Media Evolution

Matt Jones – Planetary Energy System Changes at Street Level

”We don’t have an energy problem, we have a matter problem.” Matt Jones (he/him) has been designing digital products and services since 1995. Most recently he was Head of Design at Lunar Energy, a company building the world’s best clean energy products to deliver home electrification at scale. From 2013-2021 he worked at Google as a Principal Designer, primarily in Google Research working on advanced AI concepts for hardware and software. Now he is focusing on helping the solar energy sector har...

Laura Feinstein from Manufacturing Materiality

Kickstarter helps bring projects to life and as the first crowdfunding platform with $7 billion pledged and 239,000 projects funded, so what new concepts have emerge with this aid? In the session Laura Feinstein, Senior Design and Tech Editor at Kickstarter, dives into how fashion and textile creators are breaking out of labs and turning cutting-edge materials research and circular products into must-see showstoppers—both online and in real-world showrooms. Imagine walking in shoes made from cof...

Trudy Painter – Algorithms behind AI - A case for technical literacy in AI

“It’s very fun to make AI tools magical. [...] But when you make AI feel airy, you remove the possibility for people to ask questions. So it’s better to make it approachable.” Trudy is an active technology enthusiast who is convinced that AI tools can be as useful as electricity. By providing real-life examples and related metaphors of ceramic mugs and paper cups, the recent MIT graduate firmly believes that everyone can - and perhaps should - be able to understand AI tools and how the algorithm...

Somya Joshi – Resource Frontiers of AI

“Could AI ever be a common pool of resources?” Researcher Somya Joshi makes a compelling observation: the same extractive narratives of 19th century industrialisation are being reproduced today in our venture to conquer the AI ecosystem. Somya highlights how major technological shifts such as the Green Revolution relied on the premise that automation would always lead to progress, and the myth around this pattern persists in the case of AI. Somya reminds us that following the major revolutions s...

Q&A Late-Stage Digitalization

The Q&A from the session Late-Stage Digitalization with Somya Joshi and Trudy Painter

Anna Granath and Maria Törn – Why Play is Serious Stuff

The Conference's partner IKEA hosted a talk during Wednesday’s Getting Grounded session focusing on IKEA most recent findings on play, design and why it all matters more than we think. Why is play important? And why is IKEA so obsessed with playfulness? Anna Granath and Maria Törn are ready to answer those questions, freshly armed with insight from IKEA’s recent children’s play report. Simplicity, Inclusivity, and Playfulness. Those three words guide IKEA’s design philosophy. Play is seen as the...

Joshua Idehen – Stretch for The Stars

Mary Wallace – The AI-Enhanced Consumer

The Conference's main partner IBM hosted a talk during Wednesday’s Getting Grounded session focusing on approaches on AI, its uses and adaptations and our relation with it. Artificial intelligence provides us with new ways to communicate through products. In her talk, Mary Wallace portrays how AI can be used to improve consumers’ retail experiences within various industries, such as the beverage and fashion industry. For example AI can be implemented to bring life to inanimate objects like cloth...

Matt Candy – Successful approaches with Generative AI

The Conference's main partner IBM hosted a talk during Wednesday’s Getting Grounded session focusing on approaches on AI, its uses and adaptations and our relation with it. Matt Candy presents the numerous opportunities that generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) offers, and provides insight into IBM’s human-centred approach to leveraging new technologies in their business. Gen AI has an immense potential to grow GDP when used in smart and efficient ways. By learning how to integrate AI in ...

Seán Ronayne – Now What?

“How do we protect something we do not love and do not understand?” Seán Ronayne is the ornithologist who came up with the idea to sound-record every bird in Ireland, to show the world what beautiful and unique creatures they are. He is also the main character in the documentary Birdsong. With his extraordinary projects capturing soundscapes and imagery from nature’s most precious wildlife, he urges people to come together and protect the nation’s birds, as 63% of them are at risk of extinction....

Joshua Idehen – Mom Does The Washing

“We are living in a world where we do not agree.” The spoken word artist Joshua Idehen kicks off the session by delivering a humorous performance about the flaws of various ideologies, the world according to your mom, doing the washing. Aiming to unite the audience through music, he showcases the power of humor, language and love when speaking across differences.

Q&A Structuring Structures

Q&A from the session Structuring Structures with Jenny L Beijar, Marco Guadarrama, Emily Best, Sarah Watson and Györgi Gálik

Jenny L Beijar & Marco Guadarrama – What made you feel safe at home?

Think about your childhood – what made you feel safe at home? For many of us, our childhoods were unplugged. Now, times have changed. We’re wired into tech at every turn. Parents have turned into safety officers—some offering trust and guidance, others building walls of protection. But for kids, the question is "What’s lurking in the dark?" IKEA, in collaboration with Our Normal Association, dives deep into this dynamic, exploring life from the perspective of kids. For adults, a digital security...

Emily Best & Sara Watson – A People’s History of Tech Includes You

“Almost everyone has a story connected to their mobile phone. They are deeply personal and interconnected with our daily lives.” But what if technology isn't just what we do, but how we feel? Emily and Sarah knew this truth. Their experiences with tech left deep imprints, revealing that while Silicon Valley excels at innovation, it often overlooks the origin stories. Determined to change that, they embarked on a journey to build a timeline of technology, one that didn’t just highlight its triump...

Györgi Gálik – Structuring Structures: Infrastructures of Social Scale

This century will be defined by society’s capacity to respond to climate breakdown. It’s not going to be like the movies, a CGI spectacle of eschatological earthquakes and meteorites. Climate breakdown is a slow and terrifying disaster. Györgi Gálik, City Transitions Co-Lead at Dark Matter Labs, emphasises our need to have an honest understanding of the challenge we face in order to make informed decisions to address it. To take the temperature of society, Györgi points to everyday political tal...

