by Martina Fuchs
RIO DE JANEIRO, April 21 (Xinhua) -- The chief events officer of Web Summit, one of the largest technology conferences in the world, said he was "thrilled" about the participation of Chinese companies and partners at this year's gathering in Brazil.
"We're having great and very positive conversations with Chinese partners. I'm thrilled to have the Chinese partners with us, they're fantastic," Craig Becker told Xinhua during the second Web Summit Rio, which gathered over 34,000 attendees from across the globe.
"We're so delighted that we've got Huawei here on the floor. BYD and TikTok are also speaking on stage. Part of the reason for making the floor bigger here in Rio is the demand for partnerships," Becker said.
The four-day event, which opened on April 15, has welcomed a record 45 percent of women-founded startups within its startup program in Rio de Janeiro, marking the highest proportion of women-founded startups at any Web Summit event in its global roster.
A total of 1,066 startups from 42 countries also exhibited at Web Summit Rio, representing 31 industries. Meanwhile, 175 partners, including Salesforce, Huawei, Grindr, IBM, SAP and Udemy, exhibited on the event floor.
Web Summit organizes five tech events across the globe: Web Summit in Lisbon, Portugal, Web Summit in Doha, Qatar, Web Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Collision in Toronto, Canada, and RISE in Hong Kong is its Asian edition.
While talking about RISE conference, "the largest tech gathering in Asia" produced by the team behind Web Summit, Becker said: "There are very interesting opportunities in discussions for RISE. We're really looking at how we can develop those. It's very exciting."
The last RISE conference was held in March 2019 in Hong Kong before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, when it attracted more than 16,000 attendees ranging from the world's leading founders, Fortune 500 CEOs, investors, media, and startups from over 100 countries.
Asked about Web Summit's expansion plans beyond Asia, the events officer said: "Outside Asia, nothing is planned at the moment, but we're always wonderfully engaged in the global communities. We're always talking to people and seeing what options there are."
"We're always reviewing the scale of our stages, the number of tracks and the tech topics that are currently hot. The tech world moves incredibly quickly. We need to be able to adapt, listen to new trends and we make sure that our communities are engaging with each other." ■
