Institute For The Future

#opencities2025

Our Technology Horizons program is teaming up with Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco to engage the public through a creative and generative weekend that looks at how we transform a city.

Through a vibrant mix of art installations, speakers, participatory activities, performances, music, food, and play, we invite the Bay Area community to imagine how we can build a city that is more open, creative, and inclusive. This will be a unique opportunity to interact and connect with some of the most progressive leaders in the Bay Area who are on the forefront of socially engaged enterprises in the fields of art, public sector and technology. Join us in uniting our diverse communities together to help frame generative dialogue, identify opportunities for collaboration, community engagement, collaborative design of our public spaces, and inclusive, citizen-centered city models.

Over the last decade, a culture of makers, empowered by new production technologies and driven by an open source ethos, have reimagined the way that physical objects are created and distributed. Now, makers are bringing that same mindset to the urgent challenges in our cities. In these Maker Cities, citizens and startups are a force alongside government and industry to develop and improve our urban infrastructure and build entirely new systems that touch nearly every aspect of civic life. But that is just the beginning.

Over the next decade, the amount of free and valuable urban data will increase. An array of grassroots economies will take hold. Social media will empower citizens to self-organize and coordinate activity in new ways. Goods and services will flow through smart networks. And most importantly, populations will push their municipalities toward transformation. Maker Cities will quickly become Open Cities.

Part of IFTF's 2014 annual Technology Horizons research conference, the Open City/Art City Festival is rooted in our year-long research and insight from work with cities around the world, from New York to Mexico City to Shenzhen. It seeks to leverage the essential role we all play in the civic life of the future, and to explore the infrastructures needed within cities locally and globally to enable access to artistic exploration.

• Follow us on Facebook and Twitter (@iftf and #opencities2025). 
• For more information about IFTF's Open Cities Conference and research, contact Sean Ness (sness@iftf.org).
• For more information about YBCA, contact Lauryn Porte (lporte@ybca.org).

About the Organizers

Institute for the Future (IFTF) is an independent, nonprofit strategic research group with over 46 years of forecasting experience. Our mission is to help organizations, communities, and individuals think systematically about the future. We pioneer tools and methods for building foresight and insight to drive more informed and thoughtful action today. IFTF is based in Palo Alto, California.

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) was founded in 1993 out of an expressed need for an accessible, high-profile San Francisco venue devoted to contemporary visual art, performance, and film/video representing diverse cultural and artistic perspectives. Distinguished by its support for contemporary artists from around the world, YBCA is also recognized for the important role the organization plays in the San Francisco Bay Area arts ecology and in the community at large. YBCA has established its leadership role as a champion of living artists working in the Bay Area.