It was on the 23^rd and 24^th of February 2016 when groups of people from around the globe came together to garden city, Bangalore, India to learn from experts and collaborate with each other to empower each other.

Yes, it was the planet’s largest technology Summit - Surge 2016 that witnessed over 5000 people coming from 72 countries who got together to explore and learn from other business models built using technology. The highest energy in every attendee to connect with every person possible, led to exchange of thousands of business cards. Different stages that included the marketing stage, enterprise stage,  startup university stage and many more, altogether witnessed 130 speakers from across the globe, who have excelled in creating revolutions using technology. A huge source of inspiration was passed to the audience through each of the speakers.

The excitement and enthusiasm grew higher as and when the attendees got opportunities to learn from the entrepreneurs they had always followed. The summit which gave numerous of opportunities spread across both the days, successfully helped more than 400 startups network with investors and speakers.

Volunteers from around the world joined hands to make the event successful. The event was very well maintained and organized because of the biggest support from them. The volunteers included students from various institutes and employees from many companies. Their involvement in helping the attendees at every point made a huge difference in the environment of the summit. Movenpick Hotel & Spa partnered to provide food and beverages to everyone present.

Day 1 began with the energizing welcome by Paddy Cosgrave, Founder of Surge and Web Summit, who shared about his journey of the last few years, in being the reason to help many entrepreneurs through the summit. Immediately after the welcome, the founder of Snapdeal, Rohit Bansal was invited to share about the success behind Snapdeal. While on one side, speakers like Rohit Bansal of Snapdeal,   Naveen Jain - Founder of Moon Express, Shashank ND - Co-Founder & CEO of Practo, Luis Von Ahn - Co-Founder& CEO of Duolingo, Greg Moran - Co-Founder of Zoomcar, Dave McClure - Founder of 500 Startups, Sairee Chahal - Founder of Sheroes.in and many more discussed about their journey, especially on topics like ‘India and venture capital’, ‘Can mobile wallets go mainstream’ , ‘Health-Tech’, ‘ The e-commerce battleground’ and so on, there were 40 best startups that were chosen from the applicants for an elevator pitch at the pitching stage, out of which 3 best startups were chosen, from which the final outstanding startup that pitched the best, had to be chosen. Also, more than 200 startups had their stalls up, to present their ideas to everyone. The partner companies as well had their stalls, where they exhibited some of their latest products. The first day was successful in meeting the goals of every attendee, and ended with humongous networking.

The attendees were more clear with their approaches on day 2, since their schedules was well planned and in a better way. Huge amount of startups reached early to setup their stalls comfortably and stay prepared for presenting their ideas to the rest. The crowd slowly began to increase in number, as the clock ticked 10. Once again, Paddy welcomed the whole crowd for the second day of the Summit, exciting them all to make the best use of the opportunity. This day seemed to have had more number of people participating. Speakers including Kunal Kapoor - Bollywod actor and founder of Ketto, Sachin Bansal - Co-founder & Executive Chairman of Flipkart, Pete Lau - CEO of OnePlus, Ritesh Agarwal - Founder of OYO Rooms and other big names, who spoke on themes including ‘India’s startup mission’, ‘India and the Valley’, ‘Pitch perfect, what every investor needs to hear’ and more.

Each of the attendees were a part of the sessions that seemed to be of their interest and at other times, the networking followed. The startups found great responses from the visitors of their stalls, while a lot of them even suggested ideas to make the models better. Although there is a huge competition in the industry, every individual present tried to support the rest in the best way they could. As the day came towards the end, the winner whose startup pitch was the best, was announced and was awarded by Sunil Rao, Country Head of Google. The judging panel had Flipkart’s Sachin Bansal, 500 Startups’ Dave McClure, FuturePerfect Ventures’ Jalak Jobanputra and Google’s Sunil Rao, who declared the team of Arcatron Mobility to be the best pitch of all. With that, Paddy thanked all the participants of the summit including hundreds of speakers, investors, startups, attendees, medias, volunteering and organizing teams, at the same time inviting them all for the upcoming year’s event. Although the day officially ended with his talk, the crowd continued to connect with everyone possible, and made the best use of the opportunity, to build large networks. One of the major tools that helped with building connections was the mobile application that Surge had built for the participants at the event, where they could connect and chat with everyone possible. Hundreds of meeting got scheduled via the app even before their physical meet at the event. Many more meetings got scheduled through the connections at the event and continues after the event too. These two days of the Summit left an everlasting memory of the experiences every individual had at Surge. On the other side, Surge’s plan for the Surge 2017 in India has already begun, as the startup eco system continues to boom.

Stay tuned for more updates exclusively covered by IUeMagazine on specific sessions of Surge 2016 and participants’ reviews.