Coins throws challenge: “Can I improve someone’s life?”

O president of the House of Lisbon today considered, at the opening of the Web Summit, that “the difference and diversity are the mothers of innovation”, challenging participants to “improve the life” of someone with their projects.

“ Long before we connected through our screens, this city already connected people through the oceans. Phoenician traders arrived 3,000 years ago and brought goods, languages and ideas. Over the centuries, in this beautiful city, Jews, Christians and Muslims helped shape the city.”, said Carlos Coins.

The social-democratic mayor, in his speech before declaring the Web Summit open, which runs until Thursday in Parque nas Nações, assured each participant that “it doesn’t matter” who it is, where it comes from or what he believes, because it has the “your place” in the city and “it’s part of Lisbon”.

For Coins, the person sitting next to each other, “who probably speaks another language, has another religion and sees the world in a totally different way”, also “can have the answer to the problem that has been investigating for years”, because “the difference and diversity are the mothers of innovation”.

“ In the next few days, when talking about artificial intelligence, robots, investments and the next great idea, have a question in mind: Can I improve someone's life? Can I do something better for someone’s life and well-being?”, called for the former European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation.

The Lisbon mayor, noting that “innovation has to do with difference, courage and suffering”, shared the story of the law student who, after a family member suffered from cancer, decided to study biochemistry, and with a teacher “started working on this crazy idea” of curing the disease “without destroying healthy cells”.

After discovering that “cancer cells had different receptors” and that it was possible to end them, they sold the global biotechnological immunotherapy company in a multimillion dollar business.

But according to Carlos Coins, the story “reveals something much more important”, about two people of “different disciplines”, with “different issues, but a common ambition” and “innovation needs this”.

He therefore advised the participants to look for someone at the summit who can visualize what they cannot see and transform “science into something that people can use, because innovation means something new and useful”.

“The goal is to take this science from the university to a company, from the company to the world and thus open the way for a better life,” he pointed out.

The president of the municipality assured that in Lisbon “diversity is welcome” and the discoveries become “in possibilities”, urging each participant to bring the “their differences”, the “their ideas” and a problem that can’t “get away”, to a city “of innovation” and “open to the world”.

The Web Summit expects to receive about 70,000 participants in Lisbon between today and Thursday, counting 900 speakers and over 2,000 ‘startups’.

At the summit 78 companies participate, with emphasis on the artificial intelligence (IA) and health technology sectors, according to Startup Portugal.

Brazil brings a contingent of over 200 companies in a delegation led by the Brazilian Agency for the Promotion of Exports and Investments (ApexBrasil).

In particular, there will be the humanoid robots, who promise to speak at the summit, and the future of the software companies as a service (SaaS), who have had a year of trouble with the threats of AI to their business model.

The opening session was attended by Deputy Minister and State Reform, Gonçalo Matias, and Executive President (CEO) of Web Summit, Paddy Cosgrave.

The event takes place since 2016 in Lisbon, this being its tenth edition, and should continue until 2028.