The living ashes of Portuguese colonialism

Abstract

Lisbon, November 2017: Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa speaks at the 9th edition of the Web Summit, the world's largest tech event that, every year, welcomes thousands of participants. At the opening session, Costa recalled Fernão de Magalhães (Ferdinand Magellan), the Portuguese explorer who, in the 16th century, played a central role the first circumnavigation voyage around the globe. He compared the beginning of the so-called "Discoveries" with the technological era represented by the Web Summit. Fernando Medina, Mayor of Lisbon, had already gifted an astrolabe to Paddy Cosgrave, CEO of the company that organized the event. In that moment, he made an analogy between the pioneering nature of the Discoveries and the entrepreneurship of the Web Summit: "Lisbon was the capital of the world five centuries ago, from here routes left to discover new worlds, new people, new ideas. A great adventure started here to connect the human race […]. 500 years ago, navigators crossed the seas. Today it is your turn, the engineers, the entrepreneurs, the creators, the innovators, the start-ups, all companies".