Sharing our PICNIC blanket

Urban environments hold many promises for a better future, simply because of their massive scale and density. Cities generate jobs and incomes, they can provide education, healthcare and other services more efficiently than less densely settled areas, thus giving more opportunity for people to climb the steep social ladder.

But the same scale and proximity that provide these opportunities also amplify challenges to keep urban life livable. Most cities have never been designed to host a population that soon will surpass that of the entire Netherlands (16,6 million). So can their infrastructure hold up, maintaining the distribution of utilities? What about mobility issues, clogged up streets, and insufficient transport?

PICNIC Festival is an annual three-day event that blurs the lines between creativity, science, technology and business to explore new solutions in the spirit of co-creation. This year’s theme is Urban Futures, with a focus on sustainability, infrastructure, society, design and media. PICNIC Festival 2011 takes place from 14 to 16 September at NDSM Wharf in Amsterdam.

In the coming years, the majority of the world’s population will be living in urban settings.  The conference will explore the challenges and new possibilities for creating more livable future cities, with a focus on infrastructure, sustainability, society, design and media. Environment and sustainability are a huge challenge in dense areas like (mega) cities: from waste management (the vast landfills in India go hand in hand with the waste crisis in Naples, Italy), to air quality (the smog filled cities in China and Los Angeles) and the use of (natural} resources. How can technology help to monitor our usage and visualize the "problem areas"?

The huge scale of our (future) megacities will also impact social dynamics and the commitment of residents to keep up the quality of their living environment. In emerging countries like Brazil and India, growing slums demand a new approach of governance and valuation of informal economic dynamics. Should the role of governments change? And can the application of open data or the influence of social media play a role in shifting control back to citizens more? Watch out for the Chroma installation: power of human influence on an ecosystem.
In addition to frog Chief Creative Officer Mark Rolston, speakers include:
--Doc filmmaker Lucy Walker ("Wasteland")
--Leading authority on urbanization Saskia Sassen 
--Benoit Jacob, head of BMW-i Design, looking at emission-free mobility 
--Journalist and technologist Ben Hammersley 
--Robin Chase of BuzzCar, leading the car-sharing revolution

Thanks to our partnership with PICNIC, friends of frog can take a 30% discount on both festival Passe-partouts and Day Tickets. To purchase your ticket, go to: www.picnicnetwork.org and the registration section and use the promotional code frogPIC30 for 30% off either a Passe-partout or Day Ticket to PICNIC Festival 2011.