LISBON (ViaNews) – The Portuguese Prime-Minister, António Costa, and Lisbon Mayor, Fernando Medina, said at the opening ceremony of the Web Summit technology summit that the Portuguese capital is once again the “capital of the world” by hosting the Web summit, Europe’s leading technology event.
A few minutes before the Web summit kick-off, Medina offered the Web Summit founder, Paddy Cosgrave, a portrait of Fernão de Magalhães (Ferdinand Magellan), the Portuguese navigator that ended up completing the world’s first circumnavigation of the Earth, in the sixteenth century.
“500 years ago,” Medina said to a crowded Altice Arena, “Lisbon was the center of the world, with innovation, science, and technology, with the courage to discover new worlds. The world that Ferdinand Magellan helped to discover and build is the same that the new generations of the most brilliant, enterprising, brave people are discovering.”