User:Digitalpaper/sandbox

Doku.Tech is an annual festival and conference that promotes digital and tech culture. It takes place in Pristina, Kosovo and was first held in 2014 in Prizren, Kosovo during the 10th edition of Dokufest Film Festival. The festival has developed into a well-known tech conference in Kosovo and the surrounding region, bringing together people in the areas of technology, art, music, science, and DIY in the form of lectures, workshops, masterclasses, and exhibitions.

Doku.Tech is organized every year in the summer and gathers a number of international speakers, artists, entrepreneurs, scientists, and attendees from around the world. Past speakers include Esther Dyson, Bruce Sterling, Kentaro Toyama, Mira Murati, Yanki Margalit, Peter Sunde, Birgitta Jónsdóttir, David Batstone, Mikko Hypponen, Ida Tin and others. The conference draws more than 500 people from all over Europe. Currently Doku.Tech is organised by the IPKO Foundation.

History
The early beginnings of the idea behind Doku.Tech started in Stockholm, Sweden in 2012. Internet activist Peter Sunde introduced Kosovo born entrepreneur Kushtrim Xhakli to the organisers of EXIT Festival in Serbia. The initial vision was to create a joint tech-focused conference that would foster better relations between Kosovo and Serbia, while advocating for global issues like digital rights, online privacy and net neutrality.

The initial conference concept was designed during Republika Festival in Rijeka, Croatia in the summer of 2013. However, Peter Sunde faced imprisonment in Sweden due to his role in The Pirate Bay trial in May 2014. Despite this setback, Kushtrim Xhakli and Vladan Joler remained determined to hold the event as a show of support for Sunde. The Dokufest International Film Festival embraced the initiative and integrated Doku.Tech into its 10th-anniversary program. Additionally, the IPKO Foundation (Kosovo) and the SHARE Foundation (Serbia) joined the organizing board, providing essential funding and support to bring the first edition of Doku.Tech to fruition in 2014.

The inaugural opening of Doku.Tech took place on August 5, 2014, with Xhakli and Joler wearing T-shirts bearing the hashtag #FreePeterSunde, symbolizing their solidarity with Peter Sunde, the driving force behind the conference's inception. Today, Doku.Tech continues to bring together experts and stakeholders from across the globe to explore the latest developments in technology and promote digital rights and ethical practices.

2014
The inaugural event was held in Prizren for 4 days during the 10th edition of DokuFest in August 2014 with approximately 500 participants. The first edition included nearly 35 speakers, workshops, and master-class tutors.

Key speakers included Bruce Sterling, American science fiction author, Lynn Fine, Code For America, Pedro Noel, Brazilian Internet media activist, Kevin Connor, Public Accountability Initiative, Michele Orrù, GlobaLeaks developer, Deanna Zandt, Media Technologist and Author, Jasmina Tesanovic, author, feminist, political activist and filmmaker, Teresa Crawford, founder of IPKO, and Stephan Urbach(de), German author and activist.

Associated events included live music from new wave band Bicalko and DJ Filip, panels about watchdogs, online privacy, workshops and a film screening of the 2013 Swedish documentary TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay Away From Keyboard.

2015
In 2015, Doku.Tech was organised on August 8-9 at the Monumental Complex of the Albanian League of Prizren, in Prizren, Kosovo. Key speakers included Esther Dyson, Swiss-born American investor, journalist, author, commentator and philanthropist, Kentaro Toyama, computer scientist and international development researcher, author of Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology, Yanki Margalit, Israeli entrepreneur and chairman of SpaceIL, and organisation that competed in the Google Lunar X Prize contest to land a spacecraft on the Moon, Peter Sunde, founder of The Pirate Bay and Elizabeth Stark, blockchain​ entrepreneur, educator and lecturer.

Associated events included workshops, makerspaces, science and culture fair.

2016
The third edition of Doku.Tech took place in 2016 with two events in Pristina and Prizren, Kosovo respectively. In Pristina during the month of June 2016, Doku.Tech hosted a special edition with Laura Mersini-Houghton, an Albanian-American cosmologist and theoretical physicist, and professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In August 2016 the main event followed with the theme of “Reflection” and included some key speakers as Mike Butcher, Editor-at-large of TechCrunch, Josephine Goube, Techfugees, Aral Balkan, cyborg rights activist, Addie Wagenknecht, anti-disciplinary & experimental artist, Simone Cortesi, Wikimedia Foundation and Sebastian Mitchel, Ushahidi.

Associated events included TechCrunch Meetup with local startup community in Kosovo, workshops with UNICEF Innovation Labs, OpenStreetMap and Prishtina Hackerspace.

