Inventing our Future at the Concept Lab

Parliaments and Presidents, Committees and Kings. As they once commissioned symphonies and cathedrals, they now procure expert reports. All evidence has been considered, we say; but as much of it is very complicated and some of it is secret, people are ever more reluctant to take it on faith. It’s time to build tools and systems that bring more and more diverse minds to bear.

Join us at the Concept Lab in Eveleigh for a day of making — ideas, software, designs, protocols and systems to power informed and collaborative decision-making about the world we inhabit.

Because while today’s computational infosphere is built on the powerful ideas of visionaries like Vannevar Bush, Karen Spärck Jones and Doug Engelbart – it still revolves around the lone information professional, augmented with tools for knowledge work. We sharpen those tools, but still the volume of information grows and the complexity of our challenges overwhelm.

Susan Leigh Star showed us a different vision - of knowledge that lives between disciplines, of tools that work across boundaries, of intelligence that emerges from collaboration. But who will build them? Our institutions are fine with the way things are and venture capital seeks alpha above all else.

So: it's us. We're here, and we have the pent-up electricity to deal lightning from every hand. Let’s make something, and if it works then we'll build a tradition, a rhythm, a flywheel.

This event is part of the WebDirections Festival and is brought to you by CSIRO, solving the greatest challenges through innovative science and technology.