Freedom Games are a meeting of individuals who are curious about the world and open for new ideas. It is a gathering of renowned experts and intellectuals, a discussion about the key challenges the Western societies must face in the 21st century. Being a unique interdisciplinary event of this kind held in Poland, its main objective is to offer a creative space for exchanging ideas between the representatives of culture, business and public life, among others. We build a leading intellectual event on an international scale.
This year’s leading theme of Freedom Games focuses on the influence of technology on societies, democracies and labor market. The technological advancement of the previous decade resulted in an increasing integration of digital reality and every-day experiences. Social media have not only influenced the way in which people interact with one another, but have also had a significant impact on culture, politics and social relations. Automatization and computerization have changed the methods of gathering information, ways of accessing culture as well as the way people work. Technology can offer solutions to the most burning issues related to the future of our world: poverty, access to education and culture, overcoming communication barriers between nations – however, it may at the same time generate new challenges and pose threats that we cannot yet imagine.
The foundations of Western democracies – the domination of middle class and the control exercised by the elites – are being questioned in the age of communication and social media. Polarization and radicalisms are trending in the world where the voice of each individual shall be heard equally. Technological advancement paved the way for mass democracy in which responsibility was substituted by populism and where post-truth seems to have the same value as facts.
On the other hand, technology enabled a great civilizational advancement – a great opportunity for further development for numerous countries, including Poland. Therefore, the leading topic of Freedom Games 2017 is thus of great concern also to the city of Łódź – a hotbed of dynamically developing high-tech companies and innovative start-ups. One of the key objectives of the event is to encourage responsible behavior – an issue closely related to the usage of modern technologies.