Web Summit kicks off today with inventor of the worldwide web

Web Summit opens today with keynote speaker and inventor of the worldwide web, British physicist Tim Berners-Lee sharing his vision of the future on the computer network he created 30 years ago.

The General-Secretary of the United Nations, António Guterres will also give a speech about the Digital Future.

The doors to the 10th edition will open to the 70,000 participants at 5pm with a “Opening Night Festival” with the official opening at 6.30pm with a welcome speech from the event’s CEO Paddy Cosgrove who will introduce the speakers.

In the first presentation for the event, Tim Berners-Lee, who created the web in 1989 with the intention of it being a free access web to serve humanity, will give his vision of the future, followed by the Vice-President of Apple’s Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives Department, Lisa Jackson who will talk about “Doing good business that does good” and related to the sustainable goals of the computer giant, namely its focus on renewable energy.

And because technology is also related to cinema, namely special effects, the next speaker will be US filmmaker Darren Aronofsky, director of Protozoa Pictures and known for films such as Pi (1998),  Requiem for a Dream (2000) and the psychological horror Mother! (2017).  

The last speaker will be the General-Secretary of the United Nations, António Guterres in a 15-minute speech on how to create “a secure digital future beneficial for all” and share his vision on taking advantage of new technology while safeguarding against the dangers of innovation.

He will be welcomed by the Mayor of Lisbon, Fernando Medina and the Portuguese Prime Minister, António Costa.

The event, which runs all this week, was started in Ireland in 2010. In 2016 it moved to Lisbon and will be the summit’s home for the next 10 years (2028) thanks to annual offsets of €11 million and a premises expansion programme to the existing trade fair site Feira Internacional de Lisboa (FIL) at the city’s Parque das Nações.