Who’s who of tech industry gather in Dublin

Europe’s largest technology conference, the Web Summit, gets underway in Dublin tomorrow, with more than 20,000 people expected to attend the three-day event in the RDS.

The heads of Dropbox, Stripe, Google, Amazon, Cisco, Tinder and Hailo will be in Dublin for the event, which will see 2,000 start-ups exhibiting to the partners of the world's top venture capital firms.

Paypal co-founder Max Levchin, Facebook's first investor Peter Thiel, former Apple CEO John Sculley, Zynga founder Mark Pincus, actress Eva Longoria, supermodel Lily Cole, English footballer Rio Ferdinand, U2 frontman Bono and Irish rugby player Jamie Heaslip will be among the 500 plus speakers at the event.

The future of wearables, building a billion dollar business, the role of technology in film-making, and the role of social media in news reporting are among the topics that will be discussed.

The Nasdaq opening bell will be rung onstage by Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Web Summit founder Paddy Cosgrave at the RDS tomorrow, signalling the beginning of trading on the American stock exchange. The opening bell ceremony will be broadcast live on Nasdaq’s iconic digital sign in the heart of Times Square in New York.

This year’s event will also feature a sport summit, a film summit, a marketing summit, an enterprise summit and a food summit.

The food summit will showcase chefs from Ireland’s top restaurants and hotels and artisan food producers from across the country.

Good Food Ireland has prepared a plan of action that will see 65 of its members involved in serving food to the 20,000 delegates from more than 100 countries. More than 50,000 hot dishes will be served over the three days, and special menus are being planned for the 4,000 vegetarians and 1,000 vegans.

A number of Web Summit fringe events will also take place throughout Dublin city for members of the public. Overall, the event is expected to inject more than €100 million into the local economy.