Border Sessions Festival; a look at space exploration, activism and everything in-between

Border Sessions was originally conceived in 2012, as an offshoot from the Crossing Borders festival, to provide a distinct platform for those interested in science and technology. The festival’s mission statement is to discuss how new and emerging technologies shape and influence our society. In order to do this, the two-day festival has invited guests both from the Netherlands and around the world to speak on a variety of subjects. The theme or ideas of these sessions are split into five ’tracks’; from health and medicine, to activism security and societal impact.

“We try to connect people and ideas from different fields,” said Michel Behre, founder and director of Border Sessions festival. He emphasised the importance of attracting big, international speakers to the event as well as local people, as they hope to introduce both ideas and people who attendees may ordinarily not be able to see. He added that the variety of speakers brings international views to the event. “Border Sessions is not about the gadgets or hardware, but more about ideas. You will see some people with original out-of-the-box ideas on the stage here.”

While he expects all the speakers to be interesting, Behre said Bruce Sterling will be of particular interest. As a journalist and sci-fi writer he spans several fields and, Behre believes, will bring an interesting perspective. He also noted that while there is no over-arching theme for Border Sessions, he has noticed a trend in recent years, particularly in the medicine and space tracks; a shift from several large organisations dominating the field, to smaller private companies “doing their own thing.”

This trend is certain to come up during this year’s festival. Founder and Chairman of the New Worlds Institute and Deep Space Industries Rick Tumlinson, who has been named as one of the 100 most influential space leaders, will be present and involved in two of the sustainability, earth and space exploration track sessions titled ‘Open Sourcing the Frontier’ and ‘Who Owns Space?’.

The Border Sessions festival will be held in Theater aan het Spui and the Filmhuis Den Haag from 9:00 – 19:00 each day. Tickets are available with some discounts available for students.