Takeaways from Web Summit 2024

Think of Lisbon and no doubt it’ll conjure images of explorers setting sail in centuries past across the ocean, the hills that climb across the city, pastel de nata and salted cod… Of course, there is much to Lisbon which cannot be summed in a sentence of “highlights”. In recent years, Lisbon has also been the host of the Web Summit, billed as the world biggest event for tech startups. This week, I attended the event for the first time.

The first thing to strike you, is the sheer scale of the event. Tens of thousands of people attend the event and it can be somewhat dizzying at times. The event is both an exhibition and a collection of presentations, talks and interviews. Attendees range from folks working in startups, to larger firms, investors and also well known musicians and footballers. Turnleaf Analytics exhibited as part of the Beta program for tech startups, with myself and Joel Scanlon presenting our product to attendees, namely economic forecasting using machine learning and alternative data. I’d like to thank everyone who visited our stand and gave us feedback on our product. The event covers a multitude of different verticals ranging from fintech (the domain of Turnleaf Analytics) to travel to health and so on. It was impressive to see the multitude of startups exhibiting across all these different domains. Some previous startup exhibitors have gone on to become very successful, such as Revolut. 

In this article, I'll try to write about a few of my takeaways from the event, and the various talks I went to at the event. Whilst it's impossible to be fully comprehensive given the scale of the event, I hope it'll still give an impression about the event....

To read the rest of the article on the Turnleaf Analytics website, please click here!