Media Evolution

Fredrika Inger – Play

Play is crucial for a person’s development when it comes to language, problem solving and social interaction (just to name a few examples). Play is also a tool for unleashing creativity and innovation, while at the same time having the perk of being a universal language. But… what is play, really? According to Fredrika Inger, Global Business Area Manager at Children’s IKEA, play is deeply personal. Play has to be spontaneous. Not serious, not obligated. We play to repair, connect, escape, ex...

Magnus Göransson – Play

"Kids don’t the see the divide between the physical and digital play – but parents do." The digital world is a new addition to the already wide repertoire of a child’s play landscape, according to Magnus Göransson. During his talk, he speaks about the “fluidity” of kids constant switching between the physical and digital, as well as letting us in on some Lego pilot projects that are dealing with Augmented Reality technology. This, moving forward, will lead to a natural match between “the re...

Alexander Silva Lopera – The Brain and How to Build our Future Identities

“Your brain is modeling reality in real time.” How do virtual brains and virtual reality affect the way we think, what we do and who we are? Alexander Silva Lopera, a psychologist that specializes in neuroscience at Neurons Inc, guides us through the world of virtual reality and how our brains react to different virtual environments. Our brains are modelling reality in real time and can also create new realities. Virtual reality technology lets us be anyone at any time, unlike any other t...

Galit Ariel – The Brain and How to Build our Future Identities

“We believe what we experience first, and we question or check the facts later.” Our identities are fluent, fragmented and influenced by different processes and influences. They are very much connected to our sense of reality. But then what is 'reality', really? Our reality is the stage on which the 'story' of our lives is played. Typically, we are the main characters, and other people are either participators or spectators. As emerging technologies such as AR get embedded into our every...

Jëlly – "Vi har gjort en ocean"

HUB & Christine Owman – "From Dusk"

Victoria Percovich Gutierrez & Åsa Bjerndell – All we have is time

"When eternity is your deadline – what values will end up in the center?" Victoria Percovich Gutierrez, sustainability strategist with an MBA, and Åsa Bjerndell, lead architect and development manager, are part of the team at White Arkitekter that is working with "Råängen", a unique urban development project in the city of Lund, and its client Lund's Cathedral. At The Conference, Victoria and Åsa talked about how Råängen is challenging both the traditional values of architecture, urban de...

Dr. Lynn Rothschild – Designing Nature

“We have been designing nature for tens of thousands of years and more.” Charles Darwin said that "biological evolution creates design without a designer”. But what if we could design life somewhere else? With synthetic biology we can, in a way, reprogram life. Just as travel abroad permits new insights into home, so too does the search for life elsewhere allow a more mature scientific, philosophical and ethical perception of life on Earth. We have to learn to live after the land we live i...

Tendayi Viki – Innovation is for Everyone

“Business plans serve to crush your dreams.” In this talk, Tendayi Viki explores how corporate leaders can go beyond creating physical spaces and innovation labs in order to provide real space for everyone within the organisation to innovate. He presents innovation as someone giving you a bag with pieces of a puzzle, but without a picture of what the puzzle actually looks like. He also talks about the importance of providing people with tool boxes and coaches to create innovation, because i...

Charlotta Ahlberg – Innovation is for Everyone

"Creativity is not innovation, creativity is a skill." Drawing from her knowledge and experiences from the innovation departments in large corporate environments, Charlotta talks about how you can take advantage of the enormous strengths and collective brainpower in a global enterprise. For this, she explains how she came to the conclusion that the 6 Ts (two, thirst, thoughts, trust, truce, tenacity) are the real building blocks of success.

Kenjiro Kirton – Innovation is for Everyone

“Play is the original form of co-creation.” Being an expert in the noble art of working together with others, Kenjiro Kirton explains how and why co-creation is fundamental for innovation and creativity. He also speaks about the importance of providing people with tools that can challenge how and where innovation can happen.

Simone Rebaudengo – What Is Real?

“Some things are too fucking good to be real.” Product and interaction designer Simone Rebaudengo tries to bend this idea of fiction and reality through his own projects and products by looking at everyday objects. He plays with the idea of redefining the value of ‘fake’ objects and what the result of that can tell us about the future. Questions such as whether the ‘fake’ objects actually might be better than the real ones or not, and will objects actually be objective in the future? What h...

James Bridle – What Is Real?

“There’s a concrete and causal relationship between the public understanding of technology and the stability and inequality of democracy in societies that goes on top of it.”

Linda Liukas – Electricity That Loves

“Code is the new lingua franca.” Linda Liukas, author of the popular “Hello Ruby” book series, started writing because she thought storytelling was missing from computer science education. Although coding is an overarching theme in the books, her writing is not exclusively about coding. Linda has a great admiration for famous educators like Piaget, and she has a mission to prepare kids for a world where so many of the problems that they encounter are computer-related. She points out that c...

