The Universal Sea has just returned from the Techfestival in Copenhagen where for five days in September organisers and speakers came together with the tech community to explore how technology shapes our lives today and how we can solve human problems through technological progress. Our Creative Lead Nicole Loeser was invited to present the projects and perspectives of The Universal Sea at the festival’s w00dstock summit that focused on harnessing a sense of community and social responsibility to best use the tech tools and tech minds of our time to improve the human experience and the environment we live in.

Our goal at the summit was to not just to hit our audience with the hard facts of plastic pollution, but to demonstrate how a collaboration between artists, innovators and businesses initiatives can be productive in raising awareness and creating real solutions. An appreciation for the complexity of nature and a humble consideration of our place in the world is at the heart of our aim to work together under the united goal of saving our world’s water systems. From this starting point, we started conversations around how we can best get our message to the mainstream with meaningful outcomes. Ideas ranged from helping to visualise the problem through VR experiences to targeting major brands and influencers to reach the public. Education was a key topic of the discussion, showing the need for a global understanding of the problem.

We’re happy to report that the summit was full of enthusiastic discussion and debate. Nicole was among some fantastic speakers, each with a unique background and perspective on how we can achieve change. The w00dstock summit organiser Galit Ariel asked us to simplify the idea of what technology is to see it as a tool for change, rather than technological advancement as the end goal itself. Looking at behavioral science, Alexander Silva Lopera discussed the mechanisms at work that influence our actions as consumers and asked how can we use this to inform our choices. Filmmaker Stoyan Yankov focused on changing the current narratives to trigger action and looked at fear as a universal common experience and a useful emotion to activate us.

Another goal of the summit was to visualise what an expanded version of w00dstock in 2019 could look like, so look forward to what comes out of this collaborative event! Check out this report of w00dstock 2018 here.