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Doha, Qatar: The third edition of Web Summit Qatar has officially sold out following the announcement of Issam Hijazi, the Palestinian founder of Upscrolled, as an Opening Night speaker, Web Summit has announced.
The 30,000-plus attendee event hit full capacity yesterday following a dramatic surge in ticket sales after Web Summit revealed that Hijazi would address the event in Doha on Sunday evening. On Sunday night Hijazi, a technologist with decades of experience at companies like IBM, Oracle, and Hitachi, will undertake his first public engagement since the app’s explosive success. (That success has in turn led to claims that Upscrolled itself is being shadow-banned by major platforms).
Global interest in Palestinian/Jordanian/Australian Hijazi has soared since his social networking platform became the most popular app in America - and around the world. Upscrolled, which pledges to combat the censorship, shadow-banning, clickbait, and algorithmic tricks of Big Tech social platforms, became the Number 1 free app on both the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store last week.
Upscrolled also revealed that its user numbers had soared from 150,000 a week ago to more than 1million by the end of the week. The surge in Upscrolled download and usage followed 1 of 3 outages at TikTok and criticism of Big Tech’s content moderation policies, especially among American users who claimed their ability to discuss the Minnesota ICE shootings was being curtailed by certain platforms.
In all, more than 30,000 attendees will be at the event, including founders, investors, policymakers, media, and technologists from more than 120 countries.
The number of attendees has soared from 15,000 at Web Summit Qatar’s first edition in 2024 in Doha. In its third year, Web Summit Qatar will also draw a record number of 1,600 startups and 900 investors to Doha - including Managing and General Partners at Amino Capital, Greycroft, B Capital, and Initialized Capital.
The event floor sold out at the start of the year, with leading global companies including IBM, Microsoft, Huawei, Qatar Airways, and many more confirmed to partner. Speakers include three-time Forbes Midas Lister Larry Li, Founder & Managing Partner at Amino Capital; Mati Staniszewski, Co-Founder at Elevenlabs; Her Highness Sheikha Moza Bint Nasser, Chairperson at Qatar Foundation; Eduardo Saverin, Co-founder of B Capital and Facebook; Colin Kaepernick, Founder & CEO at Lumi; Yanis Varoufakis, Economist & Former Greek Finance Minister; Logan Paul, YouTuber and Wrestler; and creator Abir El Saghir.
