#rpTEN – Reflecting the Digital Society
TEN is NET. It was a bash. We hope you have learned so much new things, met old friends and were inspired from our flashback as well as our outlook at re:publica TEN.
First the facts. More than 8,000 participants from over 60 countries passed through the gates of STATION Berlin. That marks yet another record number for the conference. On a total of 17 stages, with around 770 speakers and 46 percent female participation, the programme covered a range of topics from net politics, hate speech, the future of music, immersive arts, education, virtual reality and many other topics relevant to the digital society. The programme spanned around 500 sessions, 220 of them in English.
Some of the highlights of the 10th re:publica included keynote speeches by law professor Eben Moglen and researcher Mishi Choudhary, science-comic hero Randall Munroe aka xkcd, creative scientist Kate Stone, German federal judge Thomas Fischer, Big Data scientist Kate Crawford, as well as Heather Armstrong, who talked about addressing hate speech on the internet.
Virtual Reality, Immersive Arts & Co. – the re:publica programme was broad and colourful!
This year, we implemented the “labore:tory” for the very first time. Each day we featured a different thematic focus. Monday's Musicday focused on the future of music and music consumption. Among others, Florian Sebald (Die Pfadfinderei), Mate Steinforth (Sehnsucht) and Patrik de Jong (Artificial Rome) discussed the potentials and boundaries of virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) in experiencing music.
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Closing & karaoke!![/caption]Tuesday was dedicated to Immersive Arts, where you were able to dive straight into the works of art through VR. Immersive Arts brought together actors from theatre, film and technology.
At Day 3 we featured the fifth #FASHIONTECH Berlin at the labore:tory. From e-commerce to virtual reality as a fashion accessory to sustainable design in the fashion industry, #FASHIONTECH examined various topic. The “Empathic Technology” session by Fotini Markopoulou generated a lot of discussion on whether humans even need technology in order to change affect their emotion state. That cries for a follow-up: The next #FASHIONTECH will already take place on 29 June alongside PREMIUM.
The MEDIA CONVENTION Berlin brought together high-level speakers on three stages from 2 – 3 May. Speakers included law professor Barbara van Schewick, EU digital comissioner Günther Oettinger, Twitter's Vice President of Media in Europe and Africa Mark Little, journalist Carline Mohr, digital philosopher Luciano Floridi, who talked with Edward Snowden via live-connection, and many more.
As in past years, the Global Innovation Gathering (GIG) Makerspace was a hugely popular space with you. The GIG network brings together makers, hackers, innovators and business from across the globe, with a special focus on tech-innovation from Asia, Latin America and Africa. You were able to experiment with 3D printers, build robots from scratch and take place in workshops on programming and building IoT devices.
The very next re:publica – in Dublin!
As we already announced, together with Digital Biscuit, a film and technology festival, re:publica will be represented in Dublin on 20 October 2016. We were fast: You can purchase tickets for the one-day re:publica event, as well as combined tickets for both events, from our online shop for € 87.60 (netto) starting today. Grab your ticket! Let’s go on a digital school trip to Irland.
The next re:publica – in May 2017!
Next year's re:publica in Berlin is scheduled in the week of 8 – 14 May 2017. See you!
Photo credit: re:publica/Jan Michalko (CC BY 2.0)