2017
In 2017, Doku.Tech moved from Prizren to Pristina in June hosting the event at Termokiss, utilising the old abandoned Prishtina district heating building for the main event while still continuing to do the event during Dokufest Film Festival in August. The event, doubled its size from the previous year with 1,000 attendees. Speakers included David Batstone, founder of NotForSale, Birgitta Jónsdóttir, Icelandic politician, anarchist, poet, and activist, Matan Berkowitz, Israeli interdisciplinary artist & entrepreneur, Geraldine de Bastion, political scientist, re:publica, Walid Sultan Midani, Tunisian entrepreneur, Jona Repishti, MITD-Lab and Vuk Ćosić, Serbian contemporary artist.

Associated events included live music from X-Rated Self Love (Prishtina), Likwuid (New York), Feloneezy & Jackie Dagger (Belgrade), Adrian (Prishtina), DJ Storno (Berlin), Ginjah Vibes (Tel Aviv), workshops about IoT, Data Visualizations 101, Data Detox and Astronomy.

In this edition Dokutech also hosted The Glass Room, a pop-up exhibition curated by Tactical Tech, while Dokufest aired the movie Future My Love (sv) directed by Swedish filmaker Maja Borg.

2018
In 2018, Doku.Tech once again brought together an impressive lineup of speakers, visionaries, and artists. The event, held in Pristina, Kosovo, showcased the convergence of technology, culture, and activism over two engaging days. Speakers included Thomas Madsen-Mygdal (da), the mind behind TechFestival and a key contributor to The Copenhagen Letter, Drena Kusari, General Manager at Lyft, a leading ride-sharing company. Alex Qin, a New York-based French-Filipino-Chinese screenwriter and director, Faybeo'n LaShanna A. Mickens, a multi-talented DJ, songwriter, and educator, Matthew Collin, British journalist and author of the book "Altered State", Emily Reid, computer scientist, Marko Rakar, Croatian software and process architect.

Associated events included live music BAMBII from Toronto, LSDXOXO from New York, James Massiah from London, Juha from Amsterdam, and LiKWUiD from New York.

In this edition Dokufest aired the documentaries: “More Human Than Human”, directed by Tommy Pallotta (US) and Femke Wolting (The Netherlands).

2019
In 2019, Doku.Tech took the stage once again in Pristina, Kosovo. The event celebrated the convergence of technology, creativity, and social impact. Speakers included Addie Wagenknecht, an innovative and multidisciplinary artist, Brie Code, a prominent figure in the gaming industry, Kashmir Hill, a journalist from the New York Times, Peter Van Valkenburgh, a leading expert on blockchain and cryptocurrency, Tariq Krim, entrepreneur and founder of innovative startups. Thorsten Wiedemann, from Amaze Berlin, Visar Berisha, a tech researcher and Bruce Sterling, a science fiction author and futurist.

Additionally, Doku.Tech 2019 featured an event in Prizren at Kino Lumbardhi with speakers such as Wladimir Nikoluk (Berlin), Agam Rafaeli (Tel-Aviv), Justyna Zubrycka (Berlin).

The event also celebrated the diversity of musical talent, with performances from artists such as Onoe Caponoe from London, Mobilegirl from Berlin, Loma Doom from Amsterdam and Angry Youth from Amsterdam/Prishtina.

2020
Doku.Tech 2020 event was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In November 2020, Doku.Tech produced TV shows in local Klan Kosova featuring previous speakers who were invited to reflect on previous talks and the impact of a pandemic on society and tech. Speakers included: Peter Sunde, Yanki Margalit, Laurent Haug, Peter Van Valkenburg, Crypto Lawyer, Coin Center, Lee Bryant, Kushtrim Xhakli, Liza Gashi and Arianit Dobroshi.

2021
Following the hiatus due to COVID19 pandemic, Doku.Tech 2021 continued with TV shows at Dukagjini. Speakers included: Liviu Babwitz, Naim Hoxha, Rob Flaherty, Hana Zeqa, Edin & Sead Haliti. The TV shows were modearated by Benet Kaci. The speakers discussed a wide range of topics related to technology, society, and culture. Some of the key topics included the impact of technology on democracy, the future of work, and the role of technology in social justice.

2022
Diana Gehlhaus Henrik Chulu Rudrabed Mitra - Omdena Julia Hoxha Bruno Sanchez-Andrade Nuno Krenar Komoni Maja Bosnic

2023
In 2023, Doku.Tech moved from the Termokiss to the Palace of Youth and Sports in Pristina. The event, again, doubled its size from the previous event and marked the 10th edition. Speakers included Mira Murati from OpenAI the creators of ChatGPT, Pamela Mishkin (OpenAI), Kasia Odrozek from Mozilla Foundation, Ralph Talmont from Arts and Space, blockchain author Shermin Woshmgir, philanthropist Maciej Kuziemski, Donjeta Sahatçiu deputy mayor of Prishtina, Edmond Hajrizi from University for Business and Technology and Fatos Ismali from Microsoft.

In this edition Dokufest aired the documentary: “Futura”, directed by Francesco Munzi, Alice Rohrwacher, Pietro Marcello (Italy).

2024
Mikko Hypponen,

Event summary by year
/archive /archive/at