Commissions
Artists commissioned to answer the eight shifts, shown inside the Atlas and around the venue.
The programme · target dates 14–15 October 2027
Two days with the people who notice change early.
One room, one programme, no parallel tracks. Keynotes and panels by day; film, art, food and music across the city by night.
Programme in development. The format is set; sessions, speakers and venues are confirmed through 2027.
Day one
Seeing
- Opening keynote: the Great Reconfiguration, why the eight shifts are one, and what it would take for its abundance to be shared and shaped by all.
- Keynotes and panels on Power, Earth, Work & Wealth and Cities.
- The Atlas: a walk-through exhibition of the evidence, open throughout both days.
- Evening: Witness Dinners in Amsterdam houses, then the night programme: screenings, performance and music.
Day two · morning
Understanding
- Keynotes and panels on Institutions, Culture, Meaning and Intelligence.
- The Collision: a philosopher and a founder who disagree, on stage, about where the reconfiguration is going.
- Conversations with people living at the edge of each shift.
Day two · afternoon
Preparing
- Readiness Studios in eight domains: capital, government, cities, companies, education, culture, philanthropy, technology.
- What the reconfiguration means for decisions in the next 24 months.
- Closing keynote, the founding of the first Sensing Circles, and a closing night in the city.
You leave with
- A Readiness Brief for your domain, plus your own page: three assumptions you're retiring.
- A picture of the decade you didn't have on the way in.
- A year of Foresight, the Forum’s decision brief.
- The Atlas of the Great Reconfiguration, published after the Forum.
- For some, a seat in one of five Sensing Circles meeting monthly from November 2027.
Speakers
Philosophers to founders. One stage.
The shifts don't respect disciplines, so neither does the stage. Each speaker is chosen for what they have noticed, understood or lived through before it became obvious, not for the size of their title, and brings evidence, a point of view, and time for questions.
- Philosophers
- Scientists
- Anthropologists
- Systems thinkers
- Artists
- Filmmakers
- Entrepreneurs
- Economists
- Policymakers
- Polymaths
Programme in development. First speakers announced in early 2027.
The stage, as designed
- Opening keynote
- Keynote · Power
- Keynote · Earth
- Keynote · Work & Wealth
- Keynote · Cities
- Keynote · Institutions
- Keynote · Culture
- Keynote · Meaning
- Keynote · Intelligence
- Closing keynote
Know someone who should be on this stage?
Propose a speaker
The experience
Not only talks.
Some of what is changing is easier to see than to say. Around the stage, Forum I is a curated programme of art, film, food and music, made for the people in the room and commissioned around the eight shifts.
Planned for Forum I. Artists, chefs, filmmakers and cultural partners are being approached through 2027.
Night screenings
Short documentaries and films from the edges of each shift, with the makers in the room.
The Table
Chefs cook the reconfiguration: menus built on what the world will grow, eat and waste next.
The night programme
Music, readings and performance in Amsterdam venues after the day closes, and one long-table Salon in the spirit of the Lunar Society.
Small rooms
Hands-on sessions with makers, researchers and founders: twenty people, one question, one hour.
Amsterdam as a case
Walks and visits to where the city is already living the shifts: water, housing, energy, food.
Business leaders and policymakers come for the stage. Most remember the evenings.
Join the room.
Why it's different
A summit built for learning, not signalling.
| The usual summit | Forum I | |
|---|---|---|
| Size | Thousands of delegates across dozens of venues | 300 people. One room, one programme, two days. |
| Format | Back-to-back panels in a hotel ballroom | Keynotes and panels by day; film, art, food and music across the city by night. |
| Speakers | CEOs on message, chosen for their logo | Philosophers, scientists, artists, founders and policymakers, chosen for what they noticed before it became obvious. |
| Panels | Five people, five minutes each, everyone agrees | Three voices at most, real disagreement, moderated to get somewhere. |
| Sponsors | Paid speaking slots and logo walls | No partner buys a slot on stage, shapes the programme or chooses a name. |
| Access | Buy a badge | By invitation only. More than half the room are Fellows who cannot buy their way in. |
| Afterwards | A communiqué and a hashtag | A Readiness Brief for the next 24 months, and Sensing Circles that keep meeting. |
Forum I isn't a smaller Davos. It's a different kind of room.
The room
Three hundred people, selected for the perspectives they bring.
A future shaped by all needs a room shaped by more than the few. Every seat is by invitation, and an invitation can't be bought. More than half are Fellows, who attend free: researchers, artists, younger builders and leaders from the Global South.
120Invited participants. A participation fee of €1,250, invoiced to the organisation.
17Partner seats, filled with names agreed with the Curation Council.
163Fellows, curated and attending free, about thirty with travel covered.
How the room is composed
- Disciplines: every table spans at least four sectors: business, capital, government, science, culture, civil society, the press. None is a majority.
- Geographies: every table includes people from at least three continents. The Global South is never under-represented.
- Generations: every table includes someone under thirty-five and someone over sixty.
- Not by payment: Fellows, participants and partner guests sit together; no table is seated by who paid.
- Productive tension: tables are composed to hold real disagreement, not comfort.