Disruptive Technology has made this start-ups event the most important in the world. And unique too! Know how.

Web Summit is often noted as the world’s most important start-ups event. Co-founded by Paddy Cosgrave, the summit is like a ‘dating festival of start-ups’ as the aim of the conference is to try to help start-ups connect with the right people, entrepreneurs, investors, who can help them in their business.

Paddy worked in a number of start-ups before setting up Web Summit and f.ounders in 2010 with Daire Hickey and David Kelly. When he started Web Summit from his couch in Dublin with Daire Hickey and David Kelly, they had no proper office, no working toilet, yet convinced the likes of Niklas Zennström, founder of Skype and Jack Dorsey, co-Founder Twitter to speak at the first Dublin Web Summit. In 2014, more than 22,000 attendees from over 100 countries flew to Dublin for Web Summit. Speakers have included the founders and CEOs of Twitter, YouTube, Netflix, Skype, Tesla, PayPal and Oculus VR.

The founding philosophy was never to take no for an answer, relationships should be built on personal trust and reputation which leads to more introductions and to the greats in technology speaking at our events. He now leads a team of more than 140, based in Dublin. In 2016 Web Summit will be hosting Collision in New Orleans, RISE in Hong Kong, SURGE in Bengaluru and MoneyConf in Madrid. f.ounders, an annual private gathering of 200 CEOs of the world's leading technology companies which happens alongside Web Summit, has been described by Bloomberg as "Davos for Geeks".

The stupendous growth is driven by data science. The entire approach to the tech conference is different. How? By asking some fundamental questions and seeking some basic answers, says Paddy. Disruptive technology has made the conference unique in its space.

1. Anthropometry- Paddy noticed that in most of the other conferences, the lanyards were pretty much the same length. So the name batch comes at different lengths for people with different heights. He saw that interaction becomes awkward. Then he started looking into anthropometry, a field of research that deals with a person’s size, form and personal capacities. All the lanyards for Web Summit are custom designed and they bring our name within our field of vision.

Also there were no rules for the font size of the name batch at different conferences. He started asking the reason behind choosing a particular font at a particular event. It was almost random.

“We follow certain rules and logic behind the font size too.”

2. Queuing system- Almost in all conferences, small or big, the queuing system is always arbitrary. But Web Summit applies the mechanics of queuing theory, the same theory applied in Disney theme park. To maintain the huge crowd is pretty difficult. Yet, the queuing system is effective.

3. GoPro- GoPros are installed at the ceilings of the venue. Using computer vision these GoPros evaluate the optimal layer of the venue, what’s the optimum width of the channel between two exhibitors for people to walk up and down without being too wide or too narrow.

4. List of attendees- Even in the list of attendees, disruptive technology is used to ensure if a person wants to find a particular person to connect with, he does so hassle-free amidst the hundreds of participants.

5. It is not just a 9-5 conference- After the talks, it continues till 3am in the morning whereby a further ecosystem of side events, dinners and drinks is build to engage the start-ups better with the concerned parties.

(Image credits: irishtimes)