Opening Conference - Fast Forward | The Future In The Making

Relive the event

Now in its ninth edition, Maker Faire Rome – The European Edition is one of the most important international events on creativity and innovation.

Maker Faire Rome put the spotlight on hundreds of innovative ideas and projects from all over the world and to make visitors discover a future that is not far off. The main goal is to sensitize a wide audience – whether professional or just passionate – to the culture of innovation and digital transformation.

Maker Faire Rome – The European Edition is where everyone can experience innovation firsthand and understand what the digital environment is all about and how it is changing the way we create and live, and feel part of it.

The Opening Conference, which opens each edition and sets the tone and rhythm of the event, hosts high end, outstanding speakers who depict future scenarios and guide the audience to understand them, and commit to make them happen

The 2021 Opening Conference theme is “Fast Forward I The Future In The Making” and it is meant as an acknowledgement of the circumstances that are accelerating changes that were longly due, and as a celebration of the ability to “make” that is helping to navigate the uncertainty of these – apparently, neverending – pandemic times.

“Fast Forward I The Future In The Making” finds in design the “whirlwind of social transformation”, the founding infrastructure of a new individual and collective life between physical and digital, “which has the ability to give meaning, meaning, reason for existing to things”.

Pandemics generate innovation, but they are also extremely difficult to navigate. How can we – makers, designers, entrepreneurs, activists, innovators, citizens – play a role in shaping the future?

Historically, pandemics have always generated innovation in every sector, including science, art, architecture, technology, fashion and public health. They forced us to deal with our prejudices and to experiment with new ways, not only of reducing suffering from disease, but also of improving everyday life.

“How to do” is often more important than “what to do” because it is the process that lays the foundations for research and knowledge, which enables the calibration of the models, the testing of the tools, the validation of the prototypes; that allows progress, in short. During this pandemic, “progress” has meant many things but all of them have always had a common factor: they were produced “together”.

The ‘bottom-up’ initiatives of makers all over the world have confirmed how responsible innovation ‘often occurs even outside industrial environments. The ‘making’, once again, proved to be critical and socially responsible. What effect will these projects have on the future of manufacturing? Will we see the boundaries of collaboration between industries and makers redrawed? How is this approach changing civil society and, in particular, the younger generations?

Making is a mindset that carries the ability to redesign meaningful relationships; its transformative character is a key factor to fully understand the actions undertaken so far in response to the crisis but also an impulse to generate new response

OPENING SPEECH

HIROAKI KITANO I SONY

Azada Barakzai | Digital Citizen Fund I Afghan Dreamers

Enrico Bassi I OpenDot

Sofia Crespo I Artist

Eliana De Marchi I Eni

Leonardo Durante I Finalista Global Teacher Prize

Tommaso Ghidini | ESA

Nir Goldstein | Good Food Intitute

Mahbooba Islami | Digital Citizen Fund I Afghan Dreamers

Steven Jepeal | Allium Engineering

Michelle Johnson I I-Rim