Conferences are a simple and pleasant way to learn about the latest market innovations, colleagues' developments, foreign practices. A reliable source of information on how the industry lives and what it discusses. These events are a good entry point into a professional environment. The opportunity to look around, gain knowledge, make useful contacts, talk about your best practices, get out of your comfort zone, upgrade your skills, develop, earn practical experience and just get fun (at some conferences like Pirate Summit, this is perhaps even the most important thing).
We are talking about those relevant conferences that impressed us the most!
Web Summit (December 2-4, Lisbon)
One of the most important events in the world of technology. A conference attended by top CEOs and the most important experts from their industry. Stephen Hawking, Al Gore, Elon Musk took part in the Web Summit. There are some of the largest Fortune 500 companies here, as well as start-up startups. The conference has been held annually since 2009, and has recently attracted 70+ thousand visitors. This year, of course, will go online.
Event page: https://websummit.com/
B2B ROCKS (September 12, Paris)
Best Small (Good for Dating) Conference in Europe for B2B and SaaS Startups. 100% without "unnecessary tinsel", with exclusive speakers, mostly top European startups, who speak no longer than 25 minutes. This arrangement allows for intense, rich lectures full of practical advice and lively discussion. The conference has set a limit of 500 startup founders, which allows for stronger, more trusting and long-term useful relationships in the B2B and SaaS spheres.
Event page: https://b2brocks.co/paris/
EU-Startups Summit ( April 29-30 , Barcelona )
This conference brings together more than 1,500 company founders, start-up enthusiasts, corporate leaders, business angels, venture capitalists and media personalities from all over Europe annually. This two-day event is a great opportunity to get the right contacts and start building a cool international company. About 70 speakers will tell about the latest successful technologies, and 15 best startups will be able to present their business ideas in 3 minutes and receive a € 85,000 prize for development. You need to register for such a competition in advance, 3-4 months before the conference.
Event page: https://www.eu-startups.com/eu-startups-summit-2020/
Webit Festival Europe ( June 17-20 , Valencia )
Conference on web technologies, artificial intelligence, interfaces, social networks, B2B, B2G, Blockchain, VR / AR, robots, biotech. Large and well-known event: over 15 thousand participants, 1500 selected startups, 450 speakers. There are 15 parallel summits on different topics here, and you can also participate in more than 200 additional events. The participation is attended by the most progressive companies from 200 countries, Also takes place in Sofia, where you can meet more companies from Eastern and Central Europe.
Event page: https://www.webit.org/festival-europe/summits.php
Startup Village ( May 21-22, Moscow)
Startup Village 2020 is the eighth annual international startup conference for tech entrepreneurs. Here startups can meet business angels and the best investors, learn from the experience of successful entrepreneurs. Here you can also show your projects at the competition and at the innovation bazaar in order to receive funding.
The Startup Village is also attended by the leaders of large technology corporations, representatives of government and development institutions. This is a good place for the new generation of Russian entrepreneurs who want to take it to the next level. In 2020, due to the online format, it gathered a record number of viewers: more than 1.7 million.
Event page: https://startupvillage.ru/
RIT ++ (May 25 - June 1, Moscow)
One of the largest Russian Internet technology festivals. Started back in 2006. It hosts 30+ reports and master classes for:
- sysadmins;
- programmers;
- front-end developers.
- QA and DevOps engineers;
- leaders.
Here you can share knowledge or learn new information about the frontend, big data, venture capital investments, the latest trends and technologies, GitOps, DBMS and so on. In recent years, RIT ++ has turned from a conference into a festival, within the framework of which several parallel events on various topics are held. The number of participants is about 2 thousand. You can read more about them (and their stories) here .
Event page: https://ritfest.ru/2020/
Startup Grind Europe ( June 6 , London )
More than 3,000 startups, investors and innovators gather in London annually to discuss the future of startups, venture capital, artificial intelligence, fintech and more. A full day of active networking. Also, Startup Grind is taking place in Tbilisi - in 2020 it will be September 8-9.
