Innovation seeks to attract new markets at Web Summit

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It is perhaps an understatement to say that expectations were high to see well-known faces at the Web Summit in Lisbon, such as actress Amy Poehler and former football star Thierry Henry. The event is sold out and over 42,000 people came to see what's new in the digital universe and in the galaxy of start-ups.

Nuno Prudêncio, Euronews:

"Although we're no longer used to be surrounded by thousands of people in the same place, the truth is there's a palpable enthusiasm in the air and a multiplicity of original ideas. And all this when, for the first time, more than 50% of the attendees are women" [50,5%].

_Alazza Alhooti, Nuzha _

"Nuhza is a tourism company based in Muscat, Oman. So we organise different experiences and adventures for ladies like kayak, hiking, cycling, whatever... workshops, farming."

_Elsa Valentine, Innate Mood _

"Innate Mood is a neuroscience pack, self-reflection app that helps us build emotional intelligence by prompted video journaling. So, for example, if you're feeling really flat and unmotivated in relation to a work, you make a video entry in relation to this and then the app will show you an entry that you recorded previously while experiencing the opposite."

Vítor Oliveira, CRE-MAR

"Our project is CRE-MAR. We are the first platform directed towards the hiring of direct cremation services. We give people the opportunity to transform funeral ashes into memorial diamonds."

Projects that are welcomed in a city that has as its new mayor a former European Commissioner for Innovation who came to present the idea of creating in Lisbon a "Unicorn Factory", the startups worth many many millions.

Carlos Moedas, Mayor of Lisbon and former European Commissioner for Innovation:

"If we don't turn an idea into a product we don't build employment, we don't create jobs. That is what is important: we can have people with great ideas, who can present inventions. But inventions are not innovations. Innovation is something that is new and useful."

Also useful are the debates around cryptocurrencies and whistleblowers, two of the main highlights of this event