DOKU.TECH 2019 | Humanizing the Digital, Digitizing the Human |

This year DOKU.TECH held its sixth edition, during the 8th and 9th of June, at the Prishtina youth-run building, Termokiss. The conference explored the challenges and social implications of technological innovations through connectivity, content, masterclasses, and workshops, while inspiring youngsters by sharing knowledge and experiences.The main theme of this year’s conference revolved around ”Humanizing the Digital, Digitizing the Human”. This never-ending battle between people and technology, were accompanied by questions related to: ownership, autonomy, independence, interconnection, privacy, and security.

This year’s DOKU.TECH brought ten speakers, who encompassed a variety of topics, view points, and personal anecdotes within their speeches, that related to Humanizing the Digital and Digitizing the Human. All ten speakers, Brie Code, Adrian Jusufi, Trevor Timm, Peter Van Valkenburg, Amaze, Addie Wagenknecht, Visar Berisha, Ivan Jelusic, Kashmir Hill, and Tariq Krim, were able to provide their take on the matter. As Kashmir Hill explained her experiment to try and rid the big tech companies out of her life, she found that although “Technology was changing our lives for both the good and the bad”, “The privacy tradeoffs throughout her experiment were not worth it”. Additionally, Tariq Krim also tried to rid technology out of his life, but for different reasons. While trying to do so, he found that “We shape our tools and therefore our tools shape us”, and that “We created the world that goes with the technology we created”. Our speakers inspired us to find ways to relate to technology in a way that betters our lives and enhances our experiences and therefore encouraged us to create technology that can do just that.

Throughout the 2-day conference, the participants had the opportunity to take part in new and innovative workshops. With the help of our friends at Bonevet we brought to Kosovo for the first time ever, a virtual welding experience, which gave attendees the opportunity to try their hand at welding while also demonstrating all of its implications. Our speakers also shared their knowledge with the audience, Peter Van Valkenburgh held an insightful discussion regarding the hot topic of cryptocurrency and blockchain. Addie Wagenknecht organized a workshop titled “How to buy almost everything online”. This workshop taught the participants where to look, how to search and how to find the best of bootleg softgoods. Followed by Kashmir Hill, who held a workshop to discuss, reflect, and connect to co-create a dispatch with reflections from local participants on the 2019 theme – ‘Digitizing the Human, Humanizing the Digital’.

DOKU.TECH would not be complete without the Do It Yourself (DIY) Fair, where more than 30 organizations gathered in one place to showcase their work, research, and hands-on products that were all created by youth for the youth of Kosovo.

DOKU.TECH has always been about sustainable development! Our friends from UN Kosovo Team introduced us 2 #SDGs and we promoted innovation for sustainable development together during the DIY Fair. We are delighted to be have been supporting the UN Sustainable Development platform to our audience, and look forward in spreading the word furthermore.

We are beyond happy that DOKU.TECH brought the future closer to over 900+ participants ! Until the next edition, this August 9, in Prizren during Dokufest.