THE FIRST DAY AT EMERGE — HOW WAS IT?

The first day at EMERGE has rolled out in a blink of an eye. We dived deep into the future of tech, storming ideas for better products, pitching startups and planning ultimate exits. Now if you think you've missed out on something we'll walk you through the day.

First off, the anticipated talk on the Future of Sex by founder of the namesake company Bryony Cole. Now if you've ever wondered what sex will be like in the future imagine this. We're the first generation of Digisexuals - people whose primary sexual identity comes through the use of technology. But sexting, VR-porn, AI-powered sex toys, hooking apps are just the first step. According to Bryony, next comes the second generation of digisexuals who wouldn't have sexual contact with humans, and really don't have any interest in sex with people. Robots will allow us to have sex in a long-distance relationships, restore lost genitalia and educate us on the art of sex.

Next on the FUTURE stage we've welcomed Yury Deigin, the President of Science for life extension foundation. Yury argued that the tools for radical life extension will be discovered within the next 50 years. We might even have a chance to see them in 20-25 years from now. The main premises for that are the next gen technologies which allow reversing the process of aging in cells, stimulation of immune system and altering genes that may cause deadly diseases.

Always choose products with "organic" on them? Alexandra Genis, food designer and founder of TAS2R has something to tell you. In her keynote, Alexandra explained that the nature doesn't have the capacity to grow the amount of natural food as the human population soon hits 9 billion. Now that brings us to synthetic flavours. Think of a molecule that can add absolutely any taste to the edible substance. This is the future of the food.

Dr. Lev Manovich, Director at Cultural Analytics Lab and Professor of Computer Science shared his view on the future of media and arts by the use of data science and neural network. He mentions that school and art are the knowledge for a system. AI today is integrated into the cultural sphere: from photo correction to art and book recommendation system. It tends to be a huge transformation in creating masterpieces by the symbiosis of a human and machine.

Stewart Rogers touched the topic of mental health while making the business. Nowadays entrepreneurs suffer from a high level of stress, responsibility, endless deadlines and pressure of investors. The number of suicides doubled, the number of substance abuse increased 3 times and the number of bipolar disorders grew up 10 times for the last 10 years. Stewart recommends using a combination of play and meditation that can prevent the occurrence of mental diseases from the beginning.

Remember how we were accessing the web via dial-up? As its time is long gone we're approaching next era and Nikolai Ptitsyn has made the first public announcement of the new technology called Aleph recently acquired by Synesis. The algorithm allows up to 40% of lossless compression and is promising revolutionary download speeds, x2 more storage left and less mobile data usage. Pied Piper from the acclaimed Silicon Valley TV show is finally here.

VR and AR are the tech promises that many companies heavily rely on. Ville Miettinen from Varjo spoke of the challenges and opportunities the technologies will bring to the designers and coders at a time when they become as sharp as the human eye. Apart from VR and AR technologies, Varjo is also working on XR (extended reality) technology that gives an opportunity to build truly photorealistic mixed reality scenarios with human-eye resolution.

Over 457 bookings on our matchmaking tool have already connected 1000+ people at EMERGE. And while you were networking GROWTH Stage was spreading the know-how of scaling your business.

Daniel Hastik has opened the stage with the keynote on the main metrics investors look for in the startups on different stages. We've got you covered with the key takeaways:

• Investors who are in for the long haul need to check people first in order to build the company together;
  
• Seed investors focus on the market - how big it is, what share of it can a team get, and what's the current traction;
  
• In any case, own your Churn — Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), Customer Acquisition Cost (CAA), Monthly/Annual Recurring Revenue (MRR/ARR), Revenue per Customer / Customer Segment, and EBITDA.
  
• If you want to know if your SaaS company is growing fast enough learn the Triple, Triple, Double, Double, Double (T2D3) principle

Igor Sokolov from Grammarly revealed the idea of the main growth stoppers at emerging markets. Namely, the lack of C-suite managers that are experienced enough to grow which in turn leads to the same mistakes being replicated over and over again.

X Stage hosted EMERGE CHALLENGE Semi-Finals with 3-minute pitches from 50 startups. The selected teams presented their ideas to the Jury competing for the Grand Prize of €10,000 from Flint Capital.

Startup activities didn't stop here. Startup Alley welcomed 127 startup teams from 20 countries. Bigger companies also joining the exhibition area. Check out Gismart and Apalon at their lounges to discover their winning apps with millions of users. Take a fun picture at Gurtam's stand and a serious one for your LinkedIn profile at Splento's photo studio. Go on with career advancement by visiting Tech Jobs Corner by EP Advisory nearby and learn about the future of work at Workfusion area.

The first day at EMERGE has had a lot to offer. And for those who feel overwhelmed already - head to the Meditation Zone powered by the creators of BetterMe app Genesis Media and restore your level of energy.


See you tomorrow!