Day Two of Web Summit 2022: LEGO creates a virtual world for kids, F1 to work remotely, startups rule

Among the speakers at Web Summit 2022 on day two were F1 driver Toto Wolff and Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith, and the day was full of meaningful discussions for the tech industry. During the entire event, which ends on November 4, there are over 600 talks scheduled, covering deep technology, digital marketing, society and politics, as well as issues related to the environment. The following are some of the hottest topics from Day 2, reviewed by Mike Ermolaev from Kikimora Labs, CryptoDaily special correspondent at Web Summit 2022.

Lego urges devs to join its effort to build a child-friendly metaverse

Julia Goldin from The Lego Group discussed how the brand still holds relevance nine decades after it was founded. There was a focus on the company's ability to innovate, connect with users through new channels, and create a safe metaverse for children while maintaining its core values of play.

Originally, a metaverse was envisioned as a virtual world in which people could work and entertain themselves. Julia is concerned about children being excluded from the metaverse concept. According to her, children today use unsafe digital platforms.

“We want to make sure that children have the opportunity to participate in the metaverse, and to protect their right to play,” Julia Goldin, Lego Group's global chief product and marketing officer, said.

The Lego Group aims to create a child-safe metaverse experience, encouraging other projects and businesses to follow.

Formula 1 bets on technology to succeed

There was great anticipation for this Web Summit talk, as Toto Wolff, Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 team principal, was scheduled to speak. In this session, Totto, TeamViewer CEO Oliver Steil, and Rosanna Tennant, an F1 TV commentator, explored how technology and talent work together to make champions.

Wolff, star of Netflix's Drive to Survive, hopes to return his Formula1 team to the top by using cutting-edge technology and remote working. The TeamViewer technology is already being used by F1 during racing days to share real-time analytics and AR with engineering team members. According to him, technology will continue to modify F1's normal working practices in the future.

“We won the championships eight times in a row. But that’s the past. I think you need to look at tomorrow. We had a difficult season. We just got the physics wrong. There are no mystics in Formula 1. We got the concept of the car not in the right place and, in Formula 1, it takes a long time to unwind things that you built into the car,” explained Toto.

Small startups are more competitive than big companies 

With 15 years of experience in the tech industry, Stride.VC founder Fred Destin shared tips on how to succeed in today's challenging economic climate. A small startup has an edge over the status quo because of its inherent culture, he said.

“The reason why small companies – small startups – continue to kick the ass of incumbents is teams of eight, 10 or 15 people. They’re highly fast-evolving organisms that thrive on chaos,” he said. 

In his view, startup founders should take inspiration from samurai, who meditate on death 1,000 times before battle. Likewise, startup founders should meditate on their business' failure for as long as it takes to no longer bother them.

“The second thing samurais do is they kill you with one slide of the sword. So this is about a maximum impact. If you have limited energy, limited time, limited money, everything should have an impact at all times,” Destin suggested.

Impressions 

Web Summit 2022 was well received by attendees. A few impressions follow.

“To be honest, this year’s Web Summit is the largest event I’ve ever participated in! Our team was super excited to meet both our long-term partners from all over the world and to establish new promising contacts. Also, we’ve seen substantial interest in Web3 and DeFi even from those people who are not yet familiar with cryptocurrencies – and we are thrilled about that,” 1inch Network co-founder Anton Bukov said.

“My first time attending Web Summit, I was blown away by the size of the event, the variety of projects and topics of speeches covering almost every startup niche. My favorite part of it is the community and convenient networking system, since it enabled me to network with investors and establish valuable contacts. I had no expectations whatsoever. Despite the queues and extremely crowded main arena on opening day, my overall impression is positive,” said ChatPlace CMO Dima Torgov.

“I was left with nothing but positive impressions. The number of Web Summit attendees was much higher than last year. Our booth attracted a good deal of visitors, mostly clients and investors, which were our target market. Side events also provided plenty of networking opportunities,” Ilya Pankratov, CEO of ChatPlace, added.

Ilya Romanov, chief marketing officer at NearPay, also praised Web Summit as a useful networking event:

“The scale of Web Summit is impressive. The second day fulfilled different wishes for me personally. By accident, I found guys who are launching projects in developing countries and want to collaborate, something that we ourselves have wanted to do for a long time. Additionally, we’ve always wanted to make cool merch, and yesterday we found guys who might be interested in partnering with us. During the evening, I attended side-events, which was also a good networking opportunity. There was less interest in them than in the main events, most likely because everyone was tired. It still resulted in a lot of useful contacts. Our team looks forward to the third day and a networking event from Kikimora Labs on Monday.”

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.