Use tech to create, build and help people and our planet (not to destroy, hurt and kill) - WebSummit 2022 Opening Night

We - Kirsten & Wilmar - are live at the WebSummit covering its highlights for you (and ourselves of course). Politico has said WebSummit is “the world’s premier tech conference”, the Atlantic: Web Summit is “where the future goes to be born” and the Guardian calls it the Glastonbury for Geeks. This is our fifth time here.

Today (Tuesday 1 November) is Opening Night with speakers such as social activist and widely shared Black Lives Matter movement photographer Misan Harriman, Ukraine’s First Lady Olena Zelenska and VP of Environmental Initiatives at Apple Lisa Jackson.

These are the three key things we picked up:

Act Big and Small

“Do big things when it comes to the environment with your company and the whole supply change, but also act when it comes to smaller things, in communities. Both are important to drive change in the world.”
We can change the world, one step at a time: “Purpose comes from empathy. “Empathy is the mother of hope.”
Apple’s VP Environmental Initiatives | Lisa P Jackson

Tech for good to create and help people

“Technology has brought us closer together, but technology can also be used for total destruction. Use modern day technology to save not harm people. I believe our big victories will come through many small victories.”
Ukraïne’s First Lady | Olena Zelenska

Surround yourself with people who don’t know it’s impossible, so we make possible, the impossible

In 2016 pilots Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg flew their first solar plane around the world. The plane was thought about by a boatmaker and not a plane engineer, because the plane engineer saw all the limitations of a plane on solar. The boat engineer didn’t, because he didn’t know of the limitations. This does not mean you shouldn’t hire experts, but you should also think beyond the rules of the games with people from outside the specific game.
Mayor of Lisbon | Carlos Moedas

Wilmar & Kirsten