I attended the Web Summit in Dublin In November to exhibit a startup found by a colleague of mine. He has built a snap-on technology that allows the instant integration of security into a mobile application and its backend, easily. Ok, it’s not a sales pitch…unless you or your organizations have anything to do with the sector that think about going mobile and care about information security.

Up until this event, I was somewhat ambivalence toward technology, love it or hate it that sort of attitude. Technology and gadgets are nice to have, but there is no need to make a big fuss about, especially become slaves to it.

I work in IT and have no shortage of technical geeks around me. I met the geekiest of them who not only tinkers with codes but also creates new products just for the sake building. The next thing I knew, I got involved deep to my neck with more IT than I cared to know including the painfully complicated and abstract concept of Internet security. I had to re-educate myself on technology and slowly got back into the tech game.

One day my geeky colleague and I discussed how to get our work to Silicon Valley. He thought that being in the valley would help spread the news about his products and bring it faster to the market. His ideas and products would be more received in an innovative environment in California, compared to Czech Republic and Central Europe. I thought about organizing events and invited Americans to Europe. After all, who wouldn’t want to travel to this West-East city, dubbed Paris of Eastern Europe. The Americans especially somehow have a mysterious pull to this part of Europe. I did a bit of research, and what did I find? Someone had thought about it and had beaten me to it four years ago.
And that was how we discovered the Web Summit, a startup, and tech even in Dublin.

The Web Summit is probably one of the best tech conferences and the best startup event in the world. The event showcases thousands of startups from all over the world. The sheer magnitude of ideas, gadgets and technology that people like you and I came up with blew my mind. I got dizzy just by looking at the exhibition area. I realized that up until then, I had seen nothing. Whatever I thought I’d known was just a tiny drop of this vast unlimited human power.

And remember the simple words from Socrates, “…for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.”

I got fed up with technology because I didn’t see the process of innovation compound by the fact that today “innovation” becomes the new buzzword. Every organization would like to call itself an innovative organization, but in reality office politics and bureaucracy get the better part of it. For this reason, I got a little bit cynical and weary of all the hype.

I am a sucker for novelty and inspiration. Being at this event gave me the kind of inspiration that reinforce in the impossible, shed off my cynicism and believe again in good things.

But interestingly enough, it’s not about technology and cold hard facts often associate with technology and technical people. Web Summit pride in its ability to “monetize human emotions.”

We forget that technology is created by people with emotions and feelings.

Which interestingly coincided with what I would spend another week doing in Dublin.

…. Stay tuned until the next post because what happened in Dublin must not stay in Dublin…