Organised by innovation charity Nesta, takes place in Shoreditch Town Hall, London, and will feature contributions from author George Monbiot, model and activist Lily Cole, comedian Robin Ince and a number of others. ?

A session on ¡°Humanity 2.0¡± will see Steve Fuller, Auguste Comte professor of social epistemology at the University of Warwick, arguing that we ought to aim for ¡°the abolition of medicine¡± as bioengineering creates the possibility of ¡°a brave new ¡®post-medical¡¯ world¡±.

Meanwhile, Anders Sandberg, James Martin research fellow at the University of Oxford¡¯s Future of Humanity Institute will consider the implications of living in the ¡°enhanced society¡± likely to be with us by mid-century as we develop ¡°new methods of boosting brains¡±. ?

¡°Cognitive enhancement is something we already do to some extent, with morning coffee, smartphones and mental training,¡± he said. ¡°But we have likely seen nothing yet¡­how do we decide what kind of enhancement is appropriate for what uses - and how do we push development in that direction?¡±

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Charles Spence, professor of experimental psychology at the University of Oxford, will look at how restaurants are ¡°going to fundamentally change dining experiences in the years to come¡±, with innovations on the menu including ¡°gin and sonics¡± and ¡°sound-of-sea seafood dishes¡±.

Francesca Bria, a teaching associate at Imperial College London, will challenge much of the rhetoric surrounding the idea of the ¡°smart city, built around the idea of a technology fix to social and environmental problems¡±, suggesting that ¡°there are no smart cities or smart objects but just smart citizens¡­what is smart is the way they inhabit the city and the way they contribute to enhance its services¡±.

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Echoing her call for ¡°bottom-up civic engagement, participation and democratic governance¡±, David Runciman, professor of politics at the University of Cambridge, will consider ¡°why there has been so little political change since 1989 when there has been so much technological change¡± ¨C and why ¡°that¡¯s not sustainable in the long run¡­we need to rescale democracy, to give it the power to manage a technologically complex and interrelated world.¡±

But although ¡°democracies have adapted in the past to new challenges¡±, he worries that ¡°it has usually taken a war or financial catastrophe¡±.

matthew.reisz@tsleducation.com