I am very excited to be the Festival Director of DigiFest, a series of technology-focussed events at the Science Museum’s Dana Centre between 22nd and 26th March that explore the effects new media and digital tech have on our world.

From the official site:


New media permeates our daily lives, from mobile phones on the streets, to Web browsing in the office and to computer gaming in the living room. Will your tweets, blogs, Facebook friendships and itchy trigger fingers be anything more than just digital ephemera?

DigiFest brings together a series of interactive evening events that tackle the biggest issues facing our techno-enhanced society, from changes in our brains to changes in public diplomacy, from tech that breaks down privacy to the tech you just can’t live without.

Curated by technology journalist Aleks Krotoski, DigiFest will bring you face-to-face with the big ideas in today’s interaction-obsessed and hyperlinked society. Come along to look at, play and challenge the uses and the abuses of the digital world.

I am positively quivering with excitement about the events. Here’s a run-down of what we’ve got planned:

Monday 22nd March: This is your brain on technology – ALREADY SOLD OUT!
A gala opening evening of hands-on experiments that test exactly what technology does to your brain (with artist Luciana Haill from the Institute of Unnecessary Research at the University of Sussex), what it means to have 700 friends on Facebook (with Dr Sam Roberts, research collaborator with Prof Robin Dunbar at University of Oxford) and how it’s changing how we think (with Dr Ian Rowlands of UCL).

Tuesday 23 March: An Audience With….
… Austin Heap, the wunderkind hacker who opened up the firewalled Iranian internet in the aftermath of the disputed elections in 2009 with his encryption software Haystack. Austin will be giving a Q & A about what he did, the current state of online censorship and regulation, and how people like him mean that the Web can’t be controlled. After a break at the bar, I’ll be speaking with him as part of a special live recording of The Guardian’s Tech Weekly podcast.

Wednesday 24 March: The Web: The ultimate propaganda machine?
A fierce debate about how the Web has become the ultimate propaganda machine, used by governments and special interest groups to get us to do their bidding.

Thursday 25 March: What are games really teaching us?
A lively discussion that goes beyond the knee-jerk headlines that looks at what the underlying ideologies of games are teaching us when we play them. What does it mean that The Sims creator Will Wright comes from capitalist America when you’re playing his games? That Second Life developers Linden Lab embrace the hippy idealism of northern California? That America’s Army is a recruitment tool created by the US military? Expect to get your hands dirty: there will be plenty of games to play, and to deconstruct, throughout the evening.

Friday 26 March: Technology you can’t live without
The closing event will be a lively one. This is for people who have always wanted to get to know technology, but haven’t known where to start. Think of it as a digital download: 10 technology luminaries – including a games designer, a web developer, a critic, a pundit, an academic, an artist, a rapper, a cynic and a curmudgeon – will deliver fast-fire presentations on the most important technological innovation over the past 12 months, and what’s set to revolutionise our worlds in the next 5 years. It’s an evening of PechaKucha 20×20: 20 slides, with 20 seconds each per slide. Expect to come away with more information than you ever thought you needed to know!

Find out more at the official website, and remember – all events are free so sign up early to avoid disappointment!