// Keynote: The Future: days of darkness, or days of light?

Every two years, the cost of technology falls by half, and our digital world doubles in size. This exponential growth isn't slowing or stopping. It is a consistent, relentless force – Cost Gravity – that has already changed our society profoundly, and will continue to do so. Every line of code we write changes our world. We're bringing seven billion people, and their entire lives, online. The economic and political impact will be dramatic. And it will not be an easy shift, as powerful interests try to keep the old order alive, at any cost. Pieter will tell the story of these changes, and some of the conflicts, and ask the question: "the Future: days of darkness, or days of light?"

// Peter Hintjens

is a writer, programmer and thinker who has spent decades building large software systems and on-line communities, which he describes as "Living Systems". He is an expert in distributed computing, having written many protocols and distributed software systems. He founded the ZeroMQ free software project in 2007, and in 2013 launched the edgenet project to build a fully secure, anonymous peer-to-peer Internet. He is the author of "ZeroMQ - Messaging for Many Applications" (O'Reilly), "Code Connected", and "Culture and Empire: Digital Revolution". His blog is at hintjens.com.