The eleventh edition of the Web Summit brought great speakers and necessary discussions for the future of technological innovations. It was a step back to an overall look at how great we are dealing with our latest creations. Would data protection stop innovation? Are we using technology in the right way? How will tech change the world in a few decades?
Although the discussions during the Web Summit were not limited to these topics, 3 subjects were present in almost all of the panels and discussed in depth in the four days of the event. It welcomed over 70,000 attendees from 163 countries in Lisbon, Portugal. This is a wrap up of the Web Summit 2019, the biggest tech conference in the world, for all of you who could unfortunately not attend:
The present and the future of data protection
Even though the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was implemented in 2018, the biggest discussion about the topic took place this year at Web Summit. For the speakers it was a consensus: the GDPR has been mainly important for public awareness. People are taking more care of their personal information, but it is yet just the beginning.
For the CEO of Wikipedia Katherine Maher, it’s important that in Europe “we have now the rights to know and request what we want from our data” – something that wasn’t happening before, referencing the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2016.
Besides, GDPR has become the role model legislation for data protection in the world. With new laws coming soon in parts of the US and Latin America, all of them are taking the learnings from GDPR to make a better version of it. However, for Britanny Kaiser, the whistleblower of Cambridge Analytica, the fine applied to companies that don’t follow the new law has not been enough. “That’s criminal and the people who are responsible for it should go to the jail”.
At ODOSCOPE, data protection comes first. Our situationalization platform is 100% GPDR compliant. 
The world in preparation for 5G
It’s not something new to anyone anymore: the new generation of mobile internet is already being tested in several countries and will be arriving in 2020. As a prediction from Microsoft’s President Brad Smith, AI will transform the world as much as the internet has done until now.
Next year the world will have produced 25x more data than we had in 2010. As data is the main fuel for AI, in no more than 3 decades we will live in a completely new world of real-time data and real-time machines. Also, part of our futuristic imagination is not far from reality anymore. Uber and Amazon will be using drone delivery in just a few months and self-driving cars will finally be seen on the streets.
If you are into the topic, check it out the 10 data & analytics trends that will change your business very soon.
First-party data as the future for companies
With the world getting ready for 5G, not only data is important. Your own raw data is becoming even more important. The first-party data creates unique opportunities to scale your company and it has become more important than ever.
It is simply not possible to stay ahead of your competitors having the same data like them. That’s why, according to Fernando Machado, the CMO of Burger King, big companies are buying startups for personalization. “You have to start monitoring your results and reworking them in real-time”. For Machado, companies will have to adapt the way they run for a mix of “Silicon Valley” with traditional companies. It will no longer be possible to scale companies without being connected to personalization technologies.
My Web Summit conclusion: It was a great experience to hear about tech trends from some of the biggest companies in the world. We are delighted to affirm that ODOSCOPE is on the right side of tech supporting GDPR and data protection as well as personalizing the experience for our customers. We are looking forward to experiencing the positive impact of the new tech era that will be arriving at our everyday life very soon.
