The Conference

In a nutshell

SWITCH Conference is the #1 Entrepreneurial event in Portugal and one of the leading conferences for entrepreneurship and technology in Europe. Each year hundreds of delegates attend the event in person and thousands watch it on-line, sharing and discussing ideas about creativity, entrepreneurship, innovation and technology. SWITCH carefully curates special networking moments, helping to build long-lasting relationships of value for its participants. This year SWITCH takes place in beautiful Lisbon, European city of the year and one of must-visit destinations according to international press.

Mission

SWITCH mission is to annually gather in Portugal thought leaders, innovators and entrepreneurs to, together with an audience of hundreds, discuss and share ideas on four main themes (technology, entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation), while building long-lasting relationships of all sorts.

Themes

The unifying theme for the 2012 edition is: “Connecting the Dots”. This year we’re on the search for stories, companies and people that in a way or another are contributing to connect areas of knowledge, bringing people together and solving world problems through a bet on wiring the world and its elements. The event will have separate theme blocks focusing on different and specific areas, but expect to hear from renowned speakers and rising stars on: innovation (across the world), entrepreneurship (as a way to influence people lives), technology (as the engine powering human connections) and creativity (helping change-makers achieve success).

Format

SWITCH takes place during two full days (Friday and Saturday) and in two stages. The first, main stage, has blocks of 20-minute talks followed by a Q&A with the audience and features top speakers from a variety of backgrounds and countries. The second stage is reserved for a startup competition aimed at showcasing Portuguese and European startups and is where workshops and longer panels of discussion are held. On top of all of that attendees can enjoy carefully curated networking moments specially crafted so participants can share their ideas and knowledge with their peers. Oh, and did we mention Portuguese yummy dishes are included in this experience?

Who attends?

SWITCH audience is a rare mix between experienced entrepreneurs, technologists and innovators and young eager-to-learn recent graduates and young professionals. SWITCH is, by definition, open to anyone that wants to take a part on it. However, due to our focus and the quality of our program you’ll mostly find super interesting people with a lot to share and learn. At SWITCH you’ll find technology consultants and professionals, entrepreneurs, marketers, CEO’s of startups and companies of small and medium size, students, engineers and other enthusiasts in love with the power of sharing ideas. Last year we had 15 countries represented in our audience. They all come to share experiences, ideas and knowledge and learn from their peers.

Non Profit

SWITCH is organized by a team of volunteers under a non-profit organization. All the money we gather from tickets and sponsors is targeted to making the event happen.

The whole thing

SWITCH is a two-day event held annually in Portugal and started back in 2009 by a group of young entrepreneurs lead by founder Ricardo Sousa.
The conference was born when the founding team noticed that although a wave of conferences on entrepreneurship and technology was growing across Europe, Portugal hadn’t (at the time) many tech events of reference. The team wanted to bring to Portugal some of this human capital and the discussions and innovations they were working on.
With two editions over the last 2 years, SWITCH is assuming itself as a reference event in the Portuguese and international scene, recently being named by WIRED magazine as one of the top 10 tech events in Europe and receiving praise for its program and goals by people from all around the world.
Over the last two years, more than 100.000 people watched its videos, more than 9.000 people watched at least 1 hour of its livestream, more than 500 different people attended the events and over 5.000 tweets were produced making it the top hashtag in Portugal for more than 4 days. More importantly, though, dozens of deals and businesses were made during SWITCH, people met again or for the first time and the Portuguese entrepreneurial scene got highlighted in the eyes of the tech world.
SWITCH keeps being organized by a non-profit organization and by a young team of volunteers (average 21-years-old) that work hard, every year, to pull the event together, despite the crisis affecting the country and the difficulties finding sponsors and partners that believe in this team.

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