Event page: https://www.startupgrind.com/europe/
Pirate Summit ( June 24-26 , Cologne )
The craziest conference ever. For early stage startups. It has been held since 2011. A celebration of true business spirit and startup culture. The event is not very big, but quite funny, and with its own atmosphere. If ordinary conferences seem boring to you, the Pirate Summit, with its Burning Man culture, might be something else. For example, check the photo of the previous conference from their instagram .
Event page: https://piratesummit.com/
IT Arena (October 2-4, Lviv)
Productive business meetings and the spirit of the festival. For three active days here you can come up with new solutions and be inspired by fresh ideas. More than 6 thousand participants (although in 2020, of course, it will be online, and the audience will become many times larger). More than 50 speakers, 50 presented startups, 75+ hours of interesting content.
Event page: https://itarena.ua/
Bits & Pretzels (September 29 - October 1, Munich)
A three-day conference for founders and startup enthusiasts, taking place in Munich during the Oktoberfest (in 2020, by the way, the conference will be virtual, but it will last 5 days, from September 28 to October 2, a whole working week). Big and solid.
The Bits & Pretzels conference brings together more than 5,000 startup founders, investors, aspiring IT entrepreneurs and other enthusiasts from around the world. They meet to find new ideas, friends and partners, and in parallel they learn and get inspired. Speakers include the founders of Virgin, Airbnb, Tinder, Slack, Zendesk, Shazam, Evernote, Lottoland. There was even Barack Obama.
Event page: https://www.bitsandpretzels.com/
South Summit (October 6-8, Madrid)
Now is the time of political, social, technological and financial instability. And, at the same time, this is a time of opportunity. Many of which will probably never be more. South Summit is a platform that brings together the best innovators from Europe and Latin America with the most established investors and corporations to give startup founders the opportunity to gain new knowledge and prove themselves.
One of the features of the conference is that you can register and join the startup competition. Create a pitch for the thousands + investors who come to the South Summit. The finalists of the competition received funding for more than € 3.5 billion, including such startups as Glovo, Wallbox, Cabify, Drivy, Spotahome, Fintonic. To take part in the startup competition, you need to register up to a certain date here...
Part of the South Summit is being held online, but offline is also very cool, we at Rubrain (like Smartbrain.io) were here. A very picturesque place, around - gorgeous architecture. The weather at this time in Spain is also what you need, warm. If you want to relax and have a good time, especially if the scope of your startup is partly aimed at Spanish-speaking countries, we warmly recommend. In this case, you will have to pay € 700 to participate, but networking opportunities are more than worth it.
Event page: https://www.southsummit.co/
TechCrunch Disrupt (14-18 September , San - Francisco )
TechCrunch probably needs no introduction - it's one of the premier startup resources in the world. Zuckerberg, Musk, Kalanick, Benioff, Dorsey, Mayer performed here. Many startups here received funding and media support long before they became famous. Disrupt is one of the most important events in the ecosystem, with a lot of VIPs following it. There is also a virtual hackathon, hundreds of startups make their presentations, the Startup Battlefield competition is taking place, and much more. TechCrunch Disrupt is also held in Europe in Berlin in November.
Events page: https://techcrunch.com/events/
Highload ++ (November 9-10, Moscow)
The largest professional conference for developers of high-load systems. Participants - more than 3000 people from different regions of Russia and the world. Sharing knowledge about technologies that allow serving thousands and millions of users simultaneously. More than 150 reports on topics: architecture of large projects, storage systems, administration systems, BigData, Internet of Things, blockchain, databases, load testing, enterprise systems and their performance, management of large projects, neural networks and much more.
Event page: https://www.highload.ru/
And the most complete list of all events in the field of startups and technologies can be viewed here in this google table. More than 400 events, with themes and dates!