connections were made with investors and partners from all over the world. Our startup portfolio included Ramtin Ramin from Deal Engine, Marina Ekroos from Frameright, Benedikt Schneidereit from Bluevance, Benjamin Heese from Sensit! and Philip Kressin from Klangchat.
Among other things, the “German Beer Together” laid a good foundation for productive networking. The momentum continued at the Superconnector event, where visionary minds forged transformative partnerships.
Highlights included outstanding patches, a fireside chat about OpenAI as a driver of innovation and exciting discussions with experts such as Geoffrey Hinton and Demis Hassabis about the latest developments in the industry.
We would like to thank the Digital Hub Initiative for giving our start-ups the opportunity to take part in SLUSH 2024. A big thank you also goes to the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection (BMWK), Germany Trade & Invest (GTAI) and RCKT for the organization.
Impressions of the Websummit 2024 and SLUSH 2024 can be found here:
