Techfestival 2018: 150 digital thinkers and practitioners convened from all parts of the world in Copenhagen for an intense 48-hour session on the current state in tech. The result is a set of 150 guiding principles for everyone who shapes technology today, The Copenhagen Catalog, for a new direction for an tech industry that is slowly waking up to its societal challenges.

September 6–8th 2018, the think tank on technology progress ‘The 150’ convened for the second time during Techfestival in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The prelude for this year’s think tank gathering couldn’t have been more dramatic. A numerous series of events have deeply impacted the world of tech over the last 12 months: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg appears in the US Senate to explain the platform’s role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal; the roll-out of European general data protection regulations (GDPR); A year of aftermath of the #metoo movement; Public push-back (identified as #techlash), against big tech companies such as Amazon; Firing of Uber CEO for creating a harmful work environment; EU Commissioner Margrethe Vestager issuing record-high fines to Apple and Google for misuse of market monopolies to mention some of biggest highlights. Independently and collectively sending the same message; Tech as an industry is in public crisis.

From Ghana to Taiwan: Tech think tank of 35+ nationalities

Inaugurated in 2017, the think tank has set out to create a space for development of international, cross-sector guidelines for a tech industry engaging in new standards and ethics these years. This year, a group of 150 professionals from 35+ countries met in Copenhagen during the new international technology initiative, Techfestival. The group includes designers, developers, entrepreneurs, public officials, investors etc such as co-creator of the web Jean-Francoise Groff (Switzerland); former Wired reporter and IDEO’s Editorial director Shoshana Berger (US); data empathy researcher Phil Harvey (UK); co-founder of innovation hub by the Digital Minister of Taiwan, Shu Yang Lin (Taiwan); UNStudio’s Innovation and forecasting strategist, Ren Yee (The Netherlands); the world’s first government-appointed Tech Ambassador Casper Klynge (DEN) and many more.

Posters designed to be signed, printed and shared

Gathered into a single catalog, the principles are both instructions, good advise, provocations, and rules to build tech products, startups and communities by. In content, they send a clear signal of a growing tech community working actively to break with Silicon Valley-monoculture. Each principle is designed as a poster that you can sign, print and share. Their creators describe the principles like this:

“The tech principles are tools. They were made by humans for makers, not what’s made. They are meant to be owned, and are built for engagement, empowerment and regular exercise. They need fresh air and light”

Explore the Copenhagen Catalog now and sign the principles you believe in.

The Copenhagen Catalog is traveling the World for pop-up exhibitions

We are excited to announce that the Copenhagen Catalog will leave Denmark to travel around the world; from Lisbon to San Francisco, Berlin, Hamburg, Oslo, Toronto and beyond. Follow our social media channels to get updates on where the catalog is going next, and come say hi when we are in your city.

Copenhagen Catalog by the CPH150 was originally published in Techfestival 2018 on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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 of power to keep running. Watch the full keynote here, to hear Burrington share her research on the material aspects and true cost of computing.

Ingrid Burrington at Techfestival 2018: The true cost of living with computers

Watch all Techfestival keynotes: Want to check out the rest of Techfestival 2018 keynotes? Find all keynotes here including talks by Tim Leberecht, James Bridle, Kevin Slavin, Indy Johar + many more.

Ingrid Burrington: The Material Aspect and True Cost of Living With Computers was originally published in Techfestival 2018 on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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. Watch the full talk here, to hear Sterling wrap up what we have learned about the current state of tech at this year’s Techfestival, giving us his most quirky, emotional and honest thoughts on what difference the techfestivals of the world can make in bringing together a community, and starting new, much needed conversations on the future role of technology.

Bruce Sterling at Techfestival 2018: "Nobody is technologically going to...

“We don’t really need tech solutions. We don’t want to impose technological policy solutions on people. And nobody is technologically going to solve civilization. So what we need is a cultural sensibility that gives us honesty and authenticity. How can we make sense of the situation we are in, and give it poetic rightness? Until we figure that out we’ll just have to peck away at our keyboards in the attic of our giant puzzle palace. That’s where fate has washed us up. But there are a lot of people like us all around the world now. And we think you have the answer to this. We just haven’t seen it yet”

Watch all Techfestival keynotes: Want to check out the rest of Techfestival 2018 keynotes? Find all keynotes here including talks by Ingrid Burrington, Lisa Mosconi, Matt Webb, Kevin Slavin and many more.

Bruce Sterling: “Nobody is technologically going to solve civilization” was originally published in Techfestival 2018 on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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.

Angela Oguntala at Techfestival 2018: How we think about the future and...

