A participatory event which explores divergent futures and the shape of the Internet to come
2021-11-29T13:00:00Z
On 29 November 2021, within the NGI Forward project, Edgeryders are organising a free event - registration here - which explores the ways to navigate climate change, technology and economics through gameplay, discussion and storytelling!
The online event and the offline brunch/workshop in Brussels, are an integral part of the NGI Impact Summit as a project funded by the Next Generation Internet initiative.
The Internet of Humans
After 3 years of work, the NGI Forward project, supported by the European Commission, is coming to a close. It concentrated on the technologies and solutions we need to shape a more democratic, resilient and inclusive internet, an Internet of Humans. The discussions and findings will be presented during the NGI Forward Impact Summit.
Through experimentation, play and discussion, Edgeryders are proposing an exercise in asking the question “How can we use Internet Technologies to make the world better…and how would we as individuals fit into that story?”
An environment that connects economy and science fiction
To connect the experience and the insights gathered in these years to the power of imagination, the discussion happens in the setting of the fictional post climate change city of Witness, “the most populous seasteading megacity on record”. Witness was created by SciFi Economics Lab through its Worldbuilding Academy experiment, headed by the economist Alberto Cottica and Yudhanjaya Wijeratne, a Nebula nominated science fiction writer and data scientist, together with the crew of artists, sociologists and the Edgeryders’ community of global changemakers.
In Witness, various districts host different economic models and act as the architect’s rendering of plausible alternatives to capitalism. It is a place where people can imagine societies unrestricted by conventional ideas, remaining within the real-world boundaries of plausible technology and the plurality of human nature.
A toolkit for imagining desirable futures
During the event, Edgeryders will present the toolkit which creates a space where participants play with the ideas proposed by Witness, reflecting through the gameplay on the real world constraints those ideas must operate in.
The winners of the short story context based on Witness, Alma Alexander, Ebele R.I. Mogo, Tim Reutemanns and Sasha Ockenden will add to the Witness lore and provide concrete examples of problems and challenges concerning sustainability, resilience, public space and sociality, privacy, identity, data governance, information flows, cybersecurity, inclusion, justice, ethical AI etc.
The event is open to everyone, the registration happens on Eventbrite.
The Next Generation Internet is a European Commission initiative that explores the future of Internet.
Edgeryders are partners in the NGI Forward project.
SciFi Economics Lab is an Edgeryders’ project originally supported by EIT Climate-KIC.