Web Summit 2015 promises to have a lot of interesting discussion surrounding music and digital trends. Read on to find out where I’ll be and what I’m excited to hear about.

Dublin will be buzzing with the Web Summit 2015 starting this Tuesday and I’m really looking forward to being there. Described as ‘where the tech world meets,’ Web Summit has grown in just 5 short years to over 30,000 attendees with 21 different summits covering everything from Fashion to HealthTech. Despite the massive scale of the event, it still remains friendly and accessible.

While tech innovation underpins the whole summit, at its core it’s about start-ups and entrepreneurs who have a dream. I love walking through the halls and meeting entrepreneurs, chatting about their ideas and unique journeys to starting their companies. There are always great stories from founders and it’s a fantastic place to learn about new trends, get inspired, and meet new people.

For the first time this year, I will be speaking and moderating at the Music Summit on Thursday, 5 November for two different events:

• 11:20 – Classical Music in a Digital Age featuring:
  • Simon Taylor, CEO, National Concert Hall Dublin
  • Eimear Noone, Conductor and Composer
    
• 12:20 – Make Your Own Kind of Music featuring:
  • Alicia Yaffe, CEO, Spellbound Group
    
  • Dara Quilty, Music Presenter, 98FM

The music industry is one of the most high profile and talked about places where digital has completely transformed the landscape over the last 20 years. And in particular, since the iPod launched in 2001 and the iTunes store in 2003. Game changers. For all of us.

At the Music Summit I want to explore just where we are in 2015, how our relationship with music has evolved and what the future looks like – in particular for classical music and new artists. What are new opportunities and have we lost anything in the progress? How do we build a music brand in today’s digitally connected world?

In ideal timing for the Web Summit, I’ve had a chance to catch up with several of my former MTV colleagues over the last couple of weeks and we touched on all of these topics. Back at the beginning of the digital age of music in 2000, I represented new, disruptive technologies on the interactive side where consumers had control at a big media company where broadcast was the model. The cultures of progress and tradition clashed from the very beginning, both internally and externally, even though we all knew it was going to happen.

I’ll also be supporting Metafused, a big data company I work with, at their pitch tomorrow, 3 November. Madhuban Kumar, Metafused’s founder, believes that data can be used to find real time solutions to reaching your target market instead the traditional, slow, blunt tools most marketers use today. Metafused addresses this need with its product, Brandflo. She’ll be pitching Metafused in the Beta round of PITCH sponsored by Audi. Finalist get the opportunity to pitch their companies on the Centre Stage on Thursday. If you have an interest in big data analytics come by and chat with us.

If you see me dashing from stage to stage, please give me a shout. I’m excited to hear your opinions and look forward to seeing you at the Summit!