2. 2DIF 2014 ROUND UP REPORT
FESTIVAL LABS
Physical meet ups with real-world
design challenges accessible in Fab
Labs globally.
The Disruptive Innovation Festival (DIF) is conceived as
a four-week long, online and face to face opportunity to
explore a changing economy and how best to respond
to it. It has an emphasis on design, technology and
entrepreneurship. The challenge to participants in Year 1
was “What do I need to know, experience and do?”
Since it is completely open, the DIF is essentially an initiative
in informal education. There are no learning outcomes as such,
and it is not a course. It does, however, act as an umbrella for
many formal university offerings.
The DIF uses a festival analogy, lasts for a defined period
and is layered from the top down. It has headliners, ‘big top’
[University] tents, curated stages, and open mic and impromptu
café to describe its various layers. Organisational control of
content and activity becomes reduced at each step down.
The primary reason for this is to allow participation and scale.
It is user experience orientated and flexible. Its core is the
database driven website which has many of the characteristics
of a sophisticated booking agency — for contributors as well
as participants.
The DIF is about the circular economy and much more. It is
an opportunity for exploring innovation, which may be/or
is disrupting the old economy. Some of this might be easily
linked to the ‘meme’ or core story underlying the circular
economy, but some is less obvious: about systems thinking,
for example, or design, or how we teach and learn. It is certainly
about the way the economy is changing and how a participant
and visitor might be interested and stimulated to look further,
understand more and continue from there. It is set out as a
cornucopia, deliberately overstocked to suggest abundance
and possibility. It contained nearly 250 hours of scheduled
sessions in its first year. It is an event not a library. The DIF
ends 30 days after its last session — in a ‘catch up’ mode.
After that most content is no longer available for public view.
Other characteristics include the way in which the DIF reflects
the progressive agenda of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
It seeks to develop thinking fit for the 21st
century through
experimentation with a new engagement model that is
open access, working creatively to connect with a network
of innovators who have the capability to disrupt the global
economy. It is a global platform embryo, which aspires to
ever greater efficiency (delivery of more with less as scale
increases) and the database becomes refined. The language
question is a particular challenge, which we hope to address
during DIF 2015. The long-term goal of the DIF is that it will
be broadcast in all of the world’s major languages.
The DIF is evolving and will probably never reach a final
configuration since it is feedback rich, proudly collaborative
and participatory, whilst acting as a tremendous focus for
the work of the Foundation and its aims.
Ken Webster, Head of Innovation
ELLEN MACARTHUR
FOUNDATION STAGES
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s
curated content with big picture
themes and trends to watch.
THE CAFÉ
Forum takeovers, facilitated
discussion and live chat.
BIG TOP TENTS
University-led online learning
programmes based on the shift to a
regenerative economy. For example
in 2014 TU Delft hosted a one-day
Circular Product Design event,
which was also streamed online.
HEADLINERS
Must-see thinkers
and thought leaders.
OPEN MIC
Online as well as physical
events with contributions
from people like you all
over the world.
WHAT IS THE DIF?
3. 3DIF 2014 ROUND UP REPORT
The inaugural Disruptive Innovation Festival (DIF) 2014 proved to
be a diverse and dynamic event featuring speakers and contributors
from around the world. Individuals, businesses, universities and
organisations took part to create a rich and varied line-up offering
the latest insights and analysis on the changing global economy.
A key feature of the DIF is to showcase previously unheard voices on
the subject of disruptive innovation, much of which came through the
festival’s crowdsourced content in the form of Open Mics and Big Top
Tents. Contributors were able to use the DIF platform to host their own
sessions both online and face-to-face, creating new connections and
starting new discourse, while exploring a diverse range of topics in
new and engaging ways.
GLOBAL CONTRIBUTORS
5+ EVENTS
2+ EVENTS
1 EVENT
OPEN MIC SESSIONS
HEADLINERS
FESTIVAL LABS
ELLEN MACARTHUR FOUNDATION
STAGES
BIG TOP TENTS
4. 4DIF 2014 ROUND UP REPORT
HEADLINER
DAVID WARD
SVP, Chief Architect,
& CTO-Engineering, Cisco
Internet of Everything is one of the most
important IT trends to understand and
integrate into all sectors of the economy.
Tosja Backer
Brad Templeton
The key about biomimicry is whatever your design challenge
is, the odds are high that one or more of the earth’s million
creatures has not only faced this design challenge but has
found out some effective strategies to solve it.
Saskia van den Muijsenberg — The Biomimicry Classroom
The main reason we live in cities is so we can be closer i.e.
shorter travel times. So if we change the meaning of distance
and the meaning of travel then we change the meaning of
cities themselves.
