The Web Summit is expanding its numbers again with the creation of 40 jobs as it also reveals an ambition plan to bring Irish students to Lisbon.
This year’s Web Summit will be held in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon for the second time following its acrimonious exit from Ireland. However, the office in its native land is set for further expansion.
At an announcement this morning (22 August), Web Summit co-founder and chief executive Paddy Cosgrave announced that it plans to hire 40 new staff over the course of the next six months at its Dublin office, in addition to further job creation at its San Francisco and Hong Kong locations.
Cosgrave said that the roles will be focused on sales, engineering and design as well as other areas that remain unspecified.
In describing the news, he said it was an “exciting new chapter” for the Web Summit.
According to the Irish Independent, Cosgrave said: “While we can no longer claim to be a start-up, we have kept the disruptive spirit that has helped us grow so quickly.”
He added that the company was surprised at the rate at which the jobs were filled when it last announced new roles back in April of this year.
That month, the Web Summit cemented its place in Lisbon with the opening of a local office to handle the management of the main event, where it employs around 20 staff.
Students and start-ups welcome
In addition, the Web Summit has promised to make 50 tickets available to every secondary school in Ireland for students that might like to come to its event this November.
Start-ups are also gearing up for the Web Summit after the event and ESB jointly announced earlier this month that they were now accepting entries for the Spark of Genius award.
The €25,000 award – now in its seventh year – is open to start-ups that have been in operation for less than three years and have received less than €1m in funding.
Entrants will be judged on their creativity, level of development and their potential for sustainable success in the future.
Web Summit sign. Image: G Holland/Shutterstock
