Many people I have spoken to recently have voiced concerns about what will happen with all this technology flooding into society. Will we be better? Will we exist apart from each other? will there be more advancements in medicine? Do we really need an app for that? Last year I produced Cyborg Camp YVR (remember we spoke about that here on VIA as well?) and now we needed something a little broader. So, I have created a grassroots, not-for-profit conference for people to come together, learn and discuss how technology is integrating into and changing our societies and culture.
It's here in Vancouver on 7th June, it needs your voice and it’s called From Now: Humanity with Technology.
We have scoured North America for some amazing thinkers and speakers to come together and discuss where society is going. Not only that, we integrated all of them, the attendees and other experts into an unconference at the end of the day. It's also the most affordable conference like this out there (we believe in access for more people). This article presents what they will talk about and we have interviews with them coming in the next 3 weeks too.
Here is a taster of our speakers and what they will talk about...
Nora Young, Journalist and host of CBC Spark will talk about ‘Design for the Internet of Things: An Urban Utopian Fantasy’
Daily life in the city means dealing with the legacy of past decisions: old transit, historical urban planning, and earlier visions of what the city could be. How often do we get the opportunity to imagine our cities' futures? The next five years will shape what our future digital cities will look like. What do we want our digitized urban spaces to be like? What values will they express? And what will it look like when the Internet of Things is also us? Nora looks at bleeding edge design plans for a democratic, playful, Internet of Things-ified city.
Toby Barnes, Product Strategy Director at AKQA will talk about ‘Emotional Interface Design'
As we start to build products and services that understand context and develop software to work for us every second of the day, there is a growing opportunity to look not just at the digital UI, or the physical interface, but also how we expect to interact with software at a subtle personal level. Why do we design one user interface that is designed to work for everyone when we are all such different people. Once our software is talking to us, waking us from our sleep, even interrupting our meals, how will we react? Wearable extensions of the network, and connected devices are changing our lives at an incredible rate but are they ready to talk to us, and more importantly are we ready to listen?
Toby will look at a number of digital relationships from Tony Stark’s Jarvis, to Theodore Twombly’s Her, from Tom Baker and Douglas Adams to Siri. Is there an uncanny valley for UX? Getting one interface agreed upon is hard enough, what will happen when the permutations are infinite?
Amal Graafstra, CEO at DangerousThings.com and bio-hacker will talk about ‘Grinders: Biohacking for society’
Grinders are the garage tinkerers of the evolving biohacker landscape, installing body mods and upgrades that are definitely novel, yet simple. However, the impact these simple upgrades have fundamentally challenge perceptions of self, reality, and their places in it. Let's get meta and talk about the implants grinders are installing and their effects on personal psychology and society in general.
(I'm also going to be implanted on stage as well).
Michael Fergusson, CEO at Ayogo will talk about ‘Narrative, Mastery, and Social Connection: How playfulness can transform healthcare.’
Why is it we accept the idea that because healthcare is important, it should be dreary, lonely, and boring? Conventional thinking assumes that hospitals and doctors' offices are where healthcare decisions are made, but common sense tells us that the most important healthcare decisions are made where we really live: sitting at our desks, standing at the fridge, or in the supermarket. In those places (i.e. the real world), it matters whether things are beautiful, engaging and emotionally fulfilling. Dreary loses; inspiring, wins. Let's talk about how being more playful can help health care become more efficient, more effective, and more relevant.
Nikolas Badminton, Principal at DesignCultureMind, Speaker on the near future will talk about ‘Sex and the Singularity’
A talk that looks at how we have come to a point when technology is inevitably changing the way we have and consume sex. It also looks at how things will (and must) change as we head to 2045 when artificial intelligence will have progressed to the point of a greater-than-human intelligence, radically changing civilization, and perhaps human nature.
At the end of the day we will all break out and have an unconference-style set of sessions where the attendees will define what the final sessions will discuss.
We'd love to see you there. Access to all speakers, breakfast, lunch and refreshments are all part of the day. It's going to be awesome. To find out more and to register please visit - http://www.eventbrite.ca/e/from-now-a-conference-about-humanity-with-technology-tickets-11173206361
Nikolas Badminton is a futurist, Principal at DesignCultureMind and the curator of Cyborg Camp YVR and FROM NOW, a not-for-profit conference for people to come together, learn and discuss how technology is integrating into and changing our societies and culture.
