DIF 2014 Final Report

2014 ROUND UP REPORTCurated by:

2DIF 2014 ROUND UP REPORT

FESTIVAL LABSPhysical meet ups with real-world design challenges accessible in Fab Labs globally.

The Disruptive Innovation Festival (DIF) is conceived as a four-week long, online and face to face opportunity to explore a changing economy and how best to respond to it. It has an emphasis on design, technology and entrepreneurship. The challenge to participants in Year 1 was “What do I need to know, experience and do?”

Since it is completely open, the DIF is essentially an initiative in informal education. There are no learning outcomes as such, and it is not a course. It does, however, act as an umbrella for many formal university offerings.

The DIF uses a festival analogy, lasts for a defined period and is layered from the top down. It has headliners, ‘big top’ [University] tents, curated stages, and open mic and impromptu café to describe its various layers. Organisational control of content and activity becomes reduced at each step down. The primary reason for this is to allow participation and scale. It is user experience orientated and flexible. Its core is the

database driven website which has many of the characteristics of a sophisticated booking agency — for contributors as well as participants.

The DIF is about the circular economy and much more. It is an opportunity for exploring innovation, which may be/or is disrupting the old economy. Some of this might be easily linked to the ‘meme’ or core story underlying the circular economy, but some is less obvious: about systems thinking, for example, or design, or how we teach and learn. It is certainly about the way the economy is changing and how a participant and visitor might be interested and stimulated to look further, understand more and continue from there. It is set out as a cornucopia, deliberately overstocked to suggest abundance and possibility. It contained nearly 250 hours of scheduled sessions in its first year. It is an event not a library. The DIF ends 30 days after its last session — in a ‘catch up’ mode. After that most content is no longer available for public view.

Other characteristics include the way in which the DIF reflects the progressive agenda of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. It seeks to develop thinking fit for the 21st century through experimentation with a new engagement model that is open access, working creatively to connect with a network of innovators who have the capability to disrupt the global economy. It is a global platform embryo, which aspires to ever greater efficiency (delivery of more with less as scale increases) and the database becomes refined. The language question is a particular challenge, which we hope to address during DIF 2015. The long-term goal of the DIF is that it will be broadcast in all of the world’s major languages.

The DIF is evolving and will probably never reach a final configuration since it is feedback rich, proudly collaborative and participatory, whilst acting as a tremendous focus for the work of the Foundation and its aims.

Ken Webster, Head of Innovation

ELLEN MACARTHUR FOUNDATION STAGESThe Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s curated content with big picture themes and trends to watch.

THE CAFÉForum takeovers, facilitated discussion and live chat.

BIG TOP TENTSUniversity-led online learning programmes based on the shift to a regenerative economy. For example in 2014 TU Delft hosted a one-day Circular Product Design event, which was also streamed online.

HEADLINERSMust-see thinkers and thought leaders.

OPEN MICOnline as well as physical events with contributions from people like you all over the world.

WHAT IS THE DIF?


The inaugural Disruptive Innovation Festival (DIF) 2014 proved to be a diverse and dynamic event featuring speakers and contributors from around the world. Individuals, businesses, universities and organisations took part to create a rich and varied line-up offering the latest insights and analysis on the changing global economy.

A key feature of the DIF is to showcase previously unheard voices on the subject of disruptive innovation, much of which came through the festival’s crowdsourced content in the form of Open Mics and Big Top Tents. Contributors were able to use the DIF platform to host their own sessions both online and face-to-face, creating new connections and starting new discourse, while exploring a diverse range of topics in new and engaging ways.

GLOBAL CONTRIBUTORS

5+ EVENTS

2+ EVENTS

1 EVENT

OPEN MIC SESSIONS

HEADLINERS

FESTIVAL LABS

ELLEN MACARTHUR FOUNDATION STAGES

BIG TOP TENTS


HEADLINER

DAVID WARDSVP, Chief Architect, & CTO-Engineering, Cisco

Internet of Everything is one of the most important IT trends to understand and integrate into all sectors of the economy.

Tosja Backer

Brad Templeton

The key about biomimicry is whatever your design challenge is, the odds are high that one or more of the earth’s million creatures has not only faced this design challenge but has found out some effective strategies to solve it.

