From 3rd to 5th of July, Paolo Raineri attended to Pirate Summit in Cologne (Germany). The Pirate Summit is a very informal but well recognized event in which develop  a real network between innovators, vendors and start-ups.

In fact, during these three days Paolo developed lot of conversations around BI and data visualization. He collected opinions and real experiences of a wide range of professionals, otherwise difficult to gather together around the same table. The casual environment allowed interlocutors to reveal their real feelings and mindset about a very wide range of innovation topics.

On Thursday 5th, Paolo also hosted the campfire over open source and data-driven themes (campfires are a pirate summit mix between a round table and a workshop). The initial question was “How big is the data-driven “mindset gap” of the European companies?“. Participants agreed that Europe is still in the stage in which advisors, vendors and system integrators must tell to customers the value of data and give them evidence about it. There’s a need to push for a fast change of this mindset to be able to keep growing the innovation process. BI and data visualization seem to be great levers to stimulate customers and SMEs interest on innovation. Open source is recognized as the perfect partner for the next innovations, because it enables people to benefit from large communities. Paolo rewarded with a skull necklace the most active participant of the campfire to thank her for the involvement.

The legacy of this event is well summarized by organizers statement during the Wednesday evening burning-man party:

“Give Give Give Ask is not only a principle. It‘s a superpower!”

As open source supporters, we strongly agree.

Read Paolo’s article about his Pirate Summit experience on Linkedin.