Ars Electronica & Upper Austria Chamber of Commerce Host Innovation Forum 2019

GET.Inspired by Ars Electronica:

(Linz, August 23, 2019) Over 1,000 artists, scientists, designers, developers, engineers, entrepreneurs, and activists from around the world will gather at the latest edition of the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz from 5 – 9 September. The festival is set to attract pioneers and trailblazers of the digital revolution as well as creatives working at the cutting-edge of the wave of change that is building as Artificial Intelligence matures. The festival will wow visitors with award-winning works of art, groundbreaking prototypes, innovative products, new business models and inspiring visions. “We are focused on enabling the business community in Linz and the wider Upper Austrian region to tap into this wealth of expertise at Ars Electronica,” says Gerfried Stocker, Artistic Director at Ars Electronica. “Together with the Upper Austria Chamber of Commerce, we hope to transform the Ars Electronica Festival into an innovation platform for the business community in Upper Austria that will facilitate communication with leading experts from all over the world and enable enterprises to draw on their experience and expertise.” Doris Hummer, President of the Upper Austria Chamber of Commerce (WKOÖ) explains: “Innovation is a key area of action in the Chamber of Commerce’s masterplan for Upper Austria. Many of our initiatives aim to strengthen the partnership between the business and science sectors and the Innovation Forum at Ars Electronica plays an important role in this context.”

“The Upper Austria Chamber of Commerce is encouraging its members to attend Austria’s leading international festival – GET.Inspired by Ars Electronica – underscoring the importance of Ars Electronica for the Austrian economy. The far-reaching changes accompanying the Digital Transition demand that we all learn to think outside the box. As a festival for art, technology and society, Ars Electronica works to inspire entrepreneurs looking to thrive in the world of tomorrow,” commented Doris Lang-Mayerhofer, City Councilor for Cultural Affairs and Chair of the Ars Electronica Advisory Board, on the continued cooperation between the Chamber of Commerce and Ars Electronica.

Members of the Upper Austria chamber of Commerce are invited to attend GET.Inspired free of charge. To register, please visit https://get-inspired-2019.eventbrite.de.

FRI 6 September: GET.Inspired by Ars Electronica

On the second day of the 2019 Ars Electronica Festival it’s all about innovation. A unique celebration of innovation, the Innovation Forum GET.Inspired by Ars Electronica will kick off at the POSTCITY Conference Hall at 10:30 AM:

10:30 AM – 12:00 Noon: Welcome to the Midlife Crisis!
Following opening statements by Doris Hummer (President of the Upper Austrian Chamber of Commerce), Doris Lang-Mayerhofer (Linz City Councilor for Culture and Chair of the Advisory Board of Ars Electronica) and Gerfried Stocker (Artistic Director of Ars Electronica), Walter Ötsch (AT) and Martin Rauchbauer (AT/US) will explore the looming revolution of the intelligence explosion and the transition from automation to autonomy in a talk titled “The Midlife Crisis of the Digital Revolution”. How can and must we engage with this process and help to shape our future? Will a world of intelligent, autonomous machines demand more or less of humanity? What will be the nature of future human-machine interactions? What skills will we need in the world of tomorrow? What roles will humans and machines play?

1:00 PM – 2:45 PM: GET.Inspired
Following a one-hour LUNCH with opportunities for networking, the program continues at 1:00 PM with a series of brief presentations on the Lecture Stage at POSTCITY. Hosted by Senior Innovation Expert Bradly Dunn Klerks (NL/BE), the session offers artists, scientists, and representatives from established businesses and startups an opportunity to present their projects and products. With Andreas Perotti, Director of Marketing & Communications at FACC AG; Johannes Klinglmayr, Strategy and Business Development LCM; Nobutaka Ide, President, CEO & Representative Director at Wacom Co.; Drew Hemment, Chancellors Fellow and Reader at Edinburgh Futures Institute School of Design; Johannes Braumann, Head of the Laboratory for Creative Robotics at Linz Art University; Jen Keane, designer and creative researcher; Idalene Rapp & Natascha Unger, designers at rapp&unger; Salomé Bazin, founder and Creative Director at Cellule Studio; Xin Liu, Curator at the Space Exploration Initiative MIT Media Lab; Philipp Wintersberger, researcher at CARISSMA Ingolstadt University of Applied Sciences; Sandira Blas, Senior Curator and Researcher at Factory Berlin; Charlotte Jarvis, artist and lecturer at Goldsmiths, the Royal College of Art and Imperial College; Sputniko!, Assistant Professor at University of Tokyo; Markus Dorninger, co-founder OMAi; Clemens F. Scharfen, Lead Developer at Ars Electronica Futurelab; and Markus Roth, Group Chairman at WKOÖ UBIT.

2:45 PM – 5:00 PM: GET.Inspired Spotlight Tours / Legal framework for STARTS Collaborations

At 3:00 PM, visitors to the festival can get to know innovative best practice projects located at the interface of art, science and technology with the GET Inspired Spotlight Tours or they can join the conversation on emerging and future (copyright) legislation and new business models at the “Legal Framework for STARTS Collaborations”, a panel discussion exploring concrete examples with experts from the field. The panel includes Jie Qi, Project Assistant Professor at the Department of Information and Communication Engineering at University of Tokyo; Robert Bauer, Professor of Organization and Innovation at Johannes Kepler University Linz; Lucas Evers (NL), Head of Art-Science Programme and Open Wetlab at Waag; Domhnaill Hernon, Head of Experiments in Arts and Technology (E.A.T.) at Nokia Bell Labs; Camille C. Baker, founder of WEAR Sustain; and independent curator Daehyung Lee. The panel will be led by Christopher Lindinger, Director of Research & Innovation at Ars Electronica Futurelab.

5:00 PM – 6:00 PM: STARTS Talks
The STARTS Talks take center-stage from 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM. Science, Technology and Arts – or STARTS for short – is a European Commission initiative to promote innovation from and for Europe. Ars Electronica has organized the annual tendering process and competition of the same name since 2016. Each year the winners of the STARTS Prize are invited to attend Ars Electronica in Linz to present their award-winning projects and explain their approaches and perspectives: Mar Santamaria Varas (CEO) and Pablo Martínez (CTO) of the innovation agency “300,000 Km/s” will offer insights into the future of urban planning; Bjørn Karmann, designer at Tellart, and Tore Knudsen, interaction designer at Topp Design and Innovation, will describe how users can get the most out of Smart Assistants and protect their privacy at the same time. The STARTS Talks will be moderated by Nadav Hochman, Associate Director of the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts.

6:00 PM – 7:30 PM: Humanizing AI
GET.Inspired by Ars Electronica wraps ups with the Humanizing AI panel, where we will dive deep into the debate on the prospects for the development of fair, responsible and humane future AI systems. Participants include Roberto Viola (IT) Director General of DG Connect at the European Commission; Martina Mara, Professor of Robopsychology at Linz Institute of Technology, Johannes Kepler University Linz; Keiichiro Shibuya, composer and musician ATAK; Alexander Mankowsky, futurist at Daimler; Hiroshi Ishii, Director of the Tangible Media Group at MIT Media Lab; and Hermann Erlach, Chief Operating Officer at Microsoft Austria.

Photo:
GET .Inspired by Ars Electronica / Foto: Jürgen Grünwald / Printversion