For my blog Start(Me)Up on the online edition of the daily La Stampa, I interviewed Paddy Cosgrave, the mind behind the Dublin Web Summit, one of the main European tech events.

Here you can read the interview in Italian, and below is the English version.

 

Hi Paddy, great to have the chance to talk. Let’s start from when it all began: why did you create the Summit and what were the biggest obstacles and satisfactions in setting up an event of this scale and importance?

It all happened by accident. I just came out of a tech startup in Dublin and I went to Silicon Valley and realised how incredibly well connected the valley is, and how Europe was so dispersed. I was saying this to a few people and they simply told me “you’re an entrepreneur Paddy, what are you going to do about it.” I wanted to put that spotlight on some of the incredible startups that we have in Europe and I wanted to meet other entrepreneurs. The first Web Summit was just 200 people in a lecture hall, since then it’s evolved to a massive event with over 7,000 people across two days and taking over a large part of Dublin.

How did you see, from your privileged point of view, the tech scene evolve since you first started the Web Summit?

At first there wasn’t much of a tech scene in Europe. Skype was very important in the community of investors and entrepreneurs that its exit created. Over the past few years we’re lucky that Berlin, London, Dublin and Scandinavia’s tech scene’s have all got a shot in the arm. We’re seeing governments and the corporate world really engaging with startups in a way that has never happened before. Now we have companies like Rovio, Supercell, Wonga, Spotify, SoundCloud and others that offer great potential.

What were for you the most memorable moments of the previous editions?

Jack Dorsey was a great speaker, Michael Birch always has something interesting to say and Scott Harrison of charity:water has a really powerful story. For me, last year we had 200 startups exhibit at the event, and it was fantastic to see so many startups meeting investors and making connections.

What can we expect from this year’s event? Can you give us some anticipations?

We have over 800 startups exhibiting at the summit and an incredibly impressive bunch of speakers from Kevin Rose and Mark Suster to people like Niklas Zennstrom and of course Tony Hawk. A big part of our focus is on bringing together people in the evenings. We’re running different dinners and sessions for designers and developers, online marketeers, entrepreneurs and many more. A lot of networking at events like this happens after hours, so we’re trying to help make that happen.

There is a lot of talk about “startups” nowadays. How much do you think is hype and how much is actually a “revolution”, as some suggest?

There are very few apps that will cause a revolution, so there’s certainly a lot of hype in that regard. The move to mobile isn’t a revolution in itself. There are exciting things happening in health tech, robotics and hardware that may have serious implications for the way we live.

Do you know the Italian startup scene? What do you think of it?

We did Pub Summits in several cities in Italy last year and we certainly have a lot of italians at the Web Summit. I guess I need to spend a little more time there to find out more.

What are the most interesting startup companies around at the moment, according to you?

I’m hoping to find out at the Web Summit

 

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