About re:publica


On with the show! After our trip to Ireland with re:publica Dublin on 20 October 2016, the next re:publica 2017 and MEDIA CONVENTION Berlin in Berlin will be held in the week of 8 to 10 May 2017. See you soon!

re:publica is one of the largest and most exciting conferences about digital culture in the world. Since its foundation in 2007, it has grown from a cozy blogger meeting with 700 participants into a wide-ranging “society conference”, with 8.000 visitors at the anniversary edition re:publica TEN. Representatives of digital culture share their knowledge and decision-making tools, and discuss the future of the information society. Here they can mingle with activists, scientists, hackers, entrepreneurs, NGOs, journalists, social media and marketing experts, and many others. This fosters innovation and creates synergies between net politics, online marketing, network technology, digital society, and (pop) culture. What is more, around 46 percent of re:publica speakers are female – far more than at many other similar events.

The 2017 edition has been exciting: We proudly count a total of 9.000 participants, 1030 international speakers from 65 countries who made up the 500 hour-long program. This is the highest number of visitors so far, making 2017 another record-setting year for re:publica. Young and old alike were represented on re:publica's 20 stages.

The re:publica 2017 brought together people from 71 countries. Around 800 accredited international journalists bustled around the fully packed STATION-Berlin and adjoining Kühlhaus. 

re:publica Thessaloniki

We are heading out to faraway waters! We’ve got another exciting destination on our agenda: Greece! The #rpTHE, taking place from 11 to 13 September 2017 in Thessaloniki.

re:publica Dublin

Our first international event went spectacularly. On 20 October 2016, more than 200 participants converged on re:publica Dublin. There they attended exciting sessions on three stages and discussed some of the most important topics of the digital society, such as data prvacy, with our 33 speakers. Our first event outside of Germany reminded us of our very first re:publica in Berlin. There was a lot of room for discussion and great exchanges with the Irish digital community. re:publica is more than an annual event – it's a network and an attitude.

The founding team at #rpTEN, from left: Johnny Haeusler, Andreas Gebhard, Markus Beckedahl, Tanja Haeusler

The founding team at #rpTEN, from left: Johnny Haeusler, Andreas Gebhard, Markus Beckedahl, Tanja Haeusler

Of course, our broad focus on issues related to the digital society – from net politics and technological innovations, music, culture and media, to health and education – has convinced sponsors and partners alike. Again, we’ve formed a close partnership with the MEDIA CONVENTION Berlin, the defining congress for the international media industry, which started with the same event space in 2014. Since last year, the collaboration is intensified with one ticket for both events.

re:publica hosts various sub-conferences: At TEN the "re:fugees" conference was hosted in cooperation with the German Federal Center for Political Education (bpb). Furthermore the Global Innovation Gathering (GIG) sub-conference is already in its fourth year, this time supported by Autodesk, Bürklin, FabLab Berlin and Arduino. One focus in 2016 was the topic of Virtual Reality which was explored all over the STATION-Berlin and especially at the "labore:tory" in collaboration with the First German Association for Virtual Reality (EDFVR). And, since 2015, there is even more to be explored in two sub-conferences, the one-day Wearables sub-conference #FASHIONTECH BERLIN in collaboration with PREMIUM and SEEK International Fashion Trade Shows, and the Musicday on the latest in music and tech, supported by the Musicboard Berlin. To name just a few of the many themed tracks at #rpTEN: Net Politics, Immersive Art, Hate It, re:learn, re:health, Call It Work, re:think Mobility, Law Lab, FinTech and many more.

And finally, re:publica maintains close, long-term relationships with institutions, ministries, NGOs, companies and other organizations. In the past, sponsors have included: Daimler AG, IBM Deutschland, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, Microsoft Deutschland GmbH, Deutsche Bank, Konrad-Adenauer Stiftung, Deutsche Telekom, Google Deutschland GmbH, WWF, Deutsche Bahn AG, Telefonica, Mozilla, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, ARD, ZDF, Vodafone, GIZ and many more.

A selection of our speakers from the past years:
Lisa Winter, Elisabeth Wehling (UC Berkeley), Steven Hill, Garry Kasparov, Can Dündar (Journalist), Nelly Ben Hayoun, Matthew Mitchell (Journalist), Trevor Paglen, Usman Haque, Silvia Lindtner (University of Michigan), Peter Neumann, Carolin Emcke, Prof. Frank Pasquale (University of Maryland), Claudio Guarnieri,  Claus Kleber (ZDF), Neelie Kroes (European Commission), Jeff Jarvis (BuzzMachine), Saskia Sassen (Columbia University), Steffen Seibert (German government spokesman), Mitchell Baker (Mozilla Foundation), Cory Doctorow (BoingBoing), Miriam Meckel, Jim Wales (Wikipedia), Bianca Jagger, Sascha Lobo, Jillian C. Yorck (EFF), The Yes Men, Kathrin Passig, David Hasselhoff, Gesche Joost (UdK Berlin), Gunter Dueck (CEO Omnisophie), Yoani Sánchez (Entrepreneur and blogger, Generación Y), Erik Hersman (Founder of iHub and Ushahidi), Sarah Harrison (Wikileaks), Dieter Zetsche (Daimler AG executive board), Jutta Allmendinger (President of the WZB Berlin Center for Social Science), Andreas Schleicher (Head of the Education and Skills Directorate, OECD), Lawrence Lessig (Creative Commons)

Photo credit: re:publica/Gregor Fischer (CC BY 2.0)