Earlier this month, Paris was the backdrop to one of the largest tech extravaganzas this side of the Atlantic. An event to rival Salesforce’s epic conference Dreamforce, Viva Technology Paris was host to some 5,000 startups and an estimated 30,000 visitors from June 30th to July 2nd.
Peddling everything from immersive VR experiences to 3D printed jewelry and robotic shop assistants, ambitious entrepreneurs came from all over France for the chance to pitch their solutions to investors and clients and bear witness to a historic agreement between two global giants.
Tencent and Publicis Groupe took advantage of the Viva Tech stage to announce a strategic partnership whereby, according to a Publicis press release, “Tencent will offer Publicis Groupe access to its vast and rich online behavioral data, benefiting clients through improved programmatic offerings, cross-screen planning capabilities and conversion performance.”
This historic coming together of these global giants heralds a new era of information sharing and innovation at an international level.
The event was co-organized by Publicis and Les Echos to confront some of the major challenges facing each sector of the economy via innovation. France’s largest companies got in on the action as well, displaying their latest innovations and inviting startups to participate in exciting challenges designed to disrupt their respective industries.
The Krug connected bottle was another highlight, allowing consumers to scan a code to discover the history of each bottle. When Olivier Krug took the stage to present this latest innovation, he said quite simply “digital saved us.”
Technology provides brands a means to transmit hundreds of years of history to clients on the other side of the globe and to tell a meaningful story to a new generation of digital-native consumers. This transmission will no doubt be facilitated by the groundbreaking Tencent—Publicis alliance.
Viva Tech highlights included Pepper the Event Robot, which could interact with customers thanks to facial recognition technology, Project Jacquard, a Google innovation project which weaves technology into fabric to create connected clothing, Seabubble, an eco-friendly water transport designed to take advantage of the un-crowded waterways, and Dreem, a wearable device which syncs with your brain and stimulates sound to improve sleep quality.
This article was sponsored by Curiosity China.