The world’s biggest celebration of science, the World Science Festival, will be held in Brisbane during March 2016, and Arup is proud to be Innovation Partner.
Presented by the Queensland Museum and supported by some of the Asia-Pacific region’s leading universities and research institutions, the inaugural World Science Festival Brisbane will be held from 9-13 March 2016. More than 60,000 people are expected to descend on Brisbane’s Cultural Precinct for an electric combination of events, debates, experiments, music, and outdoor experiences featuring some of the world’s greatest minds.
Minds like seven-time Emmy Award winning actor Alan Alda of M*A*S*H fame, World Science Festival co-founder Brian Greene, Laureate Fellow Brian Schmidt, ecologist Dave Schoeman, bioroboticist Janet Wiles, astrobiologist and planetary scientist Pamela Conrad, science journalists Robyn Williams and Natasha Mitchell and astrophysicist Priyamvada Natarajan – to name but a few.
The critical ‘brain power’ of these visiting thought leaders and home-grown talent from government and industry will be harnessed to convene the very first Advance Queensland Future Cities Program as part of the wider World Science Festival Brisbane program.
A collaboration between Arup, Queensland Museum and the Department of Science, Information Technology and Innovation, the Advance Queensland Future Cities Program will pose a future-focussed critical challenge to a specially selected group of participants, who will, prior to the World Science Festival Brisbane, workshop potential solutions using strategic foresight theories.
The solutions and ideas generated from the workshop will be shared as part of the highly-anticipated Catching up with the Jetsons; Cities in 2050 Main Stage event on Sunday 13 March 2016.
The Advance Queensland Future Cities Program workshops will blend evidence with imagination to craft future narratives, tapping into Arup’s deep knowledge base of science, technology, design and engineering to anticipate oncoming challenges and explore potential solutions.
The session will discuss potential topics including connected city ecosystems of the future, building to prepare for the effects of climate change, designing transport systems for future societies and creating smart states driven by big data.
Chris Luebkeman, Arup’s Global Foresight and Innovation leader said the World Science Festival Brisbane was another example of how Arup continues to look at the best innovation around the world.“In Arup’s constant pursuit of a better future, we ask big questions and seek the answers. By partnering with the World Science Festival Brisbane In the Advance Queensland Future Cities Program, Arup’s will draw on expertise in strategic foresight to discuss the megatrends and megashocks that cities of the future will face, and use techniques such as scenario planning and predictive modelling to answer the questions raised.”
The World Science Festival is one of the most celebrated scientific and cultural events in the world, drawing 1.8 million people to New York over its eight-year history to explore the most recent ideas, developments and challenges in the world of science.
The World Science Festival Brisbane program will include theatrical presentations delving into Einstein’s discovery of the theory of relativity; speakers will explore the moral decisions of robots and debate the boundaries of science and ethics; and a host of experts will speak on their life’s work, from chasing comets to defining madness, the flight of birds and the race of drones, and the ideas, research and exploration lighting up the world of science.