Brad Templeton — Self-Driving Cars and the Future of
the City
We are printing a house element by element.
— Tosja Backer, 3D Print Your Next House
The macroscope is the ability to look at the overview,
to drop the detail... to look for patterns in the relationship
between things.
Ken Webster — Systems Thinking and the Circular Economy
—An Introduction
The circular economy is a really good framework for getting
students to think in a different way about the impacts of their
design decisions.
Clare Brass — SustainRCA: Showcasing Design for
a Circular Economy
QUOTES FROM
THE WEEK
WEEK 1
618 MENTIONS
ON TWITTER
55
SESSIONS
5. 5DIF 2014 ROUND UP REPORT
1,200 MENTIONS
ON TWITTER
WEEK 2
HEADLINERS
EBEN BAYER
CEO & Co-Founder, Ecovative
Ecovative is reaching the
tipping point from exploration,
having a vision and getting
the resources to execute on
that vision... Now we’re at the
stage of proving scalability
and commercial uptake.
WILLIAM MCDONOUGH
Founder, McDonough Innovation
In the end the money matters
a lot and that’s why the circular
economy is so critical because
it’s the economy that drives
the decisions.
JEREMY RIFKIN
Author of The Zero
Marginal Cost Society
Great economic paradigm
shifts occur at a moment in
time when new communication
technologies converge with
new energy sources and new
sources of transportation to
congeal in a general purpose
technology platform.
QUOTES FROM
THE WEEK
Wouldn’t the economy be different if everybody knew how to
repair their things?
Kyle Wiens — Embodied Energy: Maximising
Product Lifespan
The complexity of the world has grown beyond a single
mind’s imagination.
Dirk Helbing — The Participatory Market Society is Born
We have more opportunities to provide additional services
from light, we can even use light bulbs to provide high speed
data communications.
Harald Haas — Let There Be LiFi
Let There Be Lifi
53
SESSIONS
6. 6DIF 2014 ROUND UP REPORT
For the first time in a couple of millennia western civilisation has
started to understand reality through a different lens, so rather
than seeing the world as a hierarchical ordered series of objects,
we’re starting to see reality as being in a state of permanent flux.
Rachel Armstrong — Perspectives on the Future of the City
There’s something about this moment in time when people have
become more conscious of resources and they also have an
energy to renew and improve their cities.
Paul Smyth, Dalston CityFarm — What Does The Future Hold for
Urban Farming?
We’re moving from an old
mode of operation to a
new mode of operation,
the old mode where we’ve
been previously harvesting
resources that were plentiful
and cheap to one where we
are managing resources that
are scarce and valuable.
James Bradfield Moody
— Unleashing the Sixth Wave of Innovation
Ultimately the pedagogy of teardown labs is to work
out how these products have been designed badly and
work out how we can improve the design and make
it better.
Steve Parkinson — Transforming D&T Education
Things get very exciting when you connect
manufacturers to their end of life products.
Rich Gilbert — TU Delft Session 1 : Pioneers of Design
HEADLINERS
MARK MIODOWNIK
Professor of Materials & Society
and Director of the Institute
of Making at University College
London (UCL)
There’s this even greater need
now for this more holistic view
of designing and building and
then re-making objects.
ELLEN MACARTHUR
Founder,
Ellen MacArthur Foundation
The system within which we
live is not currently designed
to run in the long-term.
SIR KEN ROBINSON
Author and Educator
The great driver of human
culture is creative thinking
and innovation.
WEEK 3
880 MENTIONS
ON TWITTER
QUOTES FROM
THE WEEK
86
SESSIONS
7. 7DIF 2014 ROUND UP REPORT
HEADLINERS
JANINE BENYUS
Co-Founder, Biomimicry 3.8
Biomimicry is a practical way to emulate the 3.8 billion
years of R&D.
MICHAEL PAWLYN
Director of Exploration Architecture and
Founding Partner of The Sahara Forest Project
These kind of cyclical interconnected systems result
in that money changing hands many more times
delivering much more social value and moving
towards being a zero waste system.
RACHEL BOTSMAN
Author & Founder, Collaborative Lab
My work focuses on how technology can unlock the
value in under-utilised assets.
DAVID ROWAN
Editor, WIRED magazine
This network which is distributed, which doesn’t have
someone as the central banker, which is based on
facilitating friction-free transactions... is bringing in a
layer of convenience and innovation that banks and
card services haven’t brought for 50 years.
