What role can designers play in shaping our technological future?

James Auger, from the Auger-Loizeau design studio, presents various examples and cases of critical and speculative design removed from the commercial standpoint. His projects in robotics, implants and mobile services, should be seen as provocative and discussion-generating pieces.

Anab Jain, who is an independent designer and film maker from India, talks about "design futurescaping", which is using design methods like storytelling, experience prototyping, making scenarios tangible, and talking to people on a daily basis, to inspire and influence prototypes for the near future.

What would a diverse, complex world brain look like? Considering how digital culture enables a multiplicity of knowledges.
Ramesh Srinivasan, an Assistant Professor at the University of California Los Angeles, speaks about the importance of cultural differences in knowledge production and technology design. Through various stories, he shows the differences in cultural appropriation and the inherent creativity of people in adpating technologies to the uses that benefit them best.

Carlo Ratti, director of the Senseable City Lab at MIT, shows various projects he and his lab conducted around the theme of sensed data (mobile phone, flickr pictures) and how they allow to reveal new information layer on top of urban space and or lead to new experience for citizens.

Oriol Pascual from Enviu Innovation Lab in Rotterdam describes several projects and initiatives that show the role of design in the creation of innovative solutions for environmental or social issues. In particular he focuses on his studio's work with regards to new sources of electricity production such as the generation of electricity through a dance floor.

Olivier Glassey examines to what extent the notion of a "Government 2.0" is valid or only a buzzword. He uncovers thepotential transformations hiding behind it and question whether "2.0" really applies to government.

Florence Devouard, who was the Chair of the Wikimedia Board till July 2008, gives a quick update of the situation at Wikipedia. She shows the recent evolution and initiative of the collaborative on-line encyclopedia.

Dan Hill, from urban engineering firm Arup, revisits the past vision of the city of the future and shows they turned out differently. He discusses the important interplay between urban soft infrastructure (people, networks, culture, society, civic relationships) and hard infrastructure. Which leads him to the role of design thinking in developing this new layer information/services based on personal informatics.

How to visualize the cell phone activity in cities?
Stéphane Distinguin, CEO of Faber Novel, describes the results from "Urban Mobs". This project, conducted with Orange aimed at studying crowd communication activities and paint a “ popular emotion cartography through mobile phone tracking.

David Rose, who is a serial entrepreneur and a lecturer at MIT, shows how human beings have persistent needs and wishes that they carry through time. For each of these needs, he presents various prototypes and products to demonstrate how design can lead to "enchanted objects" by fulfilling them.