Around 100 attendees turned up to our second Landing.jobs event of the year last Thursday, this time in our hometown of Lisbon. The wonderful people at Beta-i were kind enough to host us and our participants.
Landing.jobs co-founder Pedro Oliveira led the panel and was joined by special guests Peter Tilsen, Uniplaces CTO; Seedcamp’s Head of Talent, Jamahl McMurran; and Faction Skis and Runway East CEO, Alex Hoye.
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Following a major social media campaign led by the Lisbon tech community to bring Web Summit to Portugal’s capital, Paddy Cosgrave finally announced last September that the Irish event would indeed be moving to Lisbon in 2016, 2017 and 2018.
One of the biggest and most influential events for entrepreneurship, technology and innovation in the world chose Lisbon as its residency for three straight years, and there’s naturally been a lot of talk amongst the Portuguese tech community about the huge opportunities that can and will certainly follow.
Excited to announce #WebSummit is moving to Lisbon in 2016 http://t.co/njyaONRH03
— Paddy Cosgrave (@paddycosgrave) September 23, 2015
London is known as Europe’s tech hub, even with the hanging threat of Brexit and steep living costs; and Berlin is hungrily pursuing the same title. Yet Web Summit chose Lisbon. It makes us wonder: Will Lisbon become Europe’s tech capital?
Even Mike Butcher of TechCrunch teased the idea, acknowledging that “Lisbon is emerging as a genuinely new tech ecosystem in Europe, with Berlin-levels of cheapness but with Southern European weather.”
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Our panel started off by discussing who really is Europe’s tech capital. Is it London? Is it Berlin? Seedcamp’s Jamahl McMurran pointed out that London has absolutely everything you need to develop your business, especially financial means. Uniplaces’ Peter Tilsen from Germany disagreed and immediately pointed to Berlin.
"In order to become a top tech capital, Lisbon needs to be a top startup capital." @JHM_UK pic.twitter.com/c0CvU5N12q
— Landing.Jobs (@Landing_jobs) February 25, 2016
Our three guests mutually agreed that Lisbon still has a long way to go to become Europe’s top tech capital.
"If Portugal is a great place to be, the money will come." @alexhoye
— Landing.Jobs (@Landing_jobs) February 25, 2016
To give it a first push, Alex Hoye suggested that if a tech giant, like Facebook for example, should bring 3000 developers to the Portuguese city, it would help to start legitimizing it. The good news is that word is spreading about Landing.jobs’ hometown:
"Portugal is being heard globally. I hear about it everywhere I go." @JHM_UK from @seedcamp
— Landing.Jobs (@Landing_jobs) February 25, 2016
One emerging trend discussed was the growing amount of companies, especially London-based companies like Sky, that are choosing to nearshore their tech teams to other European cities — just as big Portuguese startup-turned-booming-businesses Farfetch and Talkdesk choose to leave their tech teams in Portugal.
Alex Hoye suggested the mashup term Lisdon: “In one place there’s money and you need to be there commercially; in the other, you have talent and sunshine.”
Great panel with @PeterTilsen @alexhoye @JHM_UK ! Thanks @beta__i & @Landing_jobs ! pic.twitter.com/alQ552m6sr
— Gonçalo Cruz, Politólogo do Povo™️ (@GoncaloPCruz) February 25, 2016
As for Pedro, he too added that the biggest leap would be to have tech giants build campuses in Lisbon. “We need a Google Campus in Lisbon.”
All in all, it was an evening to reflect what can be done here to turn Lisbon into more than it is now — if not a tech capital, a hell of a respectable city to work in tech.
🇬🇧 LONDON EVENT
🇩🇪 BERLIN EVENT
🇮🇹 ROME EVENT
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