Saskia van den Muijsenberg — The Biomimicry Classroom

The main reason we live in cities is so we can be closer i.e. shorter travel times. So if we change the meaning of distance and the meaning of travel then we change the meaning of cities themselves.

Brad Templeton — Self-Driving Cars and the Future of the City

We are printing a house element by element.

— Tosja Backer, 3D Print Your Next House

The macroscope is the ability to look at the overview, to drop the detail... to look for patterns in the relationship between things.

Ken Webster — Systems Thinking and the Circular Economy —An Introduction

The circular economy is a really good framework for getting students to think in a different way about the impacts of their design decisions.

Clare Brass — SustainRCA: Showcasing Design for a Circular Economy

QUOTES FROM THE WEEK

WEEK 1

618 MENTIONS ON TWITTER

55 SESSIONS


1,200 MENTIONS ON TWITTER

WEEK 2

HEADLINERS

EBEN BAYERCEO & Co-Founder, Ecovative

Ecovative is reaching the tipping point from exploration, having a vision and getting the resources to execute on that vision... Now we’re at the stage of proving scalability and commercial uptake.

WILLIAM MCDONOUGHFounder, McDonough Innovation

In the end the money matters a lot and that’s why the circular economy is so critical because it’s the economy that drives the decisions.

JEREMY RIFKINAuthor of The Zero Marginal Cost Society

Great economic paradigm shifts occur at a moment in time when new communication technologies converge with new energy sources and new sources of transportation to congeal in a general purpose technology platform.


Wouldn’t the economy be different if everybody knew how to repair their things?

Kyle Wiens — Embodied Energy: Maximising Product Lifespan

The complexity of the world has grown beyond a single mind’s imagination.

Dirk Helbing — The Participatory Market Society is Born

We have more opportunities to provide additional services from light, we can even use light bulbs to provide high speed data communications.

Harald Haas — Let There Be LiFi

Let There Be Lifi

53 SESSIONS


For the first time in a couple of millennia western civilisation has started to understand reality through a different lens, so rather than seeing the world as a hierarchical ordered series of objects, we’re starting to see reality as being in a state of permanent flux.

Rachel Armstrong — Perspectives on the Future of the City

There’s something about this moment in time when people have become more conscious of resources and they also have an energy to renew and improve their cities.

Paul Smyth, Dalston CityFarm — What Does The Future Hold for Urban Farming?

We’re moving from an old mode of operation to a new mode of operation, the old mode where we’ve been previously harvesting resources that were plentiful and cheap to one where we are managing resources that are scarce and valuable.

James Bradfield Moody — Unleashing the Sixth Wave of Innovation

Ultimately the pedagogy of teardown labs is to work out how these products have been designed badly and work out how we can improve the design and make it better.

Steve Parkinson — Transforming D&T Education

Things get very exciting when you connect manufacturers to their end of life products.

Rich Gilbert — TU Delft Session 1 : Pioneers of Design

HEADLINERS

MARK MIODOWNIKProfessor of Materials & Society and Director of the Institute of Making at University College London (UCL)

There’s this even greater need now for this more holistic view of designing and building and then re-making objects.

ELLEN MACARTHURFounder, Ellen MacArthur Foundation

The system within which we live is not currently designed to run in the long-term.

SIR KEN ROBINSONAuthor and Educator

The great driver of human culture is creative thinking and innovation.

WEEK 3

880 MENTIONS ON TWITTER


86 SESSIONS


HEADLINERS

JANINE BENYUSCo-Founder, Biomimicry 3.8

Biomimicry is a practical way to emulate the 3.8 billion years of R&D.

MICHAEL PAWLYNDirector of Exploration Architecture and Founding Partner of The Sahara Forest Project

These kind of cyclical interconnected systems result in that money changing hands many more times delivering much more social value and moving towards being a zero waste system.

RACHEL BOTSMANAuthor & Founder, Collaborative Lab

My work focuses on how technology can unlock the value in under-utilised assets.

DAVID ROWANEditor, WIRED magazine

This network which is distributed, which doesn’t have someone as the central banker, which is based on facilitating friction-free transactions... is bringing in a layer of convenience and innovation that banks and card services haven’t brought for 50 years.

