Dublin Tech Summit Day 1: Blockchain and more

Official Release | Dublin, Ireland – Dublin Tech Summit opened the doors of The CCD to attendees from across the globe yesterday (Wednesday, 15 February). The first-year event has placed an emphasis on topics that are due to affect industries across the board with entire stages dedicated to FinTech, IoT and Big Data respectively.

DTS CEO, Noelle O’Reilly, said “We emphasised AR, Big Data and IoT as we feel that these developments have all shown significant potential to increase business productivity, but also lead to workforce restructuring, reallocation of power in the boardroom and increased dependence on external partners. These topics don’t just impact the tech industry. Soon all areas will be impacted by developments in the sector.”

With the discussion on how blockchain will disrupt the financial status quo becoming a pressing concern in boardrooms across the world, the fintech stage will today provide sessions attempting to shed some light on the topic. Highlights include a session on “How Bank & Tech Partnerships Are Shaping the Future of Blockchain” featuring industry experts such as Eddy Travia, CEO, Coinsilium, Bruce Pon, Founder & CEO, BigchainDB, Damian Richardson, Head of Innovation and Strategic Initiatives, RBS and Kaida Ruusalepp, Founder & CEO, Funderbeam who will debate where the technology goes from here.

One of the highlights of the programme was when featured keynote Gary Vaynerchuk took to the stage. CEO, Noelle O’Reilly walked out onto the Prism stage at 3pm to introduce “one of the people who inspired us to start this (DTS)”. Upon his appearance, the 2,000 attendees lucky enough to secure a seat in the main auditorium cheered in awe. For the diehard fans, the angel investor and serial-entrepreneur certainly delivered a thrilling rollercoaster of authenticity, honesty and motivational business – and life – advice. Sp eaking on The Thank You Economy, he stressed those who out-care and out-perform see better returns, “ I have a chip on my shoulder. And I love it.”

Following Gary’s Thank You Economy talk, he was joined by a panel of fellow communication leaders, including: Ross Kingsland (founder & CEO @Inception Business Solutions), Bruce Daisley (EMEA VP @Twitter) and Kieran Flanagan (VP of Marketing @HubSpot). The four exchanged conversation over the evolution of marketing tools and

techniques, and the importance of different platforms. Kieran Flanagan argued that “a lot of businesses don’t do really well on one or two platforms. They stretch too thin over all the platforms and don’t do everything great. “People try to do too much and get disheartened,” Kieran continued.

Another highlight of the day was Pixar Veteran Matthew Luhn speaking on The Art of Storytelling. Luhn asserted, ” Whoever tells the best story can make an audience feel personally connected to them and ultimately, the brand.” He spoke on his experience creating some of the most notable animated films of our time, “ Pixar turned the Creative process on its head by giving the power of creative decisions to the story team instead of executives.”

Luhn went on to join Jimmy Chamberlin , Co-Founder & Drummer of The Smashing Pumpkins and CEO of Blue Strategies in a discussion about Tech Development in the Arts moderated by Donal Scannell, Founder & CEO of Snow Furnace. Chamberlin made the assertion that ” the job of the artist is to make people feel something, identify what we can monopolise about ourselves and use that as our strength.” Luhn elaborated, “ staying in present ti me allows an artist to become the puppet master for the future.”

The event will also provide opportunity for investors to explore promising startups, with the DTS StartUp100 Programme taking place, culminating in a Live Pitch Final in this afternoon (Thursday) on the main stage, Prism. Rather than coordinate a mass initiative with hundreds of StartUps, DTS has curated a selection of carefully chosen companies that are diverse in function and industry but all share the characteristic of being scalable. The Programme format, featuring a comparatively smaller number of firms than most conferences, offers StartUps a better opportunity to showcase what their companies have to offer and also provides investors with a more effective manner of exploring opportunities.

DTS continues today with keynotes from trailblazers such as Cindy Gallop, CEO of MakeLoveNotSex, Bruce Daisley, Director EMEA at Twitter, Till Faida of AdblockPlus and Chris Hyams, President of Indeed.

For more, Visit DTS’ official Website: DublinTechSummit.com