Cybersalon: The future of creativity and innovation

James Woudhuysen, Professor of Forecasting and Innovation at De Montfort University, Leiceste, will host the annual Cybersalon & New Media Knowledge Xmas Lecture to speculate about how media and communications technologies are interacting and impacting on society, economics, politics and culture. This event costs £5 per person.

At a forthcoming debate at the Science Museum’s Dana Centre in London, one of Britain’s leading gurus of innovation will argue that the government is more interested in cajoling people into lower energy use than it is in championing science and technology.

James Woudhuysen, Professor of Forecasting and Innovation at De Montfort University, Leicester, will analyse some of today’s cultural barriers to scientific progress, and will show why public debate about dismantling these barriers has become essential. On Thursday 15 December, he will present his ideas at a debate on the future of creativity and innovation at the Dana Centre – the Science Museum’s bar and café dedicated to discussing contemporary and controversial science.

The discussion is the fifth in a series of Christmas Lectures conducted by Cybersalon, a pioneer of critical debate and a platform for breakthroughs in new media and digital art, and NMK, which supports and develops the UK's emerging digital media industries. The series exists as an opportunity for leading members of those industries to talk freely about their work, and to speculate about the effect of media and communications technologies on society, economics, politics and culture.

At the Christmas lecture, Cybersalon and NMK will also launch a new research project and publication initiative, ‘Sorted’.
“In tomorrow's living room, the mobile phone is a remote control unit that runs your computer games, your television and the videoconferencing calls you make to your granny (she has a Webcam, too),” said Professor Woudhuysen.

“But what kind of creative content can we expect to see on wall-sized, wafer-thin TVs that are coming. And will the homes of the future be built efficiently enough for young people to be able to afford them?

“The educated classes in Britain talk a lot about both this nation’s strengths in creativity, and its need to accelerate innovation in the face of challenges from Asia.

“Yet from consumer electronics to construction and transport, government is more interested in cutting down energy use than in turning British science into technological breakthroughs.

“That’s a shame. All over British and European industry, and especially in services, there is not nearly enough of the right kind of R&D going on. By contrast, the regulation of science and technology, by both Whitehall and Brussels, has grown apace.

“I will be examining some of today’s barriers to successful innovation, and showing how we can overcome them.”

Kat Nilsson, head of programmes at the Dana Centre, said: “This is a fantastic opportunity for the Dana Centre to debate the future landscape of innovation. The Centre exists to engage audiences with exciting and contemporary innovations in science, medicine and technology.”

In previous Cybersalon Christmas lectures, Eva Pascoe has described her experiences in founding Cyberia, the world's first Internet Café, and how Internet Cafes have continued to evolve and impact on society. Professor Jonathan Briggs has discussed the role of Internet technologies in helping to rebuild war-torn Kosova. Journalist Bill Thompson has wondered if big business is destroying the Internet, and Dr Richard Barbrook has pondered the shape of Nets to come. You can find reports on all of these at www.nmk.co.uk or www.cybersalon.org.

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