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Web Summit

Tech leaders gather for start of Dublin Web Summit

A total of 10,000 people will be in attendance with venture capitalists looking to invest.

A TOTAL OF 10,000 people and billions of euro worth of investment funds will be on the floor of the RDS from today as the fourth Dublin Web Summit gets underway.

Over the next two days of the Web Summit, 950 start-ups from Ireland and Europe will have the opportunity to meet with over 300 investment groups in what has become Europe’s largest tech conference.

The summit will begin in earnest today when the NASDAQ stock exchange is opened for the first time on Irish soil with Taoiseach Enda Kenny set to ring the opening bell at 1.30pm.

Keynote addresses on six stages at the Web Summit will come from some of the world’s leading innovators including; Aaron Levie, Co-founder and CEO Box; Tony Fadell, CEO of Nest and Jay Bregman, founder & CEO of Hailo.

One-third of the 10,000 people in attendance at the summit are entrepreneurs seeking help to advance their ideas and summit founder and CEO Paddy Cosgrave says there are significant opportunities for them:

Over the next two days, investors from Google Ventures, KPCB, Accel, Atomico, Andreessen Horowitz and Greylock will meet with Irish and international start-ups. We’ve given start-ups the best possible platform, these funds manage billions of dollars and they’re all looking to invest.

Music and food summit

This year a music and arts festival will take place along the main summit with 30 music acts performing at the ‘Night Summit’ in venues across Dublin. Cosgrave also says that this year they are also using the summit as an opportunity to showcase some of Ireland’s other industries:

What is very exciting this year is how we have expanded the Web Summit to provide a platform for Ireland’s food producers to showcase their produce to an international audience with the ‘Food Summit’.

It is estimated that over the course of the Web Summit 15,000 hotel bed nights will be sold in the city.

The summit can be watched live on stream hosted on Livestream.

Read: Taoiseach to take part in “fireside discussion” with PayPal founder >

Column: Why are so few computer science graduates getting jobs?

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