Indy Johar – The Need for a Boring Revolution

"When we create a precarious society, fear becomes a very powerful political device." In order to build, create and maintain a sustainable future, we need to start a boring revolution. Believing that talking only about the cool parts of science (like AI, new technology and robots) is not going to help us form this revolution. We need to go back to basics. We need to go over things like bureaucracy, governance och the principles of democracy to create trust. Without this trust simple things...

The Conference 2017

Chris Grantham - Circular Creativity

"The economy is designed. We designed it. And we designed it to do a specific thing." Circular economy is a mindset, and the economy is designed. Those are some of Chris Grantham’s ideas put forth in his talk. He tackles how we can move from a linear economy to a circular one – from the astronomical costs of plastic, food waste and cars, to a better everyday. The economy can serve us more equitably, if we are able to fundamentally rethink how it should be designed.

Muneeb Ali - Trust in a post-truth world

"The future of Internet is decentralized." In this his session, Muneeb Ali, founder of Blockstack, focus on issues that stems from when a few set of companies has conquered our digital lives. The inevitable consequence of this is that we blindly have to trust companies at which the platforms and services our communication is taking place at. To put it more frankly and dramatic; the internet is owned, the platforms are our prisons and with that our digital freedom is a distant faded memory....

Nathaniel Raymond - The New Normal

"Innovation is not just a moment that can come from crisis; crisis can come from innovation." After disruption comes absorption, and that is how something new becomes normal. Nathaniel Raymond, the founding Director of the Signal Program on Human Security and Technology at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, takes us through historical moments of innovation to show how crisis can cause innovation, but also how innovation can cause crisis - something that can lead to new political, moral an...

Music & Code + Machine learning for creatives - Q&A

Q&A with Alexander Chen (Google Creative Lab), Kate Sicchio and Gene Kogan.  Moderator: Johanna Koljonen

Kate Sicchio - Music & code

Inclusive Artificial Intelligence - Q&A

Q&A with Dr Rand Hindi (Snips), Sebastian Schmieg and Stephanie Dinkins (Stony Brook University) Moderator: Johanna Koljonen

Gene Kogan - Machine Learning For Creatives

"You can’t formally define creativity." The scientific fields aren’t the only ones rapidly getting used to the thought of applying AI within their practices. Artist and Programmer Gene Kogan talks about how you as a professional within fields of technology, culture, and art, can apply machine learning in your work. Whether it is generating 3-d models, images, music, text, or video; machine learning and artificial intelligence can make it possible.

Q&A - The New Normal

Q&A with Jamie Bartlett (Demos), Amy Whitaker (New York University), and Nathaniel Raymond (Harvard Humanitarian Initiative).  Moderator: Johanna Koljonen

Alexander Chen - Music & Code

"What does music look like?" In this visual and musical presentation, Google’s Alexander Chen explores how music and code is interconnected. By experimenting with music, he shows us how music is math, and that we can understand music in new ways by taking it apart. By combining music and code, we can think about music and creativity in a different way.

Leyla Acaroglu - Disrupting Status Quo by Design

"Nature is the best teacher. Everything in nature is feeding into itself." Everything is interconnected in this world. In order to encourage sustainable development as a designer, you need to think like an ecosystem. According to Dr Leyla Acaroglu, Director of the Un-School of Disruptive Design, creating a sustainable economy is only possible if we move beyond the linear systems that ultimately leave us with waste products. The solution to this? Thinking in circularity.

Dr Rand Hindi - How not to lose your job to AI

"Half of the jobs in the future will be the combination of a human and a machine working together." When Rand Hindi’s dad lost his job as a trader to a machine, something dawned on him. He was working to automate the jobs that his father was doing. He realized that we can find ways to coexist with AI, instead of it devouring our jobs. In his talk, Rand Hindi puts forth a 4-step test if your job is at risk, and concludes that it all comes down to adaptive learning and working together with ...

Stephanie Dinkins - Inclusive Artificial Intelligence

"When you train algorithms on limited data, what you get is holes in the results." We are at the start of an epoch that will change everything, Stephanie Dinkins says about AI. But does the robots that we create represent everyone? In order to avoid problematic machine bias, she asks us developers to bring different people to the table. Developers shouldn’t be afraid to rock the boat and encourage a little discomfort in the workplace. AI should foster inclusivity, transparency and diversio...

