MozFest 2017: Good Night and Good Luck

Three nights. Two days. 402 sessions. 19 speakers. Five artists. Over 40 countries across four continents represented.

Put all these numbers together and you’ll have the explosive, inventive MozFest 2017. We laughed, we danced, we karate-chopped mannequins. We painted, we invented, we saw our own brainwaves. Most importantly, we questioned.

We discussed safety, inclusion, empowerment, and recognition, both online and offline. Blurring that distinction between virtual and reality led to conversations and stories that transcend the typical tech discussion to include anthropology, linguistics, visual arts, sociology, statistics, human rights, and public policy. Every conversation was interdisciplinary.

The Science Fair on Friday night set the mood for the festival. There were prosthetic hands, electronic dresses, 3D printed cave paintings, a Raspberry Pi DJ booth, and finger food atop a lit-up forest display. Some tables previewed sessions that were scheduled for Saturday or Sunday while other local technologists were invited for the evening to share their projects.

The festival on Saturday started with a boom — literally. After a rousing introduction with a drum performance and fierce fox growls, participants began filling the nine floors of Ravensbourne. Saturday’s sessions covered cryptocurrency, virtual reality, digital colonialism, the Internet of Things, assisted tech for people with disabilities, neurohacking, identifying and combatting misinformation, digital activism, chatbots, Tor, Internet shutdowns, learning Python, applications and implications of open source, data mapping, and more.

The MozFest party Saturday night continued the celebration of creativity and technology, with iPad caricatures and live music that set us dancing (as if our feet weren’t sore enough already). Participants relaxed in the many rooms of the RSA and furthered the connections and conversations from the afternoon.

Attendees eased into Sunday’s MozFest with a networking breakfast, fueling themselves for an afternoon packed with knowledge and hope for the digital future. Delving deeper into the critical questions posed the day before, participants expanded their conversations to include strengthening skillsets for military veterans, the future of online dating, cyberbullying, freedom of expression around the world, emoji interpretations, and using games to identify abuse.

Our second Dialogues & Debates speaker series explored the lack of diversity in the tech industry and in online content, the looming privatization of the web, combating online harassment, and government responses to digital activism. Moderator Sarah Marshall navigated complex topics with storytelling, anecdotes, provocative statistics, and encouragement for audience participation.

MozFest 2017 ignited conversations about Internet health and the future of our digital society. We can’t wait to see how participants carry these ideas forward. MozFest is just the beginning — let the festival discussions ruminate, keep in touch with fellow attendees, and bring back the ideas in a new form to MozFest 2018.

Check out the festival photos and stay tuned for further ways to participate and continue the good work.

Thank you to our incredible hosts at Ravensbourne, the MozFest volunteers, and our generous sponsors for making MozFest 2017 such a success. And of course, the festival wouldn’t be what it is without our attendees, who come with an open mind, ready to work in the open to support an open web.