“WI invite everyone to share this dream with me. A dream in which our peoples and our territories are free and where we can talk about the future with these technologies that already exist, which are already being put into practice within our territory”, said Txai Suruí, alongside presenter Luciano Huck, in a room with more than six thousand people who filled the inaugural session of the Web Summit Rio.
The aim, he said, is “to postpone this end of the world and to secure that heaven”.
In a ceremony attended by the founder of the Web Summit, Paddy Cosgrave, the co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement, Ayo Tometi, the CEO of Nubank (Latin America’s largest digital bank), David Velez, it was the Brazilian indigenous activist who stole the stage .
“What is the importance of talking about the Amazon in an event as big as this one that talks about technology?”, questioned the activist, immediately replying: “Today we are experiencing the greatest crisis that humanity has ever experienced which is the climate crisis and we indigenous peoples are the front line in this battle that the world is living”.
“We are the guardians of the forest, we are 5% of the world’s population and we protect 80% of all biodiversity”, he said, adding that, by adding ancestral knowledge and technology, the mission to protect forests and the climate is fundamental so that one can have “a future”.
After ten successful ‘startups’ were presented on stage, six of them founded by women, it was the turn of the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Paes, to question the audience of investors: “Have you ever imagined taking a dip in the sea at your feet? of Christ the Redeemer before starting your daily work?”.
“We fought hard to win this event”, he stressed.
Then it was the turn of the co-founder of the Black Lives Mater movement to leave a warning to the audience, stating that in this era of capitalism one can “be on the right side of history or on the wrong side of history”.
Portugal will be represented by 25 ‘startups’, linked to areas such as ‘software’, education or artificial intelligence.
BlockBee, Blue Insight Technologies, Deeploy.me, Dizconto, Enline, Frontfiles, Go Beesiness, Hoopers, IDE Social Hub, Infinite Foundry, ITERCARE, Knok Healthcare, LEADZAI, Mentorise, Modatta and Move, as well as My Data Manager, MyCareforce, ndBIM, Neroes, Sensei, SheerME, Swood, Vawlt Technologies and Wallstreeters are the Portuguese representatives, who, on the first day, intend to meet with the local ‘stakeholders’ (interested parties), with several sessions scheduled on legal, tax and business opportunities.
Co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement, Ay? Tometi, the president of Banco do Brasil, Tarciana Medeiros, top managers of Brazilian banks and companies, the executive president of the Onlyfans platform, Amrapali Gan, and the Prime Minister of Cape Verde, José Ulisses Correia e Silva, will join the more than 300 speakers, about 900 ‘startups’, investors and journalists, from more than 100 countries, in a summit in which topics such as technology, society, artificial intelligence, climate change, among others, will be discussed.
Among the various speakers are the Secretary of State for Internationalization, Bernardo Ivo Cruz, several Brazilian actors and presenters, the Minister of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, Sonia Guajajara, the former player of the Portuguese national football team Deco and the Portuguese presenter Cristina Ferreira .
The technological event, which was born in 2010 in Ireland, started to be held in the Parque das Nações area, in Lisbon, in 2016, and will remain in the Portuguese capital until 2028. The company recently announced its expansion to the Middle East , with the Web Summit Qatar scheduled for early 2024.
Also Read: Portugal was the inspiration to make Rio the “innovation capital”
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