Web Summit Rio hits full capacity

At the beginning of its first full day of events, Web Summit Rio officially reached full capacity with a total of 21,367 attendees from 91 countries.

This is the first edition of the globally renowned tech summit to be held outside of Europe, having been hosted in Dublin and Lisbon since its inception. Web Summit will hold a further five editions in Rio de Janeiro.

“To have such a strong international presence at a first-year event is something extraordinary,” said Paddy Cosgrove, Web Summit founder and CEO. “We cannot wait to see how we can grow over the next three years, and beyond.”

Web Summit Rio was already breaking records before it began, selling out four weeks prior. Initial estimates for attendees stood at 5,000 tech entrepreneurs and investors, but this was slowly increased until reaching 21,367.

A total of 974 startups are exhibiting at the four-day event, representing 28 industries. Beyond that, there are 400 speakers in total, including The Brazilian Report’s staff.

The event’s organizers revealed that 40 percent of attendees are women, 37 percent of speakers are women, and 209 exhibiting startups are women-founded. Web Summit Rio offered discounted tickets to women connected to the tech industry, which also sold out in record time.

Tuesday’s events got underway with a panel featuring Nym security consultant Chelsea Manning, who discussed “the next decade of the internet,” highlighting the connections between AI, encryption, and data privacy.

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