February 25

Growing 'Bitcoin Cities' Across the Globe from Slovenia | GDPR Case Study @ Airbnb

Dejan Roljić - Eligma (Ljubljana)

Polina Zvyagina - Airbnb (San Francisco)

Peter Fatelnig - Delegation of the European Union to the United States (Washington DC)

Session #6 showcases European innovations in bitcoin payments models. Our kickoff founder and startup, based in Ljubljana (Slovenia), will present a very exciting and unique initiative aimed at establishing 'Bitcoin Cities' across Southeast and Western Europe, as well as in Asia and North America. The session also continues our prior examination of EU GDPR data privacy regulations and how these are affecting Silicon Valley company operations, with a case study of GDPR compliance at a leading San Francisco startup. Finally, we are pleased to present the EU's lead diplomat in the USA for digital economy policy, based in Washington DC, who will discuss recent legislative developments in Brussels.

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March 11

Europe's Software Industry - Status and Growth Paths : A Mini-Summit

Co-Chair: Prof. Dr. Manfred Broy - Zentrum Digitalisierung Bayern | TU Munich (Munich)

Andy Bechtolsheim - Arista Networks | Sun Microsystems

Toomas Hendrik Ilves - President (Emeritus) of Estonia (Silicon Valley)

Helen Arnold - SAP Data Network (San Francisco)

Kwame Yamgnane - Ecole 42 USA (Silicon Valley)

Julia Reda - European Parliament (Brussels - Invited)

Richard Socher - Salesforce (San Francisco)

Frederic Hanika - Software AG (Silicon Valley)

Reshma Sohoni - Seedcamp (London - Invited)

Xavier Wartelle - French Tech Hub (San Francisco)

Sergii Gorpynich - Cogniance (SV | Ukraine | Poland)

Henri Deshays - NewFund (Silicon Valley | Paris)

Co-Chair: Burton Lee - Stanford (Silicon Valley)

Our Final Session 2019 addresses one of Europe's most critical and strategic challenges for the 21st Century - how to grow a domestic software industry that can compete globally with the USA and China. Our panel of distinguished speakers - founders, investors, scientists and policy-makers - will address the current state of Continental Europe's software sector in selected countries and regions, and then move to a wide-ranging discussion and debate about the path forward for Europe in software and data.

This special extended session will touch on Europe's track record and initiatives in artificial intelligence (AI), Industry4.0, IoT, embedded systems, cybersecurity, and high performance computing (HPC), along with personal and industrial data management practices and policies, but will move beyond this fragmented framework to a broader strategic consideration of the complete software industry. We shall pay particular attention to diverging corporate valuations, multipliers and job creation benefits associated with consumer software, enterprise software, gaming, social media and data platform business models. The economic cost and benefits of certain data protection and copyright regulations now being implemented in Europe - and their potential for retarding and shrinking demand for new software products and services - will also figure prominently in this unique Mini-Summit on Growing Europe's Software Industry.

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