WEEK 4
1,127 MENTIONS
ON TWITTER
QUOTES FROM
THE WEEK
The circulation of knowledge in an open society is what
can enable a circular economy to take shape.
Gary Walsh — Head2Head Article: Consumers
Are the Solution
Technologies have developed in recent years that are
powerful and are open to individuals, communities and
small businesses to use. These smart technologies can
change cities for the better.
Rick Robinson — Technologies for Smarter Cities
3D printing being additive rather than subtractive
inherently reduces material waste. Its design freedom
allows sophisticated internal structures that provide
strength, while reducing material requirements by as
much as 90%.
Phil Brown — Head2Head Article: 3D Printing Offers A
Waste-Free Future
Complex systems are not actually controllable.
Robin de Carteret — Living on the Edge of Chaos
Living On The Edge of Chaos
69
SESSIONS
8. 8DIF 2014 ROUND UP REPORT
GLOBAL
REACH
To activate entrepreneurs,
designers and educators
globally by communicating
the opportunities of a
circular economy.
OBJECTIVES AND REACH
NEW
ENGAGEMENT
MODEL
To develop thinking fit for the
21st century through a new
online learning model that
is open access and working
creatively to connect with a
network of innovators who
have the capability to disrupt
the global economy.
INSPIRING
SPEAKERS
AND STORIES
To demonstrate a shift
in progress by identifying the
new stories and breakthroughs
of circular innovators and how
they can move to scale.
9,421 Facebook likes
Over 225 hours of programmed content
850,000 page views
from 170 countries
Over 70,000 unique website visitors
950,000 @thinkdif impressions3,771 #thinkdif mentions
9,151 registrations
4,101,553 reached
via Facebook marketing
23,113 total session views
9. 9DIF 2014 ROUND UP REPORT
DIF 2014 PARTNERS
MEDIA PARTNER: TECHNOLOGY PARTNER:
COLLABORATORS:
PARTICIPATING UNIVERSITIES (BIG TOP TENTS):
WIRED are delighted to be a partner of the
Ellen MacArthur Foundation for this event,
along with their other contributors including
Stanford, UCL and Cisco.
@WIRED
From the 20th October — 14th November 2014
thought leaders, entrepreneurs, businesses,
makers and doers will join to discuss the future
of business and technology.
@CISCO
The Disruptive Innovation Festival has collaborated with a range
of outstanding partners for its first year.
Media Partner, WIRED, stimulated conversations both online and in print
amongst entrepreneurs and designers interested in how the economy
is changing.
With the support of our Technology Partner Cisco, the DIF showed how
connectivity is enabling new and engaging methods of learning and doing.
Other collaborators included 16 universities who brought academic expertise
to their Big Top Tents, showcasing the latest research and making the DIF
truly international. Finally, we worked with established and emerging
networks who share the drive to catalyse innovations that are shaping
the future economy.
10. 10DIF 2014 ROUND UP REPORT
A FANTASTIC new concept
to have a Festival online —
allowing as much or as little
participation as people
wanted or could manage.
AN ENGAGING conversation
about all the possibilities of a
circular future — all accessible
on your computer.
A STUNNING GLOBAL
line-up of inspirational
speakers and real life
examples showing that the
circular economy is already
happening and what its
potential could be.
DIF IS A GREAT example of
an open platform that invites
you to dive into the circular
economy thinking and get
to know people working
on the transition towards
a circular economy.
I FOUND IT AN
INNOVATIVE FORM for
exchanging information,
questions and opinions
with a targeted group of
interested professionals
across borders.
THE DIF IS TRULY
an outstanding event, we have
never seen anything like this.
EXCELLENT SELECTION
of topics; great content and
speakers; and convenient
format. I enjoyed every
single minute of it!
DIF WAS A RICH, interactive,
inspiring programme that
provided opportunities to learn
about the circular economy
from varied and diverse experts,
entrepreneurs, and educators.
WHAT YOU SAID ABOUT THE DIF
Quotes sourced from the DIF 2014 participant feedback form.
Thanks to all who submitted their comments.
DIF, unforgettable virtual
meeting point for any
entrepreneur dealing with
transformative economies.
11. THANKSfor the huge amount of very positive and useful feedback.
We are already working on new and exciting ideas for DIF 2015.
Next year’s festival will be bigger and better.
DIF 2015 will have guided schedules tailored to fit your
interests, it will have even more connections with the insights
and individuals that you want to work with and it will highlight
how to take advantage of today’s business opportunities.
We look forward to welcoming you and your contributions
to DIF 2015.
Register your interest to contribute or
participate at thinkdif.co
2015