Taavet Hinrikus from TransferWise and Stripe’s John Collison talk to Bloomberg’s Caroline Hyde during a startup policy event ​“Not Optional — Making Europe the Most Entrepreneurial Continent”

Dominic Jacquesson from Index Ventures moderates a panel with Liz McCarthy, Scale Ireland, Gloria Bauerlein, Deutsche Startups, Pēteris Zilgalvis, DG CONNECT and Andris K. Berzins, Change Ventures

Vojtech Horna from Index Ventures and Miika Huttunen from Slush introduce the Not Optional event, followed by a conversation with Constantijn van Oranje, Special Envoy at Tech​leap​.nl and Neil Rimer, founding partner of Index Ventures.

The data on European startups shows:

💰Combined value European startups up from €155bn to €618bn in 5 years

👩🏽‍💻 2m people now employed in tech startups, up 43% on 2016

John Thornhill from the FT and Sifted speaks with Cédric O about the country’s plans for startups and whether Europe can become the most entrepreneurial continent.

A panel discussion with Marianne Tordeux, France Digitale, Martin Mignot, Index Ventures, Clif Marriott, Goldman Sachs and Gorka Apraiz Tormo, CMU, DG FISMA, European Commission. 

Moderated by Nicolas Colin, The Family

Michael Stothard from Sifted moderates a panel with Jean-David Malo, European Innovation Council, Reshma Sohoni, Seedcamp and Johannes Reck, GetYourGuide

André Azevedo, Secretary of State for Digital Transformation, Portugal is interviewed by Linda Griffin, VP Global Public Policy at King and Co-Founder of European Tech Alliance.

Sarah Syed from Bloomberg moderates a panel with Dr. Jörg Kukies, Federal Ministry of Finance, Germany, Eva Maydell, MEP, Eva Kaili, MEP and Gerard de Graaf, DG CONNECT.

Benedikt Blomeyer-Bartenstein from Allied for Startups talks to Sian Keane, Farfetch.