Q&A Entangled and Enmeshed

Q&A from the session Entangled and Enmeshed with Andie Nordgren, Tony Olsson and Matt Jones

Andie Nordgren – Agency in Code Landscapes - The Case for Maintenance

“Software is an interesting medium. At least in theory, once you make something and it doesn’t become successful, it doesn’t cost anything to change your mind. You can just stop running it.” Software is built upon software, forming a complex and often invisible dependency tree. This is the world Andie Nordgren (she/her) navigates, where large and aging codebases are like dynamic landscapes—constantly evolving, with each shift potentially introducing unexpected obstacles. Andie shares her reflect...

Tony Olsson – Beyond the Threshold

“When we know who enters what, we can also adapt the situation accordingly” As a part of the session ”Entangled and Enmeshed”, Tony Olsson shares with us his experience of working on UX design for access control management products. Tony (he/him) has been in the tech industry for many years, including at companies like Assa Abloy who, through their manufacturing, work literally with doors and locks. From physical objects to their virtual counterparts, doors have existed as long as civilisation i...

Georgina Voss – How To See What's Not There

Are we in control of technological megasystems, or are they in fact controlling us? By taking on a critical approach to modern technology, Georgina Voss emphasizes the need to collectively challenge the systems that underpin our world. Humans suffer from hubris in terms of using technology to exert control. Voss draws a parallel to the film Jurassic Park, highlighting the role of technological systems in our everyday life. She explains how these systems affect us both emotionally and physically ...

Q&A Time, Trust and Wisdom

The Q&A from session Time, Trust and Wisdom with Monika Jiang, Gustavo Noguiera de Menezes and Valeria Adani

Valeria Adani – Designing for Trust

“Trust is an outcome – not something you can design for.” For many years designers and users alike have been pushing for “seamless” technologies and services – but this approach has not always prioritised safety, privacy, and TRUST. We’ve been obsessed with making things easy to use, rather than making things that are transparent, accountable, and trustworthy. This dilemma is at the core of Projects by IF and Valeria Adani’s work. According to Adani, every time you invent a new technology, you’r...

Monika Jiang from Time, Trust and Wisdom

“Underneath the experience of loneliness is always a longing”. It is not part of our human nature to isolate ourselves from others – yet this is increasingly the reality of modern-day societies. Our physical environments (such as car-centric cities and single-person homes), our technologies (such as social media), and our attitude towards work (i.e. careerism and the false promise of busyness) are no longer affording us the same opportunities to connect as before. Monika Jiang warns us that “con...

Gustavo Nogueira de Menezes from Time, Trust and Wisdom

“We are the time travelers we’ve been waiting for”. Gustavo Nogueira de Menezes – Gust for short – founder of Temporality Lab, takes us on a whirling tour of wisdom on the philosophy of time and temporality. Or should we say, temporalities. For every society has had distinct experiences of being, doing and existing in their relationship with time. Take the very calendars we use – 12 months of varying lengths for some, and lunar cycles for others. “I don’t have time!” We’ve all heard – or said – ...

Dan Shefet from Shifting Systems

What connects Leonardo DiCaprio with the Grateful Dead, a 16th century Dutch diplomat, and a tech CEO recently arrested in a French airport. To answer we have to zoom out and look back. Ten years after three days ago, the last decade of the old millennium, revolutionary 1789, and further back still. Where did we come from and where are we going? Dan Shefet is a lawyer, specialising in European law and Human Rights as they apply to tech. Dan highlights the critical junctures where domestic law an...

Q&A Shifting Systems

The Q&A session from Shifting Systems with Dan Shefet and Dr. Katlyn Turner

Dr. Katlyn Turner – Paradigms of Waste, Equity and Consumption

Katlyn’s talk digs deep into a critical question: "How did we get here?" She challenges us to confront a deeply embedded paradigm—the "Twin Transition" of sustainability and digitalization. She covers three aspects. First, she critiques how we define environmental impact as caused by CO2, ignoring the other serious issues this oversimplified focus creates. It’s a convenient narrative that silences dissenting voices, labeling them "anti-climate." Then she asks, "Who really benefits?" and exposes ...

Jemma Foster – Listening to and Dreaming with Plants

”What future will we dream when we dream with plants?” Jemma (she/her) is an artist, writer and curator working with plant intelligence and vibrational medicine. If you wonder what plants sound like – check out this talk. After a guided visualisation, where we imagine going back to a state of being before our human form – we see ourselves as plants. But what is your texture, your aroma – as a plant? Jemma believes we can design futures beyond our perceived limitations if we engage with more-than...

John De La Parra - Decoding the Magic and Mystery of our Food

“As we eat food we are consuming things that we don’t even know what’s in there, because they are unknown and we don’t even know where to look for them.” What really makes up the food we eat? Dr. John De La Parra (he/him) invites us to decode the magic and mystery of our food, challenging the conventional ways we understand its composition and impact. He argues there is a deep knowledge often overlooked when we rely solely on the scientific data provided by traditional nutrition labels and compo...

Q&A Planting the Seeds with Jemma Foster and John De La Parra

The Q&A from the session Planting the Seeds with Jemma Foster and John De La Parra

Johanna Koljonen – Closing Remarks from The Conference 2024

Moderator Johanna Koljonen speaks to a packed Theatre stage before the closing keynote on Wednesday. She talks of the collective dreams that have been manifested through Jemma Foster's Geomantra app and helps us to land in the space of hopefulness and melancholy that is present in them before introducing Nipun Mehta and his keynote on Who Must We Be.