We collect mountains of data. But are they making us any smarter? Hardly. Journalist Lisa Charlotte Rost illuminates the dark caverns of human reason in the lecture "Data Vis or: Why you don't believe in facts, and how to fix it".

Maybe the industry might be interested in Rost’s talk? Lots of companies are pushing brain research at the moment and want to optimise mental capabilities and performance with the help of pills and electrodes. Miriam Meckel, publisher of the Wirtschaftswoche magazine, will be discussing the emerging neuro-capitalism in her talk "Mein Kopf gehört nicht mehr mir – Brainhacking und Selbstoptimierung".

It constitutes one of the reasons why 27 experts from different areas of civil society drafted the Digital Charta: the agenda is aimed at protecting the freedom of the individual in the digital age. Heinrich Wefing (DIE ZEIT), Christoph Kucklick (GEO) and further experts will be discussing if the Charta does, in fact, offer enough security against agitation, hate and the interests of major corporations and states in the "#DigitalCharta – Brauchen wir Grundrechte für das digitale Zeitalter?" round table.

Blogger Kübra Gümüsay has also committed herself to working against extremism. She contemplates what happened to the so-called centre of society in her session "Die Emanzipation der Gutmenschen": How has it changed in the last years, also as an effect of the web – and how can anti-democratic developments be countered?

by Shea Calvin Westhoff (EJS), Rachelle Pouplier (EJS) & Kerstin Grünewald, (FF)

Photo credit: MCB/Jan Michalko (CC BY 2.0)