Full Speed Ahead! Futurium Starts 2021 with the “Future of Energy”

Futurium 2020/21

“How do we want to live?” – Since Futurium opened in September 2019, more than 617,000 visitors have already explored this question at Futurium by discussing, trying out and exploring a variety of different futures. “I don’t think we’ll ever forget 2020. It was a year of non-stop abnormality for everyone. At the same time, we experienced how quickly and ambivalently ideas about the future can change. With the digital Futurium, we’ve created a platform to enable discussions about red-hot issues of the future to take place whatever happens – and in 2021, we’ll continue to expand our digital offerings, not least in the field of education,” says Dr Stefan Brandt, Director of Futurium. “We’re also pleased that we were able to welcome around 279,000 visitors to our House of Futures in 2020, despite several months of corona-related restrictions and closures. And at the end of the year, we received the wonderful news that Futurium has been listed for the European Museum of the Year Award, the winner of which will be announced in 2021.”

Like all of Berlin’s museums and cultural institutions, Futurium is currently closed for all in-house activities because of the ongoing pandemic. The extensive digital programme is available at www.futurium.de and via its social media channels on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

The Future of Energy

The 2021 programme of events will start with the topic of energy – an issue of the future that couldn’t be more topical in these times of climate protests, nuclear phase-out, the promotion of renewable energies and continuing global warming. But how can we shape the future of energy? What can we learn from mistakes, and how can we successfully transition to a sustainable economy?

Programme of Events in January and February 2021

14 January 2021, 20:00
Ranga Yogeshwar & Christoph Ingenhoven

The Corona pandemic has shown us once again that the grammar of togetherness requires reorganisation in many areas. This also affects the character and structure of cities. What will future cities require from us? What will make them worth living in? What functions will they perform?

Science journalist and physicist Ranga Yogeshwar will be discussing with his guest what sustainable architecture is all about and how new technologies fit in here. Sustainability plays a prominent role in Christoph Ingenhoven’s work: he sees architecture as something that goes well beyond the mere playing with forms and that must submit itself to the requirements of sustainability. The architect is known as one of the pioneers of ecological and sustainable building and as the architect of the transport and urban development project Stuttgart 21.

14 January 2021, 17:00
Digital Open Lab: Data and The City – Creating Knowledge at School

This digital open lab night is aimed especially at teachers and education enthusiasts. We want to get you started in this world full of data and enable you to teach your pupils the skills they need. We’ll tell you all there is to know about the senseBox exhibit in the Futurium Lab and the ominous data it involves.

And we’ll introduce you to the DIY environmental data monitoring station senseBox and its accompanying online world map, the openSenseMap. Together we’ll collect data, interpret it and discuss the importance of open data for political participation and societal development. In this way we will explore and visualise the meaning behind the abstract numerical values.

23 January 2021, 14:00 & 16:00
Digital Open Lab: Controlling Robots from Home – Free Digital Workshop

Have you always wanted to programme and control a robot? Then sign up for our remote coding event! Working from home – and live – participants will have a chance to programme and control Futurium’s EV3 robots via Open Roberta. The workshop is aimed at children from the age of 10 and interested adults. A computer with webcam and microphone as well as a stable internet connection is required for participation.

29 January 2021, 16:30
Digital Journey through the Futurium Lab

Since current restrictions are preventing you from visiting the Futurium Lab in person, we’ll take you on a digital journey through our showcase.

If you’re now wondering what exactly a showcase is, then this is the right event for you! Futurium Lab Consultant Stefanie Holzheu will answer your questions and give you a rare look behind the scenes of the showcase, including anecdotes about the exhibits on display here.

3 February 2021, 19:00
Fissured. Lessons from Nuclear Energy

The introduction of nuclear power in the 1970s was a technological leap which, in the blink of an eye, seemed to catapult the world into a promising future of limitless growth. In retrospect, however, nuclear power has lost its lustre, and today we know that for a long time the risks and challenges of the technology were underestimated.

The societal efforts required today to modify the technology and clean up after it are enormous. And yet we still long for “big leap innovations” in future technologies.

In this online event we’ll be discussing questions such as: what can we learn from our experience with nuclear power even as we’re yearning for the next big leaps in innovation? How do we keep the big picture in mind when considering small and large solutions? Which consequences need to be identified and assessed in advance? And which players need to have a say in all this?

Rabea Koss, spokesperson of Klimaneustart Berlin, a popular initiative for the establishment of citizens' councils as an instrument for climate policy, will discuss these issues together with Wolfram König, an expert on nuclear safety and permanent repositories for nuclear waste, who is President of the Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Disposal (BASE).

18 February 2021, 18:00
Doable! Let’s do it, Europe! – English only

“United in diversity” is the official motto of the European Union. The underlying promise: a pluralistic Europe offering everyone equal opportunities, visibility, acceptance, and participation. But despite much that has been achieved, it has always been, and still is, more of a vision than a lived reality, and it is now increasingly under attack by populists and nationalists.

As a matter of fact, not everyone has the same access or right to participation in Europe, not everyone is equally represented, not everyone’s voice is equally heard, but everyone’s voice demands more and more to be taken seriously.

Our four guests, who live in various European countries, all have different backgrounds and biographies. What unites them? They are all in their twenties, dissatisfied with the status quo and, like many of their peers, actively shaping the Europe they want to live in through their projects, their activism and their engagement in striving for justice and equality in Europe. These changemakers break through the roles ascribed to them in public discourse and decision-making and move into the white spaces where the rules of the game are not made with and for them – as young Europeans, as women, as queer individuals, as migrants, as Roma, as BIPoC, as refugees.

Our guests will talk about and address the deficits in political participation and their strategies to enable young people and marginalised voices to reach decision-makers better, build inclusive political spaces and shape the civic debate. And they will share with us their ideas on concrete steps for a strong European society in which everyone feels included.

A joint event by the Schwarzkopf Foundation Young Europe and Futurium.

24 February 2021, 18:30
Climate Protection. Same Goals! Same Path?

This event will focus on different ways to achieve better climate protection. In the public debate on the climate crisis, Antje Boetius, Director of the Alfred Wegener Institute, generally advocates a significant tightening of climate protection goals and guidelines. Martin Brudermüller, Chair of the Board of Executive Directors of BASF, also sees himself and BASF as a strong driver of climate protection issues.

The two of them agree that it must be both goal and necessity to act in the interest of climate protection. A climate researcher and the CEO of the world’s largest chemical company are, however, at the same time highly divergent as players in the climate debate, each having their own tasks, role models and horizons of expectation. So how will they set about discussing the necessary measures and their effects on climate protection? How do they assess the compatibility of common economic targets, such as economic growth, with the requirements of climate protection? Where do they see the responsibilities of politics and industry to bring about change? Same goals – same path? We would like to discuss all this with Antje Boetius and Martin Brudermüller.

6 March 2021, 18:00
version21

In view of the approaching German general election in autumn 2021, debates on the future of political participation are gaining relevance. How can political participation be made more inclusive? How can parties represent their constituents better? And how sustainable is the multi-party democracy enshrined in Germany’s 70-year-old Basic Law anyway?

We’ll be using the 2021 general election as an opportunity to discuss these and many other questions about political participation in the future together with young visionaries, interested citizens, pioneers in new ways of thinking and political decision-makers. The extent to which generation “2X” can play an active role in shaping politics depends to a large extent on the opportunities for political participation. It’s high time we took a closer look at them and discussed different visions and ideas for the democracy of the future!

version21 is a series of events by Z2X and Futurium in cooperation with the German Federal Cultural Foundation.

The events programme online: https://futurium.de/de/veranstaltungen