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

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

, 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. In 2015, over was raised worldwide by crow ...

. 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 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, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, 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) 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 21, 1984) is an American internet entrepreneur. He is best known as the co-founder and CEO of Quora, based in Mountain View, California. He was chief technology officer of Facebook, and also served as its vice preside ...

(Co-Founder & CEO, Quora), Richard Sharp (CTO, Shazam), Richie Hawtin, Mate Galic (CTO, Native Instruments),

Erika Lust Erika may refer to: Arts and Entertainment * Hayasaka Erika (''Megatokyo)'' * Erika (''Friends'') * Erika (''Pokémon'') * Erika (''Underworld'') * Erika Itsumi ''(Girls und Panzer)'' * ''Erika'' (film), a 1971 Italian thriller film * "E ...

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

Google Search Google Search (also known simply as Google) is a search engine provided by Google. Handling more than 3.5 billion searches per day, it has a 92% share of the global search engine market. It is also the most-visited website in the world. The ...

), Imogen Heap (Founder, Mycelia), and Yael Eisenstat (former

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...

analyst and security advisor to Vice President Joe Biden). 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, 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 and journalist. He is the CEO and 22% owner of media group Axel Springer SE, and president of the Federal Association of Digital Publishers and Newspaper Publishers (BDZV). Early li ...

( Axel Springer), Catherina Fake ( Flickr), Luke Woods (

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

), Dominik Richter (

HelloFresh HelloFresh SE is a publicly traded meal kit company based in Berlin, Germany. It is the largest meal-kit provider in the United States, and also has operations in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Europe ( GB, D-A-CH, Benelux, France, Italy and S ...

), Katie Dill ( Airbnb),

Daniel Barenboim Daniel Barenboim (; in he, דניאל בארנבוים, born 15 