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

30.05.2023 - At re:publica we give a platform to different perspectives and voices from all over the world.
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Eine Frau mit VR-Brille

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!

 

 

From Africa to the world - how storytelling using digital channels is Africa's greatest export

Puno Selesho

Summary
A slam poetry performance & talk by Puno Selesho, a South African poet and social digital entrepreneur on the evolution of African storytelling. Stories are the lifeblood of Africa, from times of oral traditions, passed around roaring fires, to our current modern digital age where platforms such as Instagram are used to preserve our rich narrative
Talk
English
Conference

The future of money - are we there yet?

Kudzai M Mubaiwa

Summary
Money and the internet are converging, and who better to lead us to the future than Africa? In my talk I share experiences from living and working in 3 African cities - Harare, Capetown, Nairobi and relate how ordinary people use mobile money apps/crypto to make life easier already, and what others could learn from them and the coming disruption.
Lightning Talk
English
Conference

What's in a net? An open discussion about resilient and decentralized local alternatives to the global internet.

Nestor Siré, Eric Nitschke, Mike Jensen, Elektra Wagenrad, Steffen Köhn

Summary
This meetup is intended to be a space for re:publica participants to discuss proven and emerging community-led approaches to building resilient, autonomous, decentralized, environmentally sustainable, and often completely ‘unplugged’ networks.

Meetup
English
Conference

Island in the Net - How Internet activism is changing Cuban politics and society

Steffen Köhn, Nestor Siré, Lesly Fonseca Tundidor

Summary
How do people in authoritarian systems build their own alternative technological infrastructures when internet access is constrained? How does gradually increasing connectivity impact political debate within an authoritarian system? A discussion between Cuban digital activist Lesly Fonseca, media artist Nestor Siré, and anthropologist Steffen Köhn.
Sustainability
Talk
English
Conference

urban farmig: Setting up a DIT hydroponics unit

HfabLab, Koffi Dodji Honou, Essoh Cyrille

Summary
Agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa has been delayed by the youth for several reasons including the lack of mechanization, the hardship of the work...
Food crops have given way to export crops such as coffee, cocoa, rubber, etc
In addition to the transmission of know-how, it's a question of discovering a new attractive, alternative ecological method
Workshop
English
Hands On

Redistribute: Distributed Manufacturing for a Just Future

Martin Oloo, Regina Sipos, Antonio de Jesus Anaya Hernandez, Geraldine de Bastion

Summary
Making things close to where they are needed offers the world a potentially more sustainable production system. Yet many organizations trying to make it work are struggling. This panel will discuss the emerging business models around distributed manufacturing, and what changes to the economics of the system could enable it to spread faster.
Sustainability
Panel
English
Conference

The Victims of Bitcoin City

Nelson Rauda Zablah

Summary
You’ve heard about El Salvador, the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. Come hear what propaganda doesn’t tell: that paying in Bitcoin is an oddity, that the “economic freedom country” has the largest incarceration rate in the world, and that to build the so-called Bitcoin City the government is pushing out fishermen and farmers.
Web3
Talk
English
Conference

South - South Maker Dialogue: Using Open Tech and Media Innovation to Counter Conflict and Violent Extremism

Maliamungu Richard , Mbuh Stella, Sharlotte Ainebyoona Kigezo

Summary
Where do peacebuilding, digital activism and hands-on maker culture intersect? Born of the need to take open tech training into the field by South Sudanese refugees and makers from South Sudan, #ASKotec, the 'Access to Skills and Knowledge emergency case' has now been deployed to support youth innovation in countering conflict in Cameroon.
Workshop
English
Hands On

Redistribute: Distributed Manufacturing for a Just Future

Martin Oloo, Regina Sipos, Antonio de Jesus Anaya Hernandez, Geraldine de Bastion

Summary
Making things close to where they are needed offers the world a potentially more sustainable production system. Yet many organizations trying to make it work are struggling. This panel will discuss the emerging business models around distributed manufacturing, and what changes to the economics of the system could enable it to spread faster.
Sustainability
Panel
English
Conference