Tech Open Air (often abbreviated as "TOA") is an annual interdisciplinary technology festival that takes place in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

, Germany. It started in 2012 as the very first tech festival organised through

crowdfunding Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and Alternative Finance, alternative finance, to fund projects "withou ...

. The festival has developed into a well-known tech conference in and out of Europe. The main concept behind Tech Open Air is to bring together the areas of technology, music, art, and science by providing a platform for

multi-disciplinary Interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary studies involves the combination of multiple academic disciplines into one activity (e.g., a research project). It draws knowledge from several fields such as sociology, anthropology, psychology, economi ...

knowledge exchange, collaboration, and development. Tech Open Air is organised every year in June or July and gathers a number of influential speakers, entrepreneurs, artists, scientists, start-ups, and attendees from Germany and 55+ other countries.

2023

After a three-year COVID-19 hiatus, the Tech Open Air Festival will occur again in Berlin on 5–7 July 2023.

2020 and later

Tech Open Air 2020 was cancelled due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, though some virtual events occurred as well as TOA's launch of new digital products, like Klub, a cohort-based learning platform and TOA ON AIR, a podcast hosted by TOA Founder, Niko Woischnik.

2017

The TOA17 Festival took place between the 11–14 July 2017, remaining for a second year at former GDR Radio Station, Funkhaus Berlin. 2017 saw the Satellites program extend even further with kick-off events (including the official Satellites launch party with

Seth Troxler Seth Troxler is an American DJ and record producer from Lake Orion, Michigan. His DJ work focuses on house and techno, while he has produced on the Wolf + Lamb, Crosstown Rebels and Circus Company labels, collaborating with artists Art Department ...

) taking place on the Tuesday before the Conference. TOA Conference also expanded further with a brand new 4500qm exhibition hall "The House of Tech". This unique TOA style take on a traditional expo hosted brands such as Facebook, Google, Samsung NEXT, as well as a host of Europe's leading startups. Over 6,000 people attended the conference, where the 200+ speakers included

Adam D'Angelo Adam D'Angelo (born August 14, 1984) is an American internet entrepreneur. He is best known for his role as the co-founder and CEO of Quora, based in Mountain View, California, and as the first Chief Technology Officer of Facebook (now Meta). ...

(Co-Founder & CEO,

Quora Quora is an American social question-and-answer website and online knowledge market headquartered in Mountain View, California. It was founded on June 25, 2009, and made available to the public on June 21, 2010. Users can post questions, answ ...

), Richard Sharp (CTO, Shazam),

Richie Hawtin Richard "Richie" Hawtin (born June 4, 1970) is a British-Canadian electronic musician and DJ. He became involved with Detroit techno's second wave in the early 1990s, and has been a leading exponent of minimal techno since the mid-1990s. He becam ...

, Mate Galic (CTO,

Native Instruments Native Instruments is a German company that develops, manufactures, and supplies music software and hardware for music production, sound design, performance, and DJing. The company's corporate headquarters and main development facilities are lo ...

Erika Lust Erika Lust (born 1977) is a Swedish feminist pornographic film director, screenwriter and producer. Since the debut of her first indie erotic film '' The Good Girl'' in 2004, Lust has been cited as one of the current leading participants in the ...

(Co-founder, Erika Lust Films), Hector Ouilhet (Head of Design,

Google Search Google Search (also known simply as Google or Google.com) is a search engine operated by Google. It allows users to search for information on the World Wide Web, Web by entering keywords or phrases. Google Search uses algorithms to analyze an ...

Imogen Heap Imogen Jennifer Jane Heap ( ; born 9 December 1977) is an English musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, and entrepreneur. She is considered a pioneer in pop music, particularly electropop, and in music technology. While attending the ...

(Founder, Mycelia), and

Yael Eisenstat Yaël D. Eisenstat is an American democracy activist and technology policy expert who has spent over two decades combatting extremism, polarization, and anti-democratic behavior both on- and offline. With experience as one the United States govern ...

(former

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

analyst and security advisor to Vice President

Joe Biden Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. (born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who was the 46th president of the United States from 2021 to 2025. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he served as the 47th vice p ...

). 2017 was also the inaugural year for TOA Music Fest which took place on the last night of the festival with over 2000 people in attendance. The night featured live performances from

Machinedrum Travis Stewart (born March 4, 1982), better known as Machinedrum, is an American electronic record producer and performer from North Carolina.Mathias Döpfner Mathias Döpfner (born 15 January 1963) is a German businessman, author, art collector, and journalist. He is the CEO and 22% owner of media group Axel Springer SE. From 2016 to 2022 he was president of the Federal Association of Digital Publish ...

(

Axel Springer Axel Cäsar Springer (2 May 1912 – 22 September 1985) was a German publisher and founder of what is now Axel Springer SE, the largest media publishing firm in Europe. By the early 1960s his print titles dominated the West German daily press m ...

