The 15 Most Breathtaking Tech Conferences Around the World
It's amazing to see many events and conferences returning to the world stage after the pandemic. Since COVID-19 accelerated digital transformation across many industries, the 2023 and 2024 events calendar offers huge opportunities to explore future tech trends.
But with so many conferences to choose from, how do you decide which ones should you attend? Short answer... it depends.
If you're in the 5G and mobile space, MWC is the place to be. If you're a European startup, you should consider heading to Dublin in May 2024 for its Tech Summit. And as for developers, they should keep an eye on AWS and Google events and the WeAreDevelopers World Congress.
Whatever your field, we're certain you'll find a conference to suit your needs, whether in the remaining months of 2023 or in 2024. To help you, we've put together a list of the 15 most breathtaking tech conferences around the world. Some of them are due to take place in Q4 2023, and you can already get tickets for many 2024 events.
Let's find your next tech conference.
15 Most Breathtaking Tech Conferences Around the WorldBelow, you'll find an overview of the key dates of the hottest 2023-2024 tech conferences before we go into more detail about events, speakers, and schedules.
Key Dates| Event Name | 2024 Event Location | 2023 Dates | 2024 Dates |
| CES | Las Vegas, NV, USA | 5-8 Jan | 9-12 Jan |
| MWC | Barcelona, Spain | 27 Feb - 3 March | 26-29 Feb |
| Finovate Europe | London, UK | 13-15 Mar | 27-28 Feb |
| SXWS | Austin, TX, USA | 10-19 Mar | 8-16 Mar |
| Gartner Digital Workplace Summit | Grapevine, TX | 29-30 Aug | 18-19 Mar |
| Google Cloud Next | Las Vegas, NV, USA | 29-31 Aug | 9-11 Apr |
| RSA Conference | San Francisco, CA, USA | 24-27 Apr | 6-9 May |
| Dublin Tech Summit | Dublin, Ireland | 31 May-1 Jun | 29-30 May |
| London Tech Week | London, UK | 12-14 Jun | 10-14 Jun |
| WeAreDevelopers World Congress | Berlin, Germany | 27-28 Jul | 17-19 Jul |
| Viva Technology | Paris, France | 14-17 June | TBC |
| AI & Big Data Expo | Amsterdam, The Netherlands | 26-27 Sep | TBC |
| VMWare Explore | Barcelona, Spain | 6-9 Nov | TBC |
| Web Summit | Lisbon, Portugal | 13-16 Nov | TBC |
| AWS re: Invent | Las Vegas, NV, USA | 27 Nov - 1 Dec | TBC |
Source: CES
The first conference on our list is CES. Held annually in Las Vegas since 1998, the trade show is the biggest consumer technology event in the world.
It features product demos from thousands of exhibitors, keynote speeches from thought leaders, and discussions on the key topics and trends in consumer technology, includingAI, AR and VR, and Tech4Good.
In 2023, the event had over 100,000 attendees, 35.5% of whom came from outside the US. The event's key trends included accessibility empowerment, AR and holograms, digital twins, and digital health.
The event featured dozens of notable speakers, including the US Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm, BMW CEO Oliver Zipse, and Moderna MD Stephane Bancel. Zipse delivered a keynote speech about the future of mobility.
CES 2024 will be held from 9-12 January, with the full agenda and speakers to be announced in Q4 2023. So far, it's been announced there will be a keynote speaker from L'Oreal, which will be the first-ever CES keynote from a beauty company.
Mobile World Congress (MWC)
Source: MWC
GSMA's Mobile World Congress (MWC) has been held in Barcelonaevery year since 2006. It was one of the first major tech events to be canceled due to COVID-19 in 2020. It returned in a smaller format in 2021 but was back in full force in 2022 and 2023.
The MWC trade show is the biggest event in the mobile connectivity industry. In 2023, the key topics of the conference were 5G, Fintech,Digital Everything,"OpenNet, and Reality Plus. It had over 80,000 attendees from 202 countries, 800 exhibitors, and over 375 speakers. Some of these industry thought leaders were:
- Ericsson CEOBorje Ekholm
- Nokia CEO Pekka Lundmark
- Netflix Co-CEO Greg Peters
- Orange CEO Christel Heydemann
- English Football Player Lucy Bronze
MWC 2024 will take place from 26-29 February. The key themes of the event will be 5G and Beyond, Humanising AI, and Connect Everything," among others. The speaker line-up hasn't been announced yet.
Finovate Europe
Source: Informa Connect
One of the biggest Fintech events, Finovate Europe brings together unique insights and financial product demos to an audience of over 1,000 people. This event sheds light on the sometimes opaque world of finance and the value of digital transformation in the financial sector.
The 2023 Finovate Europe event featured over 40 demos from organizations like StockRepublic, NayaOne, and ebankIT.
Some of the most notable keynote speakers at the event were Malin Lignell, the VP of Innovation at Handelsbanken, author Leda Glyptis, and Nitzan Solomon, the head of Transaction Monitoring, AML & Fraud at Revolut. Financing and banking in the Metaverse was one of the hottest topics of the event in 2023.
