Written by Sabine Demosthenes
MONTREAL – The feeling I had when I woke up last Wednesday was super happy and confident. I suddenly felt like a rockstar! Before I left for the summit, I grabbed a big glass of orange juice and my dear friend for the week, Grace, a beautiful dog whose home I was staying at, along with amazing hosts: Ana, Bruno, and Paola. Grace was looking at me with those big beautiful eyes and this look: “Oh no you are leaving…” I told her that today (Wednesday) would be a fabulous day at the summit and I would be back that night to tell her all about it.
Yes, I do have conversations with dogs. They are such good listeners… I think.
On my metro ride to the Summit, a young lady introduced herself. She saw my media bracelet and she asked me if I was going to the Summit.
I was happy to tell her yes. Her name wasDiana. She is a young, smart journalist for the Youth Association of Journalists in Lisbon (I hope I got the name right). Diana was a dear companion during the rest of the summit. We met every now and then and I truly cherished our new friendship.
One highlight of the day before I forgot to write about was walking through the Alexis Ohanion Sr interview for CNN. I kept my cool and I tried to listen. At the end of his interview, as I was on my way out and without any expectation, I told him to go see a talk on the main stage that I will tweet a picture of. I heard him say “oh ok cool”.
As I promised, I tweeted the picture I took. I didn’t expect that in the next 5 minutes, he would have liked the picture and retweeted it. Boom!!!
Only at the Web Summit things like this happen, or maybe in the subway.
Back to Day 2. I was sitting in the main auditorium during the early afternoon (around2 pm) to see the amazing Dr. Ben Goertzel of Hanson Robotics, a company creating expressive, life-like robots with friendly personalities. Dr. Goertzel wasn’t on stage by himself, Sophia and Hunt were rocking the stage with him.
Who are Sophia?
Here is Sophia:
It’s so amazing to see them and to have to privilege to be invited to the press conference given by Dr. Goertzel and Sophie The Robot. Good questions were asked.
The Internet wasn’t at it’s best, so Sophia was under the weather, unfortunately. We did witness all the beautiful work that the Hanson Robotics Family has been building. The future looks promising for all of us.
Thirty minutes later, I went to another press conference. This time, it was with the brilliant artist, Imogen Heap. She is such a multi-talented musician, producer, engineer, philanthropist, and a kick-ass woman (yes, kick ass).
Mycelia is a research and development hub for music makers (Hallelujah!).
I even got the opportunity to ask her a quick question!
After this beautiful day, I went back to the place I was calling home for the week I was in Lisbon. Grace (the dog) and I hung out and she listened (again) to all the adventures I had during that fabulous day.
The next thing you knew, I was dreaming about the next day, the last day of the Summit with dear Grace next to me.
