TALK. Ingrid Burrington (US), Writer and Author of Networks of New York took the Circle Stage at Techfestival 2018 to deliver an eye-opening keynote on the true costs of technology infrastructures. The digital technologies that we constantly use are enabled by complex and huge installations of wires, cables and other material ‘stuff’ in the real world. Yet, most people don’t see these infrastructures in their daily lives and tend to forget that they exist. Instead they talk about their data being stored on “the cloud”, without realizing that actually it is stored on a physical server somewhere, using a lot…

TALK. Bruce Sterling (US) is an author, journalist, sci-fi writer, editor and critic. He is a renowned keynote speaker at South by Southwest (SXSW), which is why we were absolutely psyched to have him deliver the closing keynote at Techfestival 2018. …

TALK. In this keynote talk from Techfestival 2018 Angela Oguntala (US/DK) Director at Futures Consultancy Greyspace helps us uncover how to think about trends shaping the future, without feeling determined by them. In this talk Oguntala reminds us that it is always possible to move upstream, create counter-trends and find new pathways in our businesses, organisations and lives— even if it means moving in a different direction than the one everyone else seems to be going in. Watch the full keynote here to catch up on what Oguntala had to say about how we can challenge our futures thinking.

“Along…

TALK. “Post-truth is what happens when our ability to trust reality breaks down” — thus says Matt Webb (UK) Technologist and Investor with R/GA Ventures at Techfestival 2018, where he delivered an insightful keynote on the technological trends and drivers giving shape to the post-truth society. Watch his full keynote talk here to learn what Webb had to say about i.e. facial synthesis technology and voice synthesis software that manipulates the facial and audio expressions on videos, enabling users to make videos that make it look like anyone you want is saying whatever you want them to say, even though…

TALK. Ever wonder what goes on behind closed doors of NASA, or what will be the next most groundbreaking technology to be used in space exploration? It might come as a surprise that the answer might in fact be found in biology. At Techfestival 2018 Lynn Rothschild (US) Synthetic Biologist & Astrobiologist at NASA’s Ames Research Center gave a thought-provoking keynote talk on her pioneering work in turning biology into technology and using it to enable space exploration and growing things in space . Watch the full keynote talk here, where Rothschild presents her research within astrobiology, synthetic biology and…

TALK. In this keynote talk at Techfestival, Claire L. Evans (US), Musician, Sci-Fi Editor and Author of Broad Band took us on a journey into the feminist history of the Web. In her two years of research, she not only found a “sweet lineage of tech mothers and grandmothers for all of us to admire”, but also again and again stumbled upon the seeds of a different future in the form of a technology or an approach to technology, pioneered by the early women of the Web, that would have made the world of today look completely different, had they…

TALK. We were absolutely thrilled to to have Dr. Lisa Mosconi (US) Neuroscientist & Author of Brain Food join our series of keynote speakers at this year’s Techfestival. And when she took the Circle Stage in front of a packed crowd, she blew everyone’s mind with a spectacular talk on the future challenge of the Alzheimer’s Epidemic. In a time of an ageing population, the world will see the exponential spread of Alzheimer’s and other dementia brain diseases. Adding to that, recent advancements in technology has allowed scientists to reveal that a typical Western diet makes the brain age faster…

TALK. At Techfestival 2018 James Bridle (UK), Artist & Author of New Dark Age, gave a keynote talk on the historical and cultural paradigm shift that took place in the 20th century, when we started to believe that by calculating the world, we can predict and control it: When thinking through computers became the way we run the world. Watch the full keynote talk below to hear Bridle challenging our ingrained belief that given any problem, we can simply throw more technology at it to solve it.

“Here’s the thing: Our ability to predict the weather is getting worse. Our…