Web Summit Rio, Latin American franchise of global tech and innovation, wrapped up Wednesday in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, breaking attendance records for the third consecutive year.
The event brought together thousands of attendees looking to connect, learn and stay ahead with the latest digital technology advances and innovations since its launch in 2023.
This year's four-day edition brought a record of nearly 35,000 attendees from over 100 countries and regions, along with about 1,400 startups and over 600 investors.
Artur Pereira, the summit's manager, credits the jump in attendance to the 106 million U.S. dollars in investment for the top 40 startups raised in 2024, about 2.3 million dollars each.
“Startups know that [if] they want to get funded, [if] they want to do business, [if] they want to meet the biggest tech companies in the world, they [need to] come to Web Summit,” Pereira said.
Embraer, a global aerospace company headquartered in Brazil and one of the summit's main exhibitors and investors, held what it called a "startup marathon" in its search for partnerships. With a strong global market presence in commercial, executive, and defense aviation, the company also used the event to highlight how innovation remains central to its growth strategy.
"If we don't apply Artificial Intelligence, if we don't apply new technology to our products, if we don't offer these things to clients who are seeking certain profit margins, we lose our competitivity. So, innovation is not a choice. It is a necessity, and it has always been that way with Embraer,” said Leonardo Garnica, head of corporate innovation of Embraer.
While serious networking and deal-making were the main focus of the summit, there were also lighter sides to the event, for example, a digital rainforest experience, or stepping on the gas in a virtual 3D formula-one driver experience offered by racing giant McLaren.
The event has been extended in the same venue for another five years, until 2030.
Web Summit Rio concludes with record-high attendence
A video featuring a former member of Unit 731, a notorious Japanese germ-warfare unit during World War II (WWII), was released on Thursday in northeast China's Harbin, revealing details of how the unit used meteorological data to conduct horrific bacterial experiments on human beings.
The video was released by the Exhibition Hall of Evidence of Crimes Committed by Unit 731 of the Japanese Imperial Army, in which former Unit 731 member Tsuruo Nishijima detailed how the unit used meteorological data to carry out a bacterial dispersal experiment.
The video was recorded in 1997 by Japanese scholar Fuyuko Nishisato and donated to the exhibition hall in 2019, according to the hall, which was built on the former site of the headquarters of Unit 731 in Harbin, the capital city of Heilongjiang Province.
Jin Shicheng, director of the Department of Publicity, Education and Exhibition of the exhibition hall, said that Nishijima joined Unit 731 in October 1938 and served in the unit's meteorological squad. The squad was not a simple observation section but rather an auxiliary force supporting the unit's field human experiments by measuring wind direction, wind speed, and other conditions to ensure optimal experimental results, according to Jin.
Nishijima confirmed in the footage that "the meteorological squad had to be present at every field experiment." He testified to the "rainfall experiments" conducted by Unit 731, which involved aircraft releasing bacterial agents at extremely low altitudes.
At a field-testing site in Anda City, Heilongjiang, Unit 731 aircraft descended to about 50 meters above the ground. They sprayed bacterial culture liquids onto "maruta" -- human test subjects -- who were tied to wooden stakes. Each experiment involved about 30 people, spaced roughly 5 meters apart. After the experiments, the victims were loaded into sealed trucks and transported back to the unit, where their symptoms and disease progression were recorded over a period of several days.
"Unit 731's bacterial weapons were dropped by aircraft from a height of 50 meters in the open air. Therefore, the meteorological squad needed to observe wind direction and speed, which directly affected the precision and accuracy of the bacterial weapons deployment," said Jin.
Nishijima recounted the harrowing experience of the human test subjects.
"They were fully aware that inhaling the substances would certainly lead to death, so they closed their eyes and held their breath to avoid breathing them in. Their resistance prevented the experiment from proceeding. To compel them to comply, they were forced at gunpoint to open their mouths and lift their heads," said Nishijima.
These experiments, disguised as "scientific research," were in fact systematic tests of biological warfare weapons conducted by the Japanese military. The data generated from these inhumane activities became "research findings" shared among the Japanese army medical school, the medical community, and the military at large.
"At that time, the entire Japanese medical community tacitly approved, encouraged, and even participated in the criminal acts of Unit 731. The unit comprised members from Japan's medical and academic sectors who served the Japanese war of aggression against China. Thus, Unit 731 was not just a military unit but represented an organized and systematic criminal enterprise operating from the top down," said Jin.
Unit 731 was a top-secret biological and chemical warfare research base established in Harbin as the nerve center for Japanese biological warfare in China and Southeast Asia during WWII.
At least 3,000 people were used for human experiments by Unit 731, and Japan's biological weapons killed more than 300,000 people in China.
Video offers details of Japan's germ-warfare crimes in northeast China
