News Article

Some of the brightest thinkers in technology, new media and mobile will head to NewcastleGateshead from around the world in May to discuss the ideas and technologies that are set to fundamentally alter the way people live, work and play.

The inaugural Thinking Digital conference – which is being organised by Codeworks, the North East's centre for digital innovation – will seek to answer some of the key questions facing high level executives in the fields of marketing, technology, mobile and media, such as: what are the next big changes we'll see in the media? What will globalisation bring us next? Will mobile 2.0 ever show up? And is technology leading us down the path to utopia or to the extinction of the planet?

A strictly limited 400 seats are being released for the exclusive two-and-a-half day event, which will take place at the Sage Gateshead and Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art on 21-23 May. At the conference, delegates will hear from an eclectic mix of speakers, including key players from some of the world's leading agencies, social networks and media organisations, such as:

• Ray Kurzweil, a renowned futurist, Hall of Fame inventor and visionary who predicts that computer intelligence will surpass human intelligence in 2029.
• Dan Lyons, the senior editor of Forbes magazine, who was outed as the man behind The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, a satirical blog about the CEO of Apple
• Tara Hunt, community marketing guru, co-founder and chief marketing officer of Citizen Agency
• Matt Locke, commissioning editor for education and new media at Channel 4
• Sean Phelan, the founder of Multimap, which was recently bought by Microsoft in a deal understood to be worth around $50m
• Richard Firminger, regional sales director, northern Europe, for Yahoo! Search Marketing
• Mark Selby, vice president of sales and industry collaboration at Nokia
• Jessica Flannery, chief marketing officer for Kiva.org, a web 2.0 social enterprise that helps entrepreneurs in developing nations
• Gerard Grech, strategy and business development director, Orange Group, Content Division
• Daniel Pink, Al Gore's former speechwriter and author of A Whole New Mind, which charts the rise of right-brain thinking in modern economies

Herbert Kim, Programme Director for Thinking Digital, says: "It almost goes without saying that the world is changing at an ever-accelerating pace. Technology has been the primary fuel powering this change which is impacting us in every way imaginable – both for better and for worse.

"One great irony is that as technologies get more and more sophisticated and complex, they're driving an even greater need for concerned and informed individuals to meet face-to-face in order to better understand the changes in our world, digest the future trends we face, and think creatively about what we can do.

"We have created the Thinking Digital conference to bring together some the world’s brightest, most accomplished and innovative minds as speakers, sponsors and delegates across a wide variety of disciplines, industries and functions. This is a rare chance to look across traditional borders, boxes and walls in order to stimulate new thinking, new insights and new connections."

"We will facilitate a two-and-a-half day conversation providing snapshots of change in the fields of media, technology, mobile telecommunications, the internet, cultural studies, and so on. We will look at forecasts of where technological progress may be heading in those fields. And finally we’ll see how people are responding to these changes for themselves, their businesses and their communities."

The Thinking Digital conference will kick off on the afternoon of 21 May with a series of workshops. The talks will begin on day two, with sessions on 'The Future of Media', the network effect, technology and even happiness. The final day will include sessions on Globalisation, 'Mobile 2.0', Unconventional Wisdom, and Management & Leadership in the Digital Age.

Tara Hunt, co-founder of the Citizen Agency, says: "I'm really looking forward to Thinking Digital this May. Apart from being totally honoured to be part of their exciting speaker list, there are a great deal of interesting start-ups coming out of the UK that I'm excited to see up close and personal. In fact, some of my favourite start-ups and web people come from the UK.

"I'll be speaking on the importance of Social Capital and it's relevance to the future of your business, web based or otherwise. Social Capital is a term that philosopher, Pierre Bourdieu coined in 1972 and Robert Putnam popularized in his bestseller, Bowling Alone, in 2000, that is a measurement of the value of one's Social Networks. As many of us understand today, online communities have become powerful places of idea exchanges, recommendation sharing and access to resources good for many businesses.

"The many tools available have sped up word of mouth to unprecedented heights. So, where is one to start in getting involved and reaping the benefits of this membership?"

The Thinking Digital conference – which is being organised by Codeworks, a centre for digital innovation based in North East England – will take place at the Sage Gateshead and the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art on 21-23 May 2008. For more information and to book seats, visit www.thinkingdigital.co.uk