We’re psyched to announce that Ben Hammersley, Editor-at-Large Wired UK, will be our moderator of the first day. You may also know Ben as the Head of Digital at Six Creative, Director at CampusPartyUSA or as the founder of JPDGP. We think, that it is really important to have somebody as versed and eloquent as Ben to guide everybody through the first day so he was our first choice for the task.

Our fist confirmed speaker is Adam Greenfield. He’s the author of Speedbird and the founder and managing director of Urbanscale. You might also have read his book “Everyware: The dawning age of ubiquitous computing”. We’re very excited to have him on board.

Ton Zijlstra is a name you’ve probably heard in various context. That’s because Ton is doing all kinds of interesting things. His engagement for OpenGov is well documented, but he is also one of the leading minds behind the FabLab movement in the Netherlands.

Georgina Voss of Tinker London will talk about smart houses. At Tinker, she’s the project lead for the Homesense Project, which take a user-led design approach to making our households smarter. She researches and teaches about the social and cultural facets of technology with Tinker London and Sussex University.

While the first day of the conference is going to be the core of the event, a full on firehose of inspiration, Day 2 is dedicated to going out and exploring the city. We are lining up a number of exhibitions and other activities for Day 2 of Cognitive Cities, so keep an eye on the schedule in the upcoming weeks.

The first activity we’re proud to announce is by the Graffiti Research Lab Germany: Mirae and Jesse agreed to participate with a fantastic project we will introduce in more detail soon. We’ve been fans of their work for a long time and it’s a dream come true for us have them as on board.