During the Collision 2021 event, Paddy Cosgrave said that the online platform has been in production for 10 years and that the pandemic has finally made it possible to convince companies and partners that it was possible to create a global event online.
#Collision 2021: Paddy Cosgrave reveals the success of its online platform
Collision 2021 started this Tuesday and will continue until Thursday, the 22nd, who is considered the “twin brother” of the Web Summit, due to its organization under the responsibility of Paddy Cosgrave’s team. 38,039 participants are expected to attend the digital conference in Toronto, originating in 141 countries, in what was the event’s biggest adherence, in its third edition. Among them CEOs, founders of companies and startups, of which around one hundred are Portuguese , who are participating in the scope of the Road 2 Web Summit program, the program developed in partnership with Startup Portugal.
The event will receive 621 speakers and 113 partners who will use the platform to connect with everyone around the world. Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom are said to be among those that most participated.
In an intervention at the event, Paddy Cosgrave said that this online platform has been under development for 10 years, and has “been fighting a struggle” with organizations and journalists to convince them that streaming events via software were very valid. Thanks to COVID-19 and the change in mentality, focused on digital, improvements have been made in the last year on the platform to expand the software to host events on a global scale, such as Web Summit 2020 and now Collision in 2021.
Paddy Cosgrave points out that events can be held in a hybrid format in the future. The software created continues to receive improvements, and is familiar to those who have used it previously. He now says that he will open the platform for licensing to third parties who are interested in holding events, having already done one with the United Nations in March, which he says has gone very well.
“The software we created allows you to create optimizations to connect people”. The 2021 Web Summit (which expects to return to normal in November, with all the rules that the Portuguese authorities impose) could be an example of how to use the platform in advance to connect people, before the face-to-face events take place. Paddy Cosgrave explained how the platform can be used to support the event. It gives an example of the growth of audience in Africa, with many interested in watching not being able to be physically present, so the digital will complement. In the same way that developing countries cannot pay for travel and accommodation to participate physically, “especially for young startups”. The platform will allow, even from a distance,
It foresees that the online platform opens in advance to events, in the case of the Web Summit 2021 in September, so that people start to carry out their networking (mingle). He confesses, however, that although online is a good alternative, nothing beats face-to-face events, “in real life”, as they are richer and more interactive than the internet. “I can’t wait to get back to the face-to-face events.”
