IWDK21 to go virtual in May

Newsroom Business, Digital & Media, Events, Festivals & Awards, Know-how Sharing, Marketing

IWDK (Internet Week Denmark), Denmark’s leading tech event, is scheduled to take place completely virtual, as organizers recently announced.

The festival will take place on May 4-9 and organizers are in the middle of developing a new virtual platform to be open to anyone who wants to host or attend festival events.

Bo Sejer Frandsen, Director in DigitalLead and IWDK organizer:

“With the ongoing uncertainty of the pandemic, we decided it was important to make the decision to go fully virtual now so that participants and partners can begin planning and organising online-first events

“And who better to do this than a tech festival?”

The virtual platform will include various “stages” – similar to a music festival – where visitors can see both pre-produced content and participate in live streamed content and webinar-like events.

The virtual experience will include, among other things, content from a number of “summits” in which international and Danish experts will discuss developments related to today’s most tech-relevant questions, including: 

  • Use of personal data in the public sector, 
  • How to regulate tech giants internationally
  • Online free speech and censorship, 
  • Developments in Green Tech & Health Tech, 
  • Amazon’s sights on the Danish market, 
  • Google’s entry into the education sector
  • State sequencing of patients’ DNA, 
  • The threat of hacker attacks on the danish business community, 
  • Gaming & E-sport: A mixture of debate and fascination between parents and youth.
  • and Controlling Artificial Intelligence. 

IWDK will also remain true to its founding DNA, opening part of the virtual platform to any company, school or social organisation interested in hosting an event and being part of the conversation. 

Starting February 1st, the festival also has a new director, with Randi Vestergaard taking over for Louise Overgaard, who held the position for the last 2.5 years.

Randi has several years of experience working with communication and events at it-forum and has been a close collaborator since the festival’s early days in 2014, planning local events for Business Region Aarhus and curating events and workshops at Dokk1. She has been involved in the planning of Local Rock Stars and was head of commications at IoT Week in 2019.

Since 2014, the IWDK festival (Internet Week Denmark) has become Denmark’s leading and most unique tech festival. IWDK is a week of activities, most of which are created by the local community and festival participants themselves. IWDK takes place in early May and is a time to celebrate, discuss and debate the direction that technology is taking society with a focus on answering the question: “How do we keep people first in the digital age?”  

During the 2019 festival, over 10,000 people participated in 140 IWDK events. In keeping with the strong Danish tradition of participatory democracy and consensus building, the aim is to ensure IWDK remains open and relevant for all.