#rp19 Call for Participation: The "Science & Technology"-Track

From autonomous agriculture robots to computer linguistics, gene editing and IT forensics to taboo technologies - for #rp19 we want specialist insights from all scientific disciplines on our stages.

The times in which we can traverse the infinite vastness of space at the speed of light are getting closer with each passing day. People are still only orbiting the Earth, merely landing space probes such as Nasa Insight on Mars, and the Chinese are looking at the back of the well-known moon-- but with every new space project, with every new international crew taking off to the stars, space visions from Jules Verne to Star Trek seem to gain feasibility. The track "Science & Technology" at re:publica is here to negotiate these innovations and many more ideas shaping the future, to review their current status and to inspire new Sci-Fi dreams.

However, space travel is only one of many topics that will be dealt with in the „Science & Technology“ track at re:publica 2019. Inventions, insights and developments from worldwide think tanks, laboratories, hubs and universities will be treated here. „Science & Technology" deals with how technological developments and innovations influence science, culture and society, and how science, culture and society in turn drive digital development and innovation.

We are interested both in infrastructures and hardware as well as in insights into scientific logbooks. In this track we want to dream, tinker, and design new materials. We would like to marvel at what is already possible. We wish for a deep dive into a future that we never believed would be possible. And we want a critical discourse on how AI and robotics inscribe themselves on our lives and how discrimination and exclusion are inscribed in algorithms.

We are damn curious and have many questions to all of you:
We want to know how digital technology is changing criminology, climate research, neurobiology, physics and psychology.
Biologists and agronomists: we would like to take a look at agrarian fields, biotopes and oceans together with you.
We ask computer scientists, mathematicians, engineers: which invention makes your heart beat faster?
We are calling on anthropologists, historians, lawyers, sex researchers, cultural and art scientists and sociologists: how does the digital society tick in time with algorithms? Medics: what progress and tools can you report on, and which developments are you worried about?
Economist and finance analysts: which research projects on Bitcoin and Blockchain should be discussed at #rp19?

Or do you have answers to questions we urgently need to ask? Then join the CfP and help us turn re:publica 2019 into a breathtaking festival of the digital society, reflecting the diversity of our time and negotiating key issues that need to be currently addressed. You have until 16 December 2018 to submit your contribution. This way, please.