Web Summit CEO Paddy Cosgrave has announced that the organisation intends to give 7,000 tickets to students, entirely free of charge.
These tickets will be split evenly between second-level and third-level students and will grant entry to two specific Web Summit events, rather than the entire conference.
The first of these events, targeting secondary school students, will be Web Summit for Schools, which will close out the first day. This will aim to inspire students to consider a career as an entrepreneur, and encourage them to study STEM as their education progresses.
The second, Careers Summit, will be aimed at college students, showing them that, whether a person finishes college or not, he or she still has the opportunity to become a success.
Head of communications at Web Summit, Mike Harvey, said, “A lot of the leaders of today are going to be at the Web Summit; we need to inspire the technologists of tomorrow.”
Speakers from the main event will be appearing at these student-aimed summits, with Pixar’s Ed Catmull, author Dan Brown and Tour de France winner Chris Froome confirmed.
Students from schools around the country will be invited to attend, in an effort to ensure that the event is not too Dublin-centric.
Main image via William Murphy/Flickr
