Daire Hickey is a co-founder of Web Summit, Europe’s largest tech startup event, which attracts everyone from the heads of fortune 500 companies to the founders of shining new startups to its worldwide events. Daire has been instrumental in building the Web Summit’s relationship with the media and has also worked with many of Web Summit’s key partners including Facebook, Google and NASDAQ, as well as helping to produce much of Web Summit’s editorial content over the past few years.

Previously Daire was a freelance journalist having written for The Irish Mail on Sunday, Irish Daily Mail, The Irish Independent, and TheJournal.ie. He also worked at RTÉ.

Daire is a graduate of Economics from the University of Dublin, Trinity College and is also a World Economic Forum Young Global Shaper. Daire is also affiliated with New York Digital Irish.

Born in Cork, with a family tradition of service in the Navy, his maternal grandfather was in the Irish Navy while his paternal Grandfather served in the British Navy. His cousin is the first woman in the Irish Navy.