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Few Russia IT specialists ‘aggressors, murderers’: Ukraine's first lady at meet
Russia-Ukraine War: Olena Zelenska told an audience of several thousand at the Web Summit's opening ceremony late on Tuesday not to put "technology at the service of terror".
One of the world's biggest tech conferences will get going in Lisbon on Wednesday, after Ukraine's first lady formally opened the event by urging participants to use their skills to save lives rather than end them.
Olena Zelenska told an audience of several thousand at the Web Summit's opening ceremony late on Tuesday not to put "technology at the service of terror" -- unlike some in Russia.
"Some IT specialists in Russia have made their choice to be aggressors and murderers," she said, urging attendees to make the opposite choice.
"I believe that technology should be used to create, save and help people, not destroy them."
The Web Summit brings together start-ups, investors, business leaders and agenda-broadening speakers -- linguist Noam Chomsky and heavyweight boxing champion Oleksandr Usyk are among this year's line-up.
Organisers said all 70,000 tickets had been sold for the first full-scale edition since coronavirus restrictions halted in-person gatherings in 2020.
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One of the focuses this year is cryptocurrencies and the blockchain technology that underpins them.
Crypto prices have plummeted and surveys show that public interest is flatlining in the US, the principal market for retail investors.
Web Summit organiser Paddy Cosgrave told AFP last week that he was deeply sceptical about the entire crypto sector.
But at Tuesday's opening ceremony, Changpeng Zhao, boss of one of the world's biggest crypto companies Binance, tried to play down the crash.
He told the audience it was part of an economic cycle and argued that cryptocurrencies were in fact the most stable assets right now.