Finovate Europe's 2024 edition is taking place in London from 27-28 February. No agenda or speakers have been announced yet.
SXSWSouth by Southwest, or SXSW, takes place in Austin, Texas, and has run every year since 1986, with the exception of 2020 and 2021. It's a popular event that draws together tech lovers, film and music enthusiasts, and creatives.
In 2023, SXSW's tech event focused on blockchain, AI/ML, IoT, accessibility, and other topical tech issues.
Speakers included America's Second Gentleman,Douglas Emhoff, actor William Shatner, tech journalist Casey Newton, and other thought leaders.You can watch the video of Chelsea Handler and Jen Psaki speaking at SXSW above.
In 2024, the event will take place from 8-16 March, focusing on future tech trends. One of the speakers, Amy Webb, will unveil the 2024 Tech Trends Report, and AI, creativity, and storytelling will be major themes. Speakers will include Rosario Dawson, Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, and the head of ChatGPT, Peter Deng.
Gartner Digital Workplace Summit
Source: Gartner
Gartner Digital Workplace Summit is held twice a year in different locations around the world. The B2B conference, hosted by the global research company, brings together thought leaders in the digital workplace industry, where they explore current digital work trends and best practices.
In 2023, the summit was held in August in San Diego, California. Most keynote speakers were Gartner experts. Featured exhibitors included Slack, Adobe, and Lenovo, among other tech providers.
The eventfocused on digital employee experience (DEX) leadership, digital skills and dexterity, collaboration and culture, and other topical digital work trends.
In 2024, the event will be held in Grapevine, Texas, USA, from 18-19 March. The agenda and list of speakers are to be confirmed. There will also be an event in London in June 2024.
Google Cloud NextAs the name implies, this conference is hosted by Google. The Google Cloud Next event is an annual event attended by Google experts, partners, IT thought leaders, and enthusiasts.
In 2023, the event was hosted in August in San Francisco, and there will be another one in London in October.
The 2023 event was focused on AI, specifically Generative AI. Given that many Generative AI applications rely on Google Cloud, that's perhaps not surprising. Speakers included Google's CEO Sundar Pichai, CPO of GitLab David DeSanto, CDO of Google Melonie Parker, and other leaders from the Google ecosystem.
The 2024 Google Cloud Next event will run 9-11 April in Las Vegas. The agenda and speakers should be confirmed in the near future.
RSA ConferenceThe annual RSA Conference on cybersecurity grew from a small-scale cryptography conference in 1991 to a multinational series of cybersecurity events with 50,000 attendees each year. It normally features several keynote speeches, presentations, and the popular Cryptographers' Panel, among other events.
Every year, the RSA Conference has adifferent theme. For instance, the theme for 2022 was Transform," and 2023 was Stronger Together." The 32nd conference in 2023 was focused on the cybersecurity risks and implications of AI, zero trust, and cybersecurity governance.
It had over 40,000 attendees and over 500 speakers and exhibitors, including Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, former Homeland Security Advisor Lisa Monaco, and musician Chris Stapleton.
The theme of the 2024 RSA Conference will be The Art of Possible." It'll be taking place in San Francisco from 6-9 May, and the organizers are accepting submissions for speakers and topics.
Dublin Tech Summit
Source: DTS
Europe's biggest event for startups is the Dublin Tech Summit, held in Ireland since 2017. It brings together almost 10,000 leaders and founders from over 60 countries and different tech ecosystems.
In 2023, DTS hosted several high-profile speakers from fintech, AI, and other hot areas of the tech world. Among them were:
- CTO of Stripe, David Singleton
- Head of Privacy at Logitech, Emerald de Leeuw
- Astronaut and Founder of the Deep Space Initiative, Sara Sabry
The 2024 summit will take place from 29-30 May. The organizers are accepting submissions, and after the process is complete, the list of speakers will be released.
London Tech Week
Source: London Tech Week
London Tech Week is considered the UK's biggest tech event, and it brings together tech leaders, entrepreneurs, and public policy stakeholders from the United Kingdom and over 150 other countries.
The event saw its tenth year in 2023. Like many other conferences on this list, London Tech Week put Generative AI in focus, with the UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak participating in the conversation.
Other popular topics were entrepreneurship in the UK, cybersecurity, and quantum sciences. In addition to UK government officials, London Tech Week had many startup founders and top-level tech executives as speakers, including:
- CEO of Too Good to Go, Mette Lykke
- CMO of Lenovo, David Rabin
- CEO of Hertility, Dr. Helen O'Neill
- Founder of Snyk, Guy Podjarny
- Founder of Women of Web 3, Lauren Ingram
London Tech Week 2024 will take place from 10-14 June, with the line-up still to be announced.
WeAreDevelopers World Congress
Source: WeAreDevelopers
Another popular conference for developers is WeAreDevelopers World Congress. Taking place in Berlin every year, it brings together thousands of CTOs, CEOs, developers, product managers, and IT pros for networking and workshops on topics ranging from reducing a website's carbon footprint to API design.