“Along the way we started to forget that technology will always be defined by the people using it. We lost track of that. But we do actually get to define and shape how technologies should influence our lives. And if we are bold enough to imagine what that expanded range of possibilities could be, and if we choose to take action from the understanding that we shape technology, and not the other way around, then that has the powerful potential to carry us all towards a better future”

Watch all Techfestival keynotes: Want to check out the rest of Techfestival 2018 keynotes? Find all keynotes here including talks by Matt Webb, Lisa Mosconi, Angela Oguntala, Bruce Sterling and many more.

Angela Oguntala: On How We Perceive and Respond to Change and Future Trends was originally published in Techfestival 2018 on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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 it did not really happen. Follow Webb on an exploration into what this means and what strategies we can use to cope with the post-truth society.

Matt Webb at Techfestival 2018: Post-truth society and its technological drivers

The reason why we have post-trust is that everyday online we don’t speak the truth. We say “friend”, but really we mean a small square image and a box of text. No real feelings, no pheromones, no consequences. I can say all kinds of nonsense online, and no one will punch me in the face. We wouldn’t be this confused if we started treating people like people, user-accounts as user-accounts and machine — no matter how magical they might seem — as machines. This is the strategy we must use to cope with post-truth”

Watch all Techfestival keynotes: Want to check out the rest of Techfestival 2018 keynotes? Find all keynotes here including talks by James Bridle, Lisa Mosconi, Angela Oguntala, Bruce Sterling and many more.

Matt Webb: Post-truth society & the technological trends and drivers behind it was originally published in Techfestival 2018 on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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 evolutionary biology, answering questions like: Can we use fungal mycelia to grow habitats on the Moon or Mars, building i.e. synthetic bricks in space? And what if we could take advantage of the proteins that binds the metals in our bodies, using them to extract metal in space, so we don’t have to bring these heavy materials on our space rockets?

Lynn Rothschild at Techfestival 2018: Astrobiology & Growing Things in Space

Watch all Techfestival keynotes: Want to check out the rest of Techfestival 2018 keynotes? Find all keynotes here including talks by Claire L. Evans, Lisa Mosconi, Angela Oguntala, Bruce Sterling and many more.

Lynn Rothschild: Turning biology into technology, and growing things in space was originally published in Techfestival 2018 on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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 been applied and scaled more quickly. Watch the full keynote here, and follow Evans to find out what we can learn from the speculative histories of alternative, more inclusive ways of organizing the Web that could have been, but never where.

Claire Evans at Techfestival 2018: The Mothers & Grandmothers of the Web

Watch all Techfestival keynotes: Want to check out the rest of Techfestival 2018 keynotes? Find all keynotes here including talks by Matt Webb, Lisa Mosconi, Angela Oguntala, Bruce Sterling and many more.

Claire L. Evans: The Grandmothers and Mothers of the Internet was originally published in Techfestival 2018 on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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. And with no obvious cures ahead that can stop the progression of demantia diseases, Dr. Mosconi raises the critical question: “So if you could see the future, what would you have for dinner”? Watch the full talk here.

Lisa Mosconi at Techfestival 2018: Brain Food & The Alzheimer's Epidemic

Watch all Techfestival keynotes: Want to check out the rest of Techfestival 2018 keynotes? Find all keynotes here including talks by Kevin Slavin, Angela Oguntala, Bruce Sterling and many more.

Lisa Mosconi: Brain Food & The Future Alzheimer’s Epidemic was originally published in Techfestival 2018 on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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.

James Bridle at Techfestival 2018: Thinking Through Computers

“Here’s the thing: Our ability to predict the weather is getting worse. Our ability to do these calculations is starting to fail us. Due to man-made climate change the atmosphere is becoming more turbulent and unpredictable. That data we have collected for years is not true anymore. And that horizon by which we can predict the future is starting to come back closer and closer towards us. And this ingrained desire to predict the world through computers is failing us”

Watch all Techfestival keynotes: Want to check out the rest of Techfestival 2018 keynotes? Find all keynote talks here including speeches by Indy Johar, Claire L. Evans, Ingrid Burrington, Lynn Rothschild + many more.

James Bridle: Thinking Through Computers was originally published in Techfestival 2018 on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

TALK. On the second night of Techfestival Kevin Slavin (US), Chief Science & Technology Officer at The Shed, took the Circle Stage to deliver an inspirational keynote on the topic of designing for participation. Watch the full talk here to hear what Slavin had to say about the future role of designers, and how a new generation of designers drive a paradigm shift, replacing user-centered design with the alternative idea of designing for participation.

Video coming shortly — We apologize for the wait!

Watch all Techfestival keynotes: Want to check out the rest of Techfestival 2018 keynotes? Find all keynote talks here including speeches by Indy Johar, Lisa Mosconi, Tim Leberecht, Ingrid Burrington + many more.

Kevin Slavin: Designing for Participation was originally published in Techfestival 2018 on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.