Open Data And Emergent Digital Horizons At Future Everything 2011 [Event]

Now in it’s 16th year, the recently-renamed FutureEverything Festival will continue to showcase and illuminate creative technologies and digital innovation this coming May in Manchester, UK.

Befitting it’s role in leading Manchester’s recent Open Data revolution, FutureEverything will provide centre stage consideration of Open Data as part of it’s two day conference. Open Data is shifting the digital landscape in a manner comparable to the sea changes which followed in the wake of social media and FutureEverything 2011 offers the means to understand how it will transform the way consumers engage with brands, and the ways citizens engage in local government. The topics under consideration range from the enterprise that can be fomented with open data to what shape algorithm driven journalism will take.

The conference also explores the changing ways people live, play and create in an increasingly digital world. FutureEverything engages with several of the interesting fracture points of the hyper-connected society of the near future. They will tackle what will happen as computers become more human, displaying emotions and empathy, and social technologies are integrated into everyday objects and activities (as alluded to in Ericcson’s ‘Social Web Of Things’). Chris Speed’s ruminations on the afterlife of the Internet of Things promises to be especially interesting.

Accompanying the increasingly intelligent cities in which we dwell is a massive growth in urban populations. Luis Bettencourt will comment on how the urban migration currently transpiring across the globe can be negotiated and maximised while pervasive gaming guru Kars Alfrink will detail how game design could improve urban quality of life

The conference is but one facet of a diverse showcase of creative technologies which will impact of future trends, with the festival line up including speculative workshops helmed by which explore free culture revenue models and the grassroots citizen science movement. Complimenting the information overload are digital art showpieces in addition to an impressive survey of data art (Data Dimension)

FutureEverything 2011 takes place from 11th May to 14th May.