Vesselin Popov - Un-understanding Identity

"We create identies for our self everytime we take out our phone and do something." Know your digital self as well as organisations and governments do. If you’re not prepared to go through that effort, you should probably go live in the woods. Vesselin Popov, Business Development Director for the University of Cambridge Psychometrics Centre, talks about the ongoing battle about freedom and privacy online. New ways of harvesting our digital profiles can take advantage of our vulnerabilities...

Un-Understanding Identity - Q&A

Q&A with Mari Magnus (NRK), Vesselin Popov (University of Cambridge Psychometrics Centre) and Yousef Tuqan (Jumeirah Group). Moderator: Johanna Koljonen

Mari Magnus - Un-understanding Identity

"Sitting down and really listen to your target group will give you what you need to create a concept on their premises." It is always a challenge for producers to mirror a culture that they themselves aren’t a part of. Mari Magnus, Web Producer of NRK's web drama series SKAM, explains how and why your target group will give you everything you need to create a meaningful experience if you actually listen to them. Believe it or not - it is possible to compromise with your target group while ...

Yousef Tuqan - Un-understanding Identity

"We need the best of us to stand up against the worst of us." In the midst of political and social turbulence, the Arab youth are speaking up against patriarchal traditions, breaking boundaries of expression, and reshaping their identities. Yousef Tuqan, Group VP of Jumeirah Group, explores the ways that the Arab digital generation is going to change the world. Traditional and modern values are constantly colliding and changing; it is a generation that is simultaneously lost, confused, an...

Circular Creativity - Q&A

Q&A with Chris Grantham (IDEO), Ingrid Zeegers (Circular Friesland) and May Al-Karooni (Globechain.com). Moderator: Johanna Koljonen

May Al-Karooni - Circular Creativity

"Why do we not measure the value of redesign?" It was when May Al-Karooni worked in an investment bank that was about to move, that she realized that big companies have a lot of waste. That was the start of Globechain. By digitalizing waste and turning it into a reuse marketplace, May Al-Karooni has created meaning out of what someone thought was waste – changing companies’ behavior and helping communities. The end of an object’s life may just be the beginning of it.

Ingrid Zeegers - Circular Creativity

"Circular economy is a common sense economy." Circular economy is a common sense economy, Ingrid Zeegers argues. In her talk, she shows us how we can move from waste to asset and move towards the goal of eliminating the concept of waste as we know it. As a part of the project Circular Friesland, working with sustainability in the province of Friesland in the Netherlands, Ingrid Zeegers shows us the key takeaways from the ambitious project.

Swim - Lying to you

From The Conference 2017.

Bobina Bombast - Live Virtual Reality

Hater - Blushing

From The Conference 2017.

Saskia Sassen - Owning The City

"The stronger the light and the stronger explanation, the lesser you can see around it and whats happening." Sociology Professor Saskia Sassen of Colombia University talks about how complex systems transforms society radically, but rather invisible by shifting capacities over time. Saskia focus on finance, the underlying steam engine that defines our epoch. She claims that the ownership of the city got trapped in real estate deals and concentrated power and wealth, which led to symptoms su...

Erin Malone - Taking On: Rapid Urbanization

"It was easier for me to get to China than to get back to my hometown." Urbanization is not just a geographical migration, it is also a cultural one. Erin Malone, Communications Director at Forward Together & Hometown Connect, is one of the millions of people in the US who has fled their rural birthplace in order to pursue a career in a bigger city. In her talk, she explains how our political and social reality is jeopardized when small towns are left in decline, and offers solutions that ...

Taking On: Rapid Urbanization - Q&A

Q&A with Erin Malone (Forward Together & Hometown Connect) and Nina Rappaport (Vertical Urban Factory) Moderator: Johanna Koljonen

Nina Rappaport - Taking On: Rapid Urbanization

"How do you make a factory as a part of the streetscape?" The outsourcing of industries from the western world is still one of the leading trends in manufacturing today. This has resulted in cities with no spaces left for large-scale manufacturing to return to. Nina Rappaport, Director of think tank Vertical Urban Factory, proves that there are new ways to sustainably host manufacturing in modern architectural structures.

Jenny Odell - How to do nothing

"Doing nothing is not a luxury, it’s a ground for meaningful thoughts." Digital artist and collector Jenny Odell talks about how work life shifted from an 8 hour workday into an always on approach. In this opening keynote, visual artist Jenny Odell will explore the architecture, politics, and rewards of nothing, arguing that the cultivation of nothing has new salience in the age of everything. She wants us to reclaim the public spaces such as parks and libraries for personal reflection an...

Truth In a Post-Truth World - Q&A

Q&A with Caroline Jack (Data & Society), Muneeb Ali (Blockstack), and Amy Adele Hasinoff (University of Colorado). Moderator: Johanna Koljonen