WEEK 4

1,127 MENTIONS ON TWITTER


The circulation of knowledge in an open society is what can enable a circular economy to take shape.

Gary Walsh — Head2Head Article: Consumers Are the Solution

Technologies have developed in recent years that are powerful and are open to individuals, communities and small businesses to use. These smart technologies can change cities for the better.

Rick Robinson — Technologies for Smarter Cities

3D printing being additive rather than subtractive inherently reduces material waste. Its design freedom allows sophisticated internal structures that provide strength, while reducing material requirements by as much as 90%.

Phil Brown — Head2Head Article: 3D Printing Offers A Waste-Free Future

Complex systems are not actually controllable.

Robin de Carteret — Living on the Edge of Chaos

Living On The Edge of Chaos

69 SESSIONS


GLOBAL REACHTo activate entrepreneurs, designers and educators globally by communicating the opportunities of a circular economy.

OBJECTIVES AND REACH

NEW ENGAGEMENT MODELTo develop thinking fit for the 21st century through a new online learning model that is open access and working creatively to connect with a network of innovators who have the capability to disrupt the global economy.

INSPIRING SPEAKERS AND STORIESTo demonstrate a shift in progress by identifying the new stories and breakthroughs of circular innovators and how they can move to scale.

9,421 Facebook likes

Over 225 hours of programmed content

850,000 page views

from 170 countries

Over 70,000 unique website visitors

950,000 @thinkdif impressions3,771 #thinkdif mentions

9,151 registrations

4,101,553 reached via Facebook marketing

23,113 total session views


DIF 2014 PARTNERS

MEDIA PARTNER: TECHNOLOGY PARTNER:

COLLABORATORS:

PARTICIPATING UNIVERSITIES (BIG TOP TENTS):

WIRED are delighted to be a partner of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation for this event, along with their other contributors including Stanford, UCL and Cisco.

@WIRED

From the 20th October — 14th November 2014 thought leaders, entrepreneurs, businesses, makers and doers will join to discuss the future of business and technology.

@CISCO

The Disruptive Innovation Festival has collaborated with a range of outstanding partners for its first year. Media Partner, WIRED, stimulated conversations both online and in print amongst entrepreneurs and designers interested in how the economy is changing.

With the support of our Technology Partner Cisco, the DIF showed how connectivity is enabling new and engaging methods of learning and doing.

Other collaborators included 16 universities who brought academic expertise to their Big Top Tents, showcasing the latest research and making the DIF truly international. Finally, we worked with established and emerging networks who share the drive to catalyse innovations that are shaping the future economy.


A FANTASTIC new concept to have a Festival online — allowing as much or as little participation as people wanted or could manage.

AN ENGAGING conversation about all the possibilities of a circular future — all accessible on your computer.

A STUNNING GLOBAL line-up of inspirational speakers and real life examples showing that the circular economy is already happening and what its potential could be.

DIF IS A GREAT example of an open platform that invites you to dive into the circular economy thinking and get to know people working on the transition towards a circular economy.

I FOUND IT AN INNOVATIVE FORM for exchanging information, questions and opinions with a targeted group of interested professionals across borders.

THE DIF IS TRULY an outstanding event, we have never seen anything like this.

EXCELLENT SELECTION of topics; great content and speakers; and convenient format. I enjoyed every single minute of it!

DIF WAS A RICH, interactive, inspiring programme that provided opportunities to learn about the circular economy from varied and diverse experts, entrepreneurs, and educators.

WHAT YOU SAID ABOUT THE DIF

Quotes sourced from the DIF 2014 participant feedback form.

Thanks to all who submitted their comments.

DIF, unforgettable virtual meeting point for any entrepreneur dealing with transformative economies.

THANKSfor the huge amount of very positive and useful feedback.

We are already working on new and exciting ideas for DIF 2015.

Next year’s festival will be bigger and better.

DIF 2015 will have guided schedules tailored to fit your interests, it will have even more connections with the insights and individuals that you want to work with and it will highlight

how to take advantage of today’s business opportunities.

We look forward to welcoming you and your contributions to DIF 2015.

Register your interest to contribute or participate at thinkdif.co

2015

DIF 2014 Final Report

Documents

Transcript of DIF 2014 Final Report