With over 3,000 visitors and participants from 80 countries, the Pioneers Festival is one of the leading entrepreneur and start-up conferences with a focus on innovative technologies. As specialist in event-organisation and multimedia production, Media Apparat has carried out the conference since 2012, always in close collaboration with the promoter.
The event combines several elements of a conference or congress with brand new technological achievements and the entertainment value of a music festival. The aim of the event is to give true tech pioneers a global stage. The event supports start-ups to realise their visions, find suitable investors, and establish business relationships with leading brands.
The participants attended lectures, workshops and have been able to inform themselves about the presenting start-ups and their business models, visit different pitches, gather valuable contacts and even watch the implantation of an NFC chip live. Pioneers developed its own match-making algorithm to connect participants in the most efficient way based on their business needs and interests. Furthermore, the attendees were able to arrange 30-minute meetings with each other based on a simple one-click solution before and during the event. 12,000 meeting requests were sent in total and 1,600 meetings were organised over two days, with 500 start-ups from all over the world, over 300 investors and about 2,500 participants, as well as a multitude of robots, 3D scanner and several virtual-reality experiences.
The 2016 edition of Pioneers Festival showcased Viv for the very first time in Europe, the new company and Artificial Intelligence technology built by the original inventors and founders of Apple’s Siri.
In 2016, over 2,000 international media articles were published about Pioneers Festival and over 75,000 people watched the event via live stream. VIP guests of this event were Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, venture capital legend Tim Draper, and Austria’s Chancellor Christian Kern.
