Last week one of the biggest tech gatherings of the world took place in Lisbon. Web Summit 2016 was special in many ways. A record breaking 53.000 people attended the event, 900 thought leaders spoke about the future of tech and more than 1500 startups participated. It was also the year after the announcement to ‘commit to change’ the number of women participating in the Web Summit.
As a part of a larger initiative the Web Summit decided to give away 10.000 complimentary tickets to women to participate in all its events in the tech industry across the world. StartupJuncture spoke about this initiative with a number of Dutch female founders that attended the event. We inquired if the participation of women in tech is still an issue in the Netherlands and what we can do about it to make it better. We also spoke to Elonar MeGrath of the Web Summit about their plans for 2017 and the deputy Dutch ambassador for Lisbon Christianne Bleijenbergh-Schneiders about government initiatives.
Read the interviews of Cecile van der Waal (co-founder Printr), Felice van der Sandt (co-founder Rose + Nine), Joni Smeenk (founder vatfree.com) and more here.