API Economist:  Congratulations on a successful APIdays San Francisco! You had a great turnout of experts.

Mehdi Medjaoui: Thank you! This was the first time there has been an API conference where all major API vendors contributed their experts as speakers. We had a good mix of experts not only representing start-ups such as Runscope but large companies such as Intel, SAP, and Salesforce. The API economy is vibrant. Every year that passes more APIs are being published and integrated into the apps, websites, and online services we use every day.

API Economist: You founded the first APIdays conference in Europe with events in Paris and Madrid. How did you get inspired?

Mehdi Medjaoui: It all started with our vision at Webshell to help make the glue of APIs that build the programmable web and the Internet operating system. We can make technology the glue but we also need the glue of humans behind the APIs in the real world because ultimately everything is human-powered. That was the inspiration to create an event to gather all of the API influencers and experts together to help advance the API economy.