Written by Sabine Demosthenes
MONTREAL – When I woke up in the morning of the last day of the greatest tech summit of all time ( I know, you’ve must be annoyed that I keep writing that sentence but it is so true), I got this song stuck in my head of Phil Collins Another Day in Paradise (Oh, think twice dalalala) as I prepare myself to conquer the world at the Web Summit for one last time in 2018. I grab a big glass of orange juice and I gave a big kiss to Grace, the dog of Ana and Bruno my hosts during the week, on my way out to the Web Summit (please don’t tell Bily Whisky, my Maltese, that I did kiss a girl and I like it …).
When I arrive at the Media Village, I was so ready for my one of one interview with a fascinating woman. Her name is Charlotte Summers and she is the COO of Diabetes Digital Media.
You will hear really soon our nice conversation at the Web Summit. I learn some many things about Low Carbs diet and I saw in Charlotte, a warrior for the diabetes patients to have a better health and a better lifestyle. In my book, Charlotte’s rock! All the Charlottes I know are so cool.
Welcome to my Charlotte’s Club Charlotte Summers.
There were so many interesting conferences like the Do We Need a Declaration of Digital Human Rights with Brett Solomon of Access Now, Peggy Hicks UN Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights and Adrian Lovett of World Wide Web Foundation. The moderator was Belinda Goldsmith of Thomson Reuters Foundation. Good and hard questions were asked about digital human rights. We are witnessing, especially right now, all the bullying that we are happening online from private citizens and some public figures like a certain person that is in charge of the United States of America. We do have a chart of human rights but do we need a chart of digital rights in this social media era? Yes, the chart of human rights should be enough but with everything that is going on, I do wonder if we need digital rights big time. The panel did debate on this question and of the 4, 1 of them did agree that we should maybe be considered to have a digital rights chart. I think we will still have this conversation in 2019.
In the afternoon, I met Marko Bitenc of GenePlanet for a small chat that you will have the chance to hear it really soon on The Chronicle.
Marko Bitenc is the CEO of GenePlanet. GenePlanet is an innovative healthcare and lifestyle solutions based on preventive genetic testing. Their goal is with preventive guidelines, they will help individuals to live a more fulfilling and healthy lifestyle. We may have to know someone that dies of a genetic predisposition and probably didn’t know at all he got those genes. I find it fascinating and it does give me a little bit more hope about the innovation of science to make our life a little bit healthier.
After my chat with Marko, I ran at the other side of the Pavillon (they got 3 big tents at the Web Summit) to see Lucas Di Grassi on stage.
Last time I saw Lucas was two years ago in Montreal.
Actually, Lucas was my next interview on my Thursday schedule right after his talks. But we did have to reschedule it. So be ready for two interviews (one in person and one in writing) with Lucas!
Back at Luca’s talk at the Auto/Tech and Talk Robot stage, Lucas talks about the human-machine race for the future.
The kid in me was super-excited. Lucas is the CEO of Roborace, the world’s first competition for human and machine teams, using self-driving and manually-controlled cars. Where do I sign to be a pilot?
Oh, I can hear my hubby saying you a pilot, haha, you must be kidding me.
Ok back to the topic. I saw it with my own eyes a driverless car (Lucas did show us a cool video) speeding up during a test drive and let me tell, human racers have some deep competitions coming really soon. Lucas is a passionate person and so smart.
I couldn’t see a better CEO than him for Roborace.
Paddy Cosgrave, the Web Summit Founder, gave a nice closing speech and before I forget to mention, during the Summit I think it was Wednesday late afternoon, all the women in tech were invited to go on stage for a big photo and a big applause from the public.
Wow, I’m so happy for every woman in the tech world to have this recognition.
As I prepare myself to fly home to my little family and to my Canadian weather and shinanigan, my heart was being nostalgic with all the conferences, the new friends like Paolo, Bruno, Grace and Ana and the partners I met at the Web Summit.
I had a little moment of happy tears but I didn’t cry a river because I couldn’t believe all the things I witnessed.
But I was so proud to be part of it. And then, a big smile came upon my face.
Why?
Collision 2019 will be in Toronto. The North-American version of the Web Summit will be in the Tdot! And then, I realize, Toronto will be my playground in May 2019.
Guess who will be back in the Tdot?