La Futura 2016
A piece of future in Singapore
Some say it is the port to Asia, but last week Singapore was definitely the port to the Future as LaFutura hosted their annual trend event in the vibrant city. While the first participants flew in over the weekend, to discover the city and their co-participants, the real party started first on Monday afternoon.
A bus full of enthusiastic future addicts , that could not wait to get their forthcoming journey going. That is how we kicked off LaFutura in Singapore, a trend journey hosted by TrendONE & Klubhaus, mainly organized by Brian Tiong from B-side. What a journey it was, from a lecture regarding smart cities and smart resource systems at the Future Cities Laboratory – Create Centre, to meeting human robot Nadine at the Nanyang Institute for media Innovation, it was a day full of highs that is for sure. Talking about highs, before a lovely traditional Singapore diner, the journey led us all up into the sky with the famous Singapore Flyer, the second highest Ferris wheel in the world.
The second day of LaFutura started early, a conference day full of trend talks, workshops and networking. Of course the first words were for the present team of bright minds behind LaFutura, Nils Müller, Maarten Leyts, and main organizer for this year Brian Tong, who welcomed us all at Great Offices the Room in the business district of Singapore City.
The day was being led by the vibrant Susan Choi who made everybody feel comfortable the moment she took the microphone. Elina Hiltunen from What’s Next Consulting opened the show by charming everybody with her Finish accent while talking about the future of technology. About how we should embrace the tremendous opportunities technology offers us, but how we should never forget it isn’t a substitute for human beings but an extension of our capabilities.
Next up the Fashionable Helen Sac from WGSN, who shared the WGSN Asian vision for the future of Fashion. Their vision contains a believe in the coolness of the underdog and how we are using old heritage to create new values. She got everybody on her side when she amused the crowd with the “banana pineapple pen” song from Pikotaro who underlines this new cool.
The TedxTalk about “a big red dot” touched everybody, not only because it was told by Dylan Soh, a twelve year old Singapore boy, but because it learned us all a very important lesson. Namely to believe in yourself, your talents and your passion and to never give up.
Last before the break was Tim Casio from Samsung who taught us a great lesson about the impact of technology on commerce, entertainment and experience level. His main conclusion was that consumer’s expectations rise, due to the possibilities technology offers, but that we shouldn’t forget that the most important aspect is to implement technology in culture if we want it to answer to these expectations.
After a well deserved lunch break the crowd divided into different workshops led by 1030 Innovation, The Living Core, UMS Consulting and Wandering the Future. Participants could work on shifting their mind set, how to turn trends in to feasible innovations, fast track innovations or play with trend polaroid’s and develop creative solution to global issues.
The afternoon part was all about do, play and fun as the up following trend and fact quiz underlined. With questions about the different trend talks, the journey and Singapore in general some future focussed gifts were given away.
The best for last was Matthias Pratz who is Vice President Innovation & New Ventures for Deutsche Bahn had the closing keynote regarding disruptive leadership and although it might have been the end of the day, his inspiring words kept the audience interested. The day ended with celebratory drinks to celebrate another successful Lafutura edition.
We can only hope you had as good of a time as we had and already want to cordially invite you to LaFutura ’17 in Dubai, on the 21th – 22nd of November 2017. Tickets are free and registration is open now, so what are you waiting for, get your tickets today.
