EEDA - East of England Development Agency

World's first conference exploring the future

31 July 2008

FutureFest, the first major conference and festival celebrating the future, will be taking the scene by storm in June 2009. The conference is the world's first attempt to explore the future, in the same way as Davos explores economics.

Tackling some of the burning questions surrounding four core themes - earth, communication, life and machine - FutureFest brings together innovators, business leaders, entrepreneurs, designers, academics, students and artists to debate and discuss what the future holds. Set within a festival environment, FutureFest celebrates the innovations, big ideas and concepts of the future.

FutureFest has over 30 speakers confirmed so far, including Rodney Brooks, director, MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory; Bunker Roy, founder of the Barefoot College; Aubrey de Grey, Methuselah Foundation; Tim Bevan CBE, co founder of Working Title Films; Dale Dougherty, O'Reilly Media; Bob Watson, chief scientific advisor to the UK Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Craig Venter, founder of The Institute of Genomic Research and
Jon Moulton, founder of Alchemy Partners. 

The concept of FutureFest was devised by Cambridge based, Californian born serial entrepreneur Doug Richard, who has also secured the commitment of an advisory board including Ian Leslie (pro vice chancellor, University of Cambridge), Bill Janeway (Warburg Pincus), Joel Dreyfuss (Red Herring) and Jay Marshall (Alix Partners).

Doug Richard stated: "New ideas, new approaches and new companies are screaming for their share of attention around the world. FutureFest will be like nothing the world has seen before, a truly global event with recognised, industry leading experts talking about the major issues affecting the world's population and presenting the new innovations that will change the way we live."

EEDA chair and founding member of the FutureFest advisory board, Richard Ellis said: "EEDA is very excited to be supporting FutureFest. The East of England has long had a reputation for excellence in creativity and innovation. Bringing the world's first future-based conference to Cambridge puts the region under a global spotlight and gives us an opportunity to showcase the East of England offer to an international audience."

FutureFest differs from other conferences in that it's not just about discussion and debate; it's also about action within a festival environment.

The festival commences on 23 June 2009 with a gala dinner for conference delegates and a concert for the festival audience and continues over the next two days across a number of central venues in Cambridge, one of the world's most beautiful cities.

For a full picture of what the festival will include visit www.futurefest.com.

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