Lisbon is betting that hosting the Web Summit, Europe’s largest tech event, will spur the growth of startups and draw foreign investors, helping it compete with the continent’s main innovation hubs.
Portugal, struggling with a high debt and low growth, requested a three-year €78 billion international bailout in 2011 that imposed higher taxes and steep spending cuts.
While the crisis hammered the economy, depriving it of state funding and easy bank loans, it also drove change, pushing people to come up with new ideas for businesses – many of them tech startups.
