By Sally Warburton
The Web Summit Tech Conference was held in Rio de Janeiro for the 2nd time. It took place at the impressive RioCentro located in Barra da Tijuca, Rio de Janeiro from April 27-30, 2025. The venue is located close to the Olympic stadium. What is the Web Summit? The Web Summit is ‘where the tech world meets’. Created by CEO and Founder Paddy Cosgrave from Ireland in 2009. The Web Summit franchise has grown! It’s in Lisbon, Portugal, (Collision was in Toronto), Doha, Qatar, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and, for the first time in 2025, Vancouver.
What happens at the Web Summit? Connections are created. Deals are made. Pitches are won. Startups promote their businesses at booths. Learning takes place. Lots of learning – from speakers, panel discussions, Meetups, Startup booths, connecting with others. Stages are set up throughout the venue. There were 5 main Pavillions at RioCentro. 2 stages in each of Pavillions 2, 3 and 4, plus Centre Stage and an area for large meetings of people. Themes of the presentations on the stages. Topics included Fintech, Health tech, Sports & health, Cybersecurity, AI, Apps, language learning plus much more. There was an exciting and motivating schedule of presentations on stage, guest speakers and other presentations on larger companies’ booths.
Full schedule for the 3 days – Monday to Wednesday. Sunday evening the Opening Ceremonies took place at the Centre Stage Amphitheatre with Astronaut, Founder & CEO of Deep Space Initiative, Sara Sabry, Head of Globo TV at GLOBO, Amauri Soares, President of SENAC. Antonio Queiroz, Mayor of RIO. Eduardo da Costa Paes, Minister of Science, Technology & Innovation, Luciano Santos. And of course, Paddy Cosgrave CEO and Founder of The Web Summit.
To meet other like-minded attendees there were MeetUp groups…with themes such as Canadian attendees at Web Summit, Chile at Web Summit, other countries, Women in Tech, Social Media Influencers, Neurodiverse & ADHD, Mindfulness & Wellbeing, Cybersecurity to name a few.
In the pavilions were Investors Lounge, Networking areas, Community Space, Speakers’ Lounge, Pitch stages, Women in Tech area, Mentors Hours, Master Class sessions, Roundtable discussions. Startup booths set up in each of the pavilions were based on apps related to health, fitness, finance, travel, language acquisition, and many others. There were lots of helpful volunteers getting experience at this huge international tech event.
There’s also Night Summit which takes the energy and excitement of the days into 3 of Rio’s most vibrant night spots – Barra da Tijuca, Leblon and Botafogo – great opportunity to network more with other attendees and to discover parts of Rio.
The Pitch Finals were narrowed down to 3 startups – Elephan.ai, DigAI and BioLinker. The PITCH WINNER was BioLinker! https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/biolinker
BioLinker is a bioengineering company focused on protein production using fermentation bioprocesses and cell-free protein expression. Location: São Paulo, Brazil
Food Summit – Attendees get hungry! There were lots of different foods offered for purchase at the many food trucks set up. There were comfortable areas to sit outside in nature among tall palm trees and gardens.
LiveVoice in the Web Summit mobile app for translations. Many of the talks were in Brazilian Portuguese. Some
in English. So the translation app amazing.
Rio de Janeiro Tech Week AI Founders and Funders Power Walk (Free Walk) at the start and end of the Web Summit. Perfect way to really connect with other entrepreneurs with Startups, attendees and others. Lots of networking took place while getting exercise and discovering the new city, Rio de Janeiro. Staaake members were instrumental in organizing these amazing opening and closing power walks in scenic Rio. https://lu.ma/staaake
Startups were from Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Chile & other South American countries, some European and some Canadian and American. One Startup from Canada interviewed was www.researchbunny.comTarum, Meagan and joined by Razeen explained enthusiastically how to listen to research papers in different languages. ‘Dive into the world of research and academic papers with Research Bunny, the app designed to make scholarly content more accessible. Bridging the gap between scholars and seekers – unlocking Academic Research for Everyone!’ very interesting!
Overall, the Web Summit Rio was an exciting tech event. Held in the beautiful city of Rio – in one of the biggest cities in Brazil. The city has so much to offer with its warm hospitality, kind and friendly people and warm, sunny weather. It was a wonderful experience. Well-organized, very good topics, great guest speakers, lots of networking. Experience The Web Summit Rio… or The Web Summit at one of its other locations. It’s a wonderful tech conference experience!
BKonthescene 