RSA President's Lecture: Making the Future

For the 2013 President’s Lecture, an expert panel will discuss revolutionary new approaches to making and manufacturing in the 21st century. Speakers include Julie Madigan, Alice Taylor, Bas van Abel and Dr Laura James.

For the 2013 President’s Lecture, an expert panel will gather to discuss the revolutionary new approaches to making and manufacturing in the 21st century.

With access to new digital fabrication technologies and a focus on the redeployment of scarce resources, today’s manufacturing landscape would be unrecognisable to the architects and practitioners of Britain’s previous manufacturing booms. Are these new rapid, free-form manufacturing technologies going to propel us into a new industrial revolution, and, if so, what will be the broader implications for Britain’s economy and society?

Research, collaboration and education are vital in creating integrated design and manufacturing solutions to critical contemporary challenges – how will inventors and makers defy convention and share knowledge to accelerate change?

Join our panel as they discuss a range of issues relating to the new practices that are profoundly altering the fundamentals of 21st century production, distribution and consumption.

Panel to include Julie Madigan, chief executive, The Manufacturing Institute, Alice Taylor - founder and CEO MakieLab, Bas van Abel, founder of Fairphone and Dr Laura James - co-director of the Open Knowledge Foundation and co-founder and director of Makespace. 

RSA chief executive Matthew Taylor will lead the discussion.

The event will be introduced by: HRH The Princess Royal, RSA President and Vikki Heywood CBE, RSA Chairman.

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