Kill the unicorns! On future imaginaries, funding policies and innovation ecologies - a podcast by re:publica

Anna Christmann, Valerie Mocker, Francesca Bria, Julia Kloiber

Funding policies, whether from government side or private institutions can have massive impacts in science, innovation ecologies and society, as for example DARPA (&other imaginaries in technology) demonstrate. How these impacts played out can be observed i.a. by analyzing and contextualizing, how the public interest law field emerged from the American civil rights movement thanks to strategic investments of family foundations. The observations in Mariana Mazzucatos book "The entrepreneurial state" argue, that economic success is often a result of public / state funded investments in innovation and technology rather than a result of free market doctrine that mainly receives credit for a country´s strong economy.
Our futures and technologies are now inextricably intertwined, in almost all areas of life: Community, Politics, Environment, Human Rights ...Because the imbalance in technologies is shifting more and more from democratic ideals of co-design and -use to corporate R&D departments; national technology visions/strategies do not sound particularly inviting either (and show a lack of interest in innovations coming from civil society/ community technologies), we urgently need to depart into an exchange with those who are already doing things differently today: Before a Black Mirror Live-LARP haunts us, we'll gather strategies and best practices from (civic) tech initiatives and debate, which course settings are necessary in innovation policy. 
Are national AI strategies and innovation agencies the right way forward? Or are there manoeuvrable self-initiated speedboats and lighthouses? What does it take for our society to benefit from new technological developments?We`ll debate prevailing narratives and why taxpayers' money should indeed be used to invest in the future. Don't be a unicorn, move in the pack: act fast and MAKE things! #PublicMoneyPublicGood will be our battle cry!

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