Increasingly, working on a computer isolates us more than it connects us. We have lost what it means to work side-by-side with real people, to work with our hands, to learn from our surroundings. This led Bret Victor to found Dynamicland, a non-profit research lab and community space in Oakland, California.  

Its mission is to invent a new form of computing in which people create computational media in the real world, with their hands and real physical materials; not behind screens or in virtual spaces. The prototype of this new computer is not a product, but a place—a community workspace where the people of Oakland will come to “live in the future” and shape the technology with us.

Speaker bio

Bret Victor wants scientists and citizens to be able to see, understand, and think what needs to be seen, understood, and thought in order for civilization to work out okay. He leads Dynamicland's lab and community space in which computation lives in the physical world. Previously, Victor invented experimental UI concepts at Apple, designed interactive data graphics for Al Gore's book, Our Choice, and engineered musical instruments at Alesis. He has a MSEE from UC Berkeley and a BSEE from Caltech.