In 2015, FutureEverything celebrates its 20th anniversary. For the last two decades the festival has brought people together to imagine, shape and question the vision of a truly participatory society. A belief in the emancipatory and creative potential of new technologies runs throughout digital culture. It is found both in the open source community, and in the rhetoric Silicon Valley startups. Today the contradictions in this vision have come to the surface.
In its 20th year, FutureEverything asks “what now?” for our digital culture? Do we need a bigger vision than open, local, bottom up is best? What are the values and narratives that will define the twenty years to come?
For the second year, the FutureEverything Conference will be hosted in the magnificent neo-gothic surroundings of Manchester Town Hall, with a co-curated programme of installations, performances and new commissions with the Royal Northern College of Music. Waag will participate with the project Apps for Europe in the programme.
Apps for Europe - at the conference
The project Apps for Europe - turning data into business - is a thematic network to organise competitions for using open data, that stimulate the winners to start business ventures, and maximise the socio-economic impact and overall benefits of open data. For the second year, Apps for Europe will be present at FutureEverything with the International Business Lounge where winners will get the chance to present their work and the announcement of the overall winner of 2015 that receives a prize fund of € 5,000.
The second Apps for Europe IBL (international business lounge) will take place during the FutureEverything festival on 26 and 27 February 2015 in Manchester (UK). The finalists from the annual online competition and the local business lounges in 2014 will travel to Manchester and pitch their project in front of international investors and experts.