The 2023 conference had over 300 speakers, including World Wide Web creatorSir Tim Berners-Lee, Nils Kasseckert, the founder of Codecreators, and Prashanth Chandrasekar, the CEO of Stack Overflow.
The conference will return in 2024, running from 17-19 July. WeAreDevelopers isn't currently accepting submissions for speakers, meaning a list will likely be released shortly.
Viva Technology
The Paris-based Viva Technology event is a large-scale annual tech conference and trade show withover 150,000 attendees from around the world and over 2,500 exhibitors.
Viva Technology, or VivaTech, is popular among start-ups and VCs. In past years, it has had some very high-profile speakers. For instance, the 2023 event, which took place in June, featured French President Emmanuel Macron and two of therichest men in the world- Elon Musk and Bernard Arnault.
The dates for VivaTech 2024 haven't yet been confirmed, although we know it'll take place sometime in May 2024.
AI & Big Data Expo
Source: AI Expo
The AI and Big Data Expo will take place from 26-27 September 2023 in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. It's one of the most popular events on Business AI, ML, NLP, and Deep Learning. Over 6,000 attendees and 150 speakers from many different countries are expected to attend.
The agenda for the 2023 conference includes talks and panels on:
- Enterprise AI
- AI ethics
- AI for risk management
- Using AI in software development
- AI use cases in manufacturing
- Optimizing data and analytics
- Data monetization
- Women in AI
- Transformational AI
Some of the keynote speakers invited are data scientists from major Dutch companies like ING Bank and Booking.com, Shahin Shahkarami, the Director of Data and Analytics at IKEA, and representatives from the UNICRI Centre for AI and Robotics.
The event will also welcome many IoT and SaaS exhibitorslike Twilio Segment and Hyrde.
VMware ExploreVMware Explore, formerly known as VMworld, is a tech conference run by cloud computing company VMware. The company runs several Explore" events per year, and the next one is taking place from 6-9 November in Barcelona. There are also two more taking place in Q4 2023, in Tokyo and Sao Paolo.
The 2023 Barcelona conference will focus on cloud and edge infrastructure, network security, cloud application management, and hybrid workforce. Since VMware is a cloud provider, a lot of the sessions will be about the cloud and will be delivered by VMware's in-house experts.
However, the event will also have some external speakers, includingIntel's Technical Solutions Specialist, Simon Todd, and VP of Kyndryl, Venkat Jagana.
Web Summit
Source: Web Summit
Held in Dublin until 2016, Web Summit is now held in Lisbon every year. The conference brings together startup founders, VCs, and C-suite leaders from large tech companies.
The 2023 Web Summit will take place from 13-16 November - understandably, the 2024 summit dates haven't yet been announced. The schedule for 2023 includes events on the following topics, among others:
- AI in marketing
- AI's global impact
- Funding and VC
So far, 250 speakers have been confirmed. The list features well-known names, including the EU Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager, Meta's Nick Clegg, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, and actor and investor Kelly Rutherford.
AWS re: InventAmazon Web Services' re: Invent is an annual conference for the cloud computing sector hosted by AWS. In 2023, it'll take place in Las Vegas from 27 November to 1 December.
As one of the biggest providers of cloud services and computing, it's no surprise that the AWS event has a high profile in the calendar. In 2023, as in previous years, the event promises several keynotes by AWS leaders, including CEO Adam Selipsky, VP Ruba Borno, and others.
In addition to the keynotes, re: Invent attendees have the option to participate in various AWS workshops on AWS development, as well as a few AWS boot camps.
References- 10 Technology Conferences In 2024 (Moonpreneur)
- AI & Big Data Expo Homepage (AI & Big Data Expo)
- AWS re:Invent Catalog (AWS Events)
- AWS re:Invent Homepage (AWS Events)
- CES Homepage (CES)
- Countdown to Cloud Excellence: A Glimpse Into Google Cloud Next 2023 (Spiceworks)
- Dublin Tech Summit Homepage (Dublin Tech Summit)
- FinovateEurope Homepage (FinovateEurope)
- Gartner Digital Workplace Summit 2023 Executive Summary (Gartner)
- Gartner Digital Workplace Summit Agenda (Gartner)
- Gartner Digital Workplace Summit Homepage(Gartner)
- Gartner Digital Workplace Summit Keynotes (Gartner)
- Google Cloud Next Homepage (Google Cloud)
- London Tech Week Homepage (London Tech Week)
- L'Oreal to Keynote at CES 2024 - Defining the Next Era of Beauty Tech (CES)
- MWC Barcelona Homepage (MWC Barcelona)
- Rosario Dawson, Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, Alex Cooper, Peter Deng & More Featured Speakers Announced for SXSW 2024 (SXSW)
- RSAC Homepage (RSAConference)
- SXSW Homepage (SXSW)
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- VivaTech Homepage (VivaTech)
- VMware Explore 2022 US in 60 Seconds (VMware Explore/YouTube)
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- VMware Explore Homepage (VMware)
- WeAreDevelopers World Congress Homepage (WeAreDevelopers World Congress)
- Web Summit Homepage (Web Summit)
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