Europe is hosting an internet technology conference that has brought together some of the brightest and most influential figures in the industry.Called Web 3, the event is taking place just outside Paris and has attracted more than 2,000 companies and technology enthusiasts.
According to its organiser, blogger and businessman Loic LeMeur, the conference is "about making Paris and Europe the centre of the web world for two days", the BBC reports.
"[It] is about the people here, making connections, taking their ideas and turning them into reality," he added.
Whereas the first two conferences of this type in Europe only attracted a small circle of specialists, this week's event has much grander aspirations.
According to Mr LeMeur, this conference is a "strong annual reminder" that Europe is just as heavily involved as the US in the generation of new ideas on the internet.
Indeed, Dopplr, a social network for business travellers, is a European company with impressive expectations.
Chief technology officer at the firm Matt Biddulph stated that, with investors from Japan, America, Spain and the UK, and an operational base in Finland, Europe was the only location where the network could survive.
He stated: "There are too many distractions in Silicon Valley, and with a relatively small pool of developer talent, ideas and thinking is starting to become homogenous."
Organised by Six Apart in collaboration with Orange, Web 3 has partners including Google, Nokia, Techcrunch and Microsoft.
