It may have started out with just 200 people in a lecture hall in Trinity College Dublin, but this year's Dublin Web Summit is expected to attract more than 6,000 people, with Digg founder turned Google Ventures partner Kevin Rose, tech investor Esther Dyson and Evernote chief executive Phil Libin already confirmed as speakers.
Ex-Mashable editor Ben Parr and Jennifer Hyman, founder of Rent the Runway, will also feature among the 300 speakers at this year’s event, which is taking place on October 30th and 31st.
Festival of ideas
This year's summit is aiming to broaden its scope moving from a two-day conference to a festival of ideas and events according to founder Paddy Cosgrave.
“We’ve moved from a one-day conference in 2010, to a series of events spanning a full week this October. Web Summit 2013 will feature a broader range of events including workshops, pitching sessions and keynotes from some of the world’s most incredible entrepreneurs.”
He reckons the event will contribute €20 million to the Irish economy through ticket sales, wages, taxes and deals done over the week.
Mr Cosgrave said the Irish tech sector was thriving, with Hubspot, Dropbox, Etsy and Zendesk all opening offices in Dublin in the past year.
"Polaris Ventures has made a real commitment to start-ups in Ireland, investing over €25 million in Irish companies. This combined with homegrown success stories like Datahug, Logentries and Balcony TV help to create an ecosystem that didn't previously exist. They have inspired the next generation of Irish start-ups."
October event
More than 1,000 start-ups and 300 international investors are expected to attend the October event, with 4,000 people expected to travel from outside Ireland according to organisers.
Last year’s event attracted crowds upward of 4,000 for two days of speeches and discussions by some of the leading voices in technology.
Daire Hickey, one of the organisers, said the keynote speakers at this year’s event were yet to be confirmed.
"We are still working on getting keynote speakers. We have started putting out invites to particular people to speak. Tim Armstrong only confirmed two days before the event last year."
