#globalperspectives: A Global Discourse on the Future of Digital Technologies

This year's re:publica once again offers a platform for  a global discourse on the future of digital technologies. International speakers and makers will be invited to Berlin to contribute their perspectives. As organisers, we take a holistic approach and want to highlight and challenge structural inequalities. This includes a sustainable and public debate that takes into account diverse perspectives and voices.

In order to achieve this goal, we work together with various organisations and would like to take this opportunity to thank our cooperation partners the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the Robert Bosch Foundation. By covering the travel, visa and accommodation costs of some of our international speakers they enable committed experts to participate in discussions on the pressing challenges of our time.

A big thank you also goes to our friends from the Global Innovation Gathering (GIG) who support us in finding and approaching international speakers. GIG is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year and is once again curating the re:publica Makerspace. GIG was founded a decade ago as part of re:publica and has since been the place at re:publica where creative minds, designers, engineers, tinkerers and coders from the international maker scene meet interested visitors from Berlin. It offers space for everyone who wants to try out DIY laser cutting, 3D printers, heat presses, knitting machines and open-source CNC machines, soldering irons and much more as part of various workshops and activities. The Makerspace is a place for knowledge exchange and critical discourse, where ethical design and development processes are put into practice using concrete examples. Both re:publica and GIG are members of the Distributed Design Platform (DDP) Europe, which has supported us in the internationalisation of our programme with planning and implementation for many years.

We are bringing together sessions with different questions under the hashtag #globalperspectives: How can digital innovation and policy be made sustainable and equitable at the global level? What do fair and alternative ideas look like for other financial infrastructures and how are they perhaps already being implemented elsewhere? What are their limitations and problems? Or how can we manage to implement resilient, decentralised and sustainable networks independent from the well known tech giants? This and much more is what we will be talking about. Speakers will include Puno Selesho, Nelson Rauda, Kudzai M Mubaiwa, Nestor Sire, Jay Farado, Koffi Dodji Honou and Martin Oloo.

Come by and join the discussion!