), Catherina Fake (

Flickr Flickr ( ) is an image hosting service, image and Online video platform, video hosting service, as well as an online community, founded in Canada and headquartered in the United States. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and was previously a co ...

), Luke Woods (

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

), Dominik Richter (

HelloFresh HelloFresh SE is a German meal-kit company based in Berlin. It is one of the largest meal-kit providers in the world, operating in the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Europe (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, The Nethe ...

), Katie Dill (

Airbnb Airbnb, Inc. ( , an abbreviation of its original name, "Air Bed and Breakfast") is an American company operating an online marketplace for short-and-long-term homestays, experiences and services in various countries and regions. It acts as a ...

Daniel Barenboim Daniel Moses Barenboim (; born 15 November 1942) is an Argentines, Argentine-Israeli classical pianist and conductor based in Berlin, who also has Spain, Spanish and State of Palestine, Palestinian citizenship. From 1992 until January 2023, Bare ...

(

Berlin State Opera The Staatsoper Unter den Linden ( State Opera under the Lime Trees), also known as the Berlin State Opera (), is a listed building on Unter den Linden boulevard in the historic center of Berlin, Germany. The opera house was built by order of P ...

), Gabriel Flateman (Casper) and Susan Danziger (

Ziggeo Ziggeo is a cloud-based video technology SaaS (software as a service) company that provides asynchronous video APIs, mobile SDKs and tools to deliver enterprise-grade WebRTC capabilities. Ziggeo is the initiator and backer of BetaJS, an open-sou ...

2015

Tech Open Air 2015 (#TOA15) took place on 15–17 July 2015. The "Unconference" as well as more than 150 satellite events across Berlin were the main components of the festival. The programme invited the event attendees to experience engaging talks presented by over 110 professionals, as well as interactive panels, art installations, live music, and networking opportunities. Satellite events provided an opportunity for Tech Open Air attendees to fully immerse themselves in the Berlin startup culture. One additional format of the "Unconference" was a networking session called Back to the Future: Enterprise Meets Startup which inspired and encouraged cross-industry collaboration; the Pitch-Nic (a high-speed pitching session for start-ups and investors); and the Hardware Pitch where six hardware innovations pitched their ideas on stage. The 2015 edition was attended by over 5000 people from various industries and nations (over 30 countries represented). Around 150 media outlets were involved in this year's event including the Wall Street Journal, BBC and TechCrunch. The list of speakers included Mike Butcher (

TechCrunch TechCrunch is an American global online newspaper focusing on topics regarding high tech, high-tech and Startup company, startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare. I ...

), Chris Barton ( Shazam), Christoph Keese (

Axel Springer SE Axel Springer SE () is a European multinational corporation, multinational mass media, mass and online media company, based in Berlin, Germany. The company offers printing and publishing of advertisements, digital classifieds portfolio, marketi ...

), Niklas Oestberg (

Delivery Hero Delivery Hero SE is a German multinational online food ordering and food delivery company based in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 2011, the company operates in 70+ countries internationally in Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin and South America, and th ...

), Robert Gentz (

Zalando Zalando SE is a publicly traded international online retailer based in Berlin which is active across Europe and specializes in shoes, fashion and beauty products. The company was founded in 2008 by David Schneider and Robert Gentz and has more th ...

), Greg Dybec (

Elite Daily ''Elite Daily'' is an American online news platform founded by David Arabov, Jonathon Francis, and Gerard Adams. The site describes its target audience as millennials. In addition to general news and trending topics, the site offers feature st ...

), Assaf Biderman (

Superpedestrian Superpedestrian Inc., is a transportation robotics company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that developed electrified and AI technologies for micro mobility vehicles. The company ran the LINK e-scooter sharing program, which was active in 57 ...

), and Dirk Ahlborn (

Hyperloop Hyperloop is a proposed high-speed transportation system for both passengers and freight. The concept was published by entrepreneur Elon Musk in a 2013 white paper, where the hyperloop was described as a transportation system using capsules supp ...

2014

The third edition of Tech Open air took place in 2014 and included more than 100 speakers and more than 2750 attendees. The programme also included the first ever Design Slam in Berlin, start-up battles, collaborative workshops and live music. One of the hot topics discussed at the event was

wearable technology Wearable technology is any technology that is designed to be used while worn. Common types of wearable technology include smartwatches, fitness trackers, and smartglasses. Wearable electronic devices are often close to or on the surface of the s ...

2013

The second edition of Tech Open Air included 85 speakers, more than 2000 attendees and 50 satellite events.

2012

Tech Open Air's inaugural event took place in 2012 in Berlin. The first edition included nearly 60 speakers, 850 visitors and 23 satellite events.

References

{{reflist

External links

Official Website
Business conferences Technology conferences 2012 establishments in Germany