Paddy Cosgrave resigned from the leadership of the Web Summit on October 21, 2023 - exactly two weeks after the start of a new conflict between Israel and Hamas.

At the time, Cosgrave criticized Israel's stance in the war, which led to criticism from several world leaders and Israel's boycott of the event.

Israelitas boicotam Web Summit após serem acusados de “crimes de guerra” pelo fundador
Israel cancelou a sua participação na Web Summit em Lisboa, na sequência das declarações do seu cofundador, o irlandês Paddy Cosgrave, onde acusou os israelitas de cometerem “crimes de guerra” na sua luta contra o Hamas. O embaixador de Israel em Portugal, Dor Shapira, revelou hoje que informou o presidente da Câmara de Lisboa, Carlos Moedas, de que o seu país irá falhar uma das maiores conferências tecnológicas do mundo devido às “declarações ultrajantes” de Cosgrave. “Dezenas de empresas já cancelaram a sua participação nesta conferência e encorajamos outras a fazê-lo”, realçou o diplomata, numa nota na rede social X
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The founder of the Web Summit is said to have shocked some by saying that "war crimes are war crimes, even when committed by allies, and should be denounced for what they are".

All this unrest at one of the world's biggest technology events culminated in Cosgrave's resignation.

American Katherine Maher was appointed as the new CEO of the Web Summit, leading the event that took place from November 13 to 16 in Lisbon.

Web Summit tem nova CEO - que terá de ter muito cuidado com o que diz
A antiga diretora da Wikimedia Foundation Katherine Maher é a nova CEO da Web Summit, sucedendo a Paddy Cosgrave, que se demitiu da liderança, a 21 de outubro, após tecer considerações sobre a Guerra em Israel. A nova Diretora Executiva foi anunciada, esta segunda-feira, pelo Conselho de Administração. Depois de Paddy Cosgrave se ter demitido, na sequência de afirmações que fez sobre o atual conflito armado em Israel, a norte-americana Katherine Maher é a nova CEO (Diretora Executiva) da Web Summit. O anúncio da nova presidente foi feito na página da Internet da cimeira tecnológica. A norte-americana Katherine Maher liderou
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But Cosgrave's "time off" was short-lived. Katherine Maher announced last month that she was going to head up US public radio, NPR, and the Irish entrepreneur is once again taking over the reins of the technology summit.

"I'm back as CEO of the Web Summit. When I stepped away last year, it was the first time I'd taken time off in 15 years. It gave me time to think about the Web Summit, its history, why I started it alone from my bedroom and what I wanted it to be," he announced this Monday in a post on the social network X/Twitter.

"I took the time to reconnect with old Web Summit friends and listen to what they had to say and what they wanted from Web Summit. (...) If there's anything I want to do, it's to further this mission to build even stronger communities within Web Summit. (...) I'm incredibly excited about the future and have so much more to share," he added.

This expected return was announced a week before the start of the Web Summit in Rio de Janeiro, which will take place between April 15 and 18.

The Web Summit was founded in 2009 and ran in Dublin until 2016, when it moved to Lisbon, where last year it welcomed more than 71,000 people from 160 countries.