2021 Speaker Highlights

Christian langballe

Christian Langballe is a multiple award-winning creative director at Bold Scandinavia and The North Alliance. He makes intelligent and distinct experiences through visual design but also through music and photography. He tries to change people's perspectives, help them in their everyday life, make them wonder, or put a smile on their faces.

Christian will show us how this emotional approach to design will be the branding of the future - explaining what emotional branding is and how we need to embrace friction in our design. Friction shapes personality and personality is what sets us humans apart. And that has huge relevance in the future ahead of us.

Charles read

Charles Read is Hacker Noon Contributor of the Year 2020 in augmented reality. He will show us how blockchain is disrupting the gaming industry for players and makers. New kinds of asset ownership and income are possible, with players sometimes earning more money in games than they do in their daily job.

What's next is doing business in the “Metaverse”, a shared online world where the physical and virtual collide. Read explains how games become 'borderless' spaces where players freely take their in-game assets from one game to another. During his talk, you will be able to explore new online spaces and business models and get a taste of the near future.

Hendrik-Jan Grievink (Next Nature)

Hendrik-Jan Grievink is a researcher and designer at Next Nature, an international network that promotes discourse on the evolving relationship between humans, nature, and technology. Through speculative design and public discussion, Grievink created the award-winning In Vitro Meat Cookbook as well as Reprodutopia, a mobile installation masquerading as a reproductive clinic. The underlying conceptual model and design tool he uses is the Pyramid of Technology that visualizes how technology transforms nature.

Rachel Owusu (Next Nature)

Rachel Owusu (MSc) is a behavioural change agent with a huge interest in the future of life on our planet. It is her aim to drive the transition towards responsible and sustainable care for nature, our global biodiversity, for the well-being of humanity and animality through (un)learning. She focuses on the fields of circularity, renewable energy, biomimicry, biodesign, animal welfare and agroforestry.

Rachel has a master degree in organizational change and consulting (2017) and works via her own company named KANKO for like-minded organizations to support in an innovative way with Knowledge Management, Instructional Design of (Digital) Learning Programs, Gamification, Talent Development, and Training.

Rachel is involved as a Learning Expert for Next Nature Academy and develops learning programs based on the philosophy and artworks of Next Nature Network for people personally or professionally interested.

Natalie Dixon

Dr. Natalie Dixon is the cultural insights director at affect lab. Her work explores issues of belonging, otherness, race and gender through the lens of technology. Her research has been published in multiple peer-reviewed journals and featured in international media. Recently, as a research fellow at Het Nieuwe Instituut she presented ‘How to Read a Story About Burn-Out’ a research project and performance reading for audiences at the Dutch pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale (2018) and at Het Nieuwe Instituut (2019).

Dixon is an invited research fellow at the Institute of Network Cultures (Amsterdam). She is a frequent guest speaker and moderator at festivals. Dixon has lectured at various international universities including ArtEZ University, the Academy of Architecture in Amsterdam and the University of Johannesburg. She is an alumna of the University of Amsterdam and holds a PhD in media & cultural studies from Goldsmiths College in London.

Anneli Huang Vanenburg

Anneli Huang Vanenburg is a junior designer and researcher at affect lab. She is fascinated by human behaviour, social constructs (especially gender and ethnicity), cultural differences and technology. She is eager to delve into complex social issues and uses her design research skills to provide insights and tell meaningful stories.

Recently she graduated with a Bachelor of Science (BSc) from Avans University of Applied Sciences. Her critically acclaimed graduation project, produced in collaboration with affect lab, presented a herstory in the form of a visual auto-ethnographic immersive experience about the universal human desire for an origin story.

Sylvain levy

The dslcollection, founded by Dominique and Sylvain Levy, is one of Europe's largest collections of contemporary Chinese art. As noted by Vastari.com, “It currently represents more than 100 leading Chinese avant-garde artists that have a prominent place on the art scene in China.”

Sylvain Levy is a pioneer and leader in the area of collecting and will take you through a virtual tour of the art world. Dive deeper into the latest trends in digital art, immersion, and the business models behind them.