Howlett Speaks At Web Summit

Former captain and current Munster Rugby Corporate Ambassador Doug Howlett this afternoon spoke at the 2015 Web Summit in Dublin’s RDS.

Over the past 4 years the Web Summit has become of the the world's leading technology conferences and this year will attract over 22,000 attendees from more than 110 countries. The Summit also boasts an impressive panel of speakers from wide and varied backgrounds – from Fortune 500 companies, to exciting start ups, a number of leading sporting organisations and much more.

Preceding Howlett on the Sport stage was former Ajax and Manchester United goal keeper and current Chief Marketing Officer at Ajax, Edwin van der Sar who spoke about marketing the Dutch giants, while Howlett was joined by Galway Allstar hurler, Joe Canning, in talking about technology in sport and franchise players.

Heading into his third year as Corporate Ambassador for the province, Howlett, who remains the leading All Blacks try scorer of all time spoke after the event.

"It was an honour to be speaking at this year’s summit and to have done so alongside Joe, an exceptional athlete in his own field. It was funny exchanging e-mails with him in recent weeks. He managed to get to the World Cup final last weekend whereas I was in Cork trick or treating with my kids! We can learn a lot from each other’s sports, there are a lot of similarities.

"The Web Summit is the biggest thing going on in Europe this week and it’s happening in our back yard. It’s great to be a part of it and as the guys are doing the business on the pitch at the moment, my work is off the pitch and seeing how we can help the club behind the scenes and events like this are very helpful in helping us do that."

"On the stage we looked at technology in sport – from wearable technology to player monitoring and recovery. It's amazing how far technology has come, it's everywhere, you can’t hide from it. When I first started you could pretty much eat anything and write down on the piece of paper what the coaches wanted to hear – not anymore and that makes for constant improvements.

"We also discussed the question of franchise players which is more of an American term. A good example might be someone like Paul O’Connell who was iconic for us for a long time. That brings a lot of interest to the team and not just for sponsors and fans, but also for other players and management wanting to play and work alongside him."

The Web Summit runs at Dublin's RDS, Ballsbridge until Thursday November 5th.