The focus of the FutureEverything Conference in 2012 is about the next lurch into the unknown brought about by the changing character of mass participation, citizen-led content and cloud computing in an open data world. We see profound changes in the digital and creative sector, as well as in society at large.
Some of the areas the conference focuses on include:
• Mass Observation
• Cooperatism
• Digital Public Space
• Open Data Cities
• Fab Lab Creative Communities
The headline theme is based around mass participation and citizen-led content in an increasingly digitally-connected world. This is in response to the 75th anniversary of Mass Observation, the United Nations International Year of Cooperatives, FutureEverything’s past work in mass participation and crowd sensing, and the new AHRC Knowledge Exchange Hub for the Creative Economy which has a focus on citizen-led content experience and the digital public space.
It is also informed by the major controversies and happenings of the present age: Occupy Wall Street, Arab Spring, Wikileaks, the Big Society, and controversy about control of personal data by Facebook, Google etc.
Secondary themes at the FutureEverything Conference respond to a number of exciting projects FutureEverything is involved in, including SmartCity SDK which builds on our successful Open Data Cities project to develop next generation services for European cities, and EU Fabs which will develop creative communities around Fab Labs across Europe.