Dimitri Tokmetzis (1975) is a historian and investigative journalist. He leads the data team of Follow The Money and wrote the books Je hebt wel iets te verbergen (2016) and De digitale Schaduw (2012). He is currently very much involved in remote sensing, which allows you to obtain information about a person, animal or thing without making physical contact. In his Freedom Lecture he discusses power and freedom in a time when the sky is full of satellites.
The intention is to end the evening with an interactive debate based on the lecture!

Imagine a world where everyday objects are imbued with the power of generative AI. What possibilities and challenges would emerge? ThingsCon aims to explore this frontier by inviting designers to create provotypes of the near future “generative things”.

To ignite imagination and foster meaningful discussions, we like to use the concept of “provotypes” – provocative prototypes of generative things. These tangible glimpses into tomorrow are catalysts, opening up critical dialogues about our impending relationships with AI-infused objects.

The exhibition “Generative Things” premiered at TH/NGS 2024 on 13 December 2024 in Volkshotel Amsterdam and will travel to other places in 2025, sparking conversations and imagination. ThingsCon organizes this initiative in collaboration with the Master Digital Design of Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences and Waag Futurelab.

15 April. Speculative Design Workshop; An Immersive Future Zine
Connected to Salon, we organize a speculative design workshop where we create a Future Zine that brings the provotypes to life using speculative design methodologies. The outcomes will be used to create immersive experiences with the provotypes that can be presented and discussed with the visitors of the future fest in June.

Preliminary program of the SDW
09:30 Introduction and icebreaker
10:00 Inspirations from the future
10:30 Discuss in groups per provotype possible future scenarios
11:30 Share and sync the different narratives
12:30 lunch
13:30 Create a contribution to the Future Zine
16:30 Share and wrap-up

The Future Zine is proposed as an online publication with immersive capabilities, the framework will be prepared by ThingsCon.

Location
The Speculative Design Workshop will take place Tuesday 15 April at the location of Master Digital Design, Theo Thijssen Huis building, 4th floor, Wibautstraat Amsterdam.
Read more on the backgrounds of the project on the website.

We depend heavily on Big Tech companies like Google, Meta, Apple, Amazon, and more. And with your smartphone, there is no escaping them. Even if you don’t use social media, and use anti-tracking software, some of your data will still be shared and sold. This can make you feel pretty uncomfortable. Especially, since most of these tech companies are in the USA and China. This is why, in this session, we worked on the question: Is it possible to develop mobile software which is ethical and functional?

Danny Lämmerhirt from Waag Futurelab works on the MOBIFREE project. This project aims to change the development and use of mobile software in Europe by citizens, businesses, non-profits and governments. In doing so, they want to support the emerging movement for ethical mobile software consisting of organisations that adhere to European values such as openness, privacy, digital sovereignty, fairness, collaboration, sustainability, and inclusivity.

In this session, Danny introduced us to the smartphone they are working on. This smartphone has its hardware from Fairphone (an ethically produced smartphone) and uses a privacy-friendly operating system: Murena. This operating system is an Android fork that doesn’t come with standard tracking software. On top of that, it has an app store with only ethical apps and is connected to an ethical European cloud.

Outcomes

We discussed with the group what values we found most important in an ethical mobile phone when using it for work. The values that were deemed most important by the group were:
- Autonomy: A smartphone allows working wherever and whenever you want. It is an incredibly powerful tool that you can use for so many different things, and it fits in your pocket.
- Independency: We’ve become incredibly dependent on our smartphones. When you lose your phone, you no longer have your money, your public transport card, a map to find the way, etc. On the other hand, this also means that you don’t need to travel with a bag full of tools every time you leave the house.
- Privacy: Constantly being tracked has become normal, but that doesn't mean we’re happy with it. Right now, you don’t have a choice. It would be nice to have a choice, to either pay with your data, or with money.
- User-friendliness: An ethical and privacy-friendly smartphone sounds great, but it also means that you can no longer use many of the apps that you’re used to. Will it still be practical to use? And will it be intuitive? We are all used to a certain way of working and are hesitant to change.

This discussion was definitely food for thought. We all want a more ethical phone, but are not willing to sacrifice much in return…

Are you interested in trying out this ethical smartphone? The MOBIFREE project is currently looking for people who can test this smartphone. They are looking for young adults, civil servants, mobile software developers, and professionals working in humanitarian organisations.

<strong>Would you like to participate, or do you have any questions about this project? Please contact Noor at noor@amsterdaminchange.com. Special thanks to Danny Lämmerhirt for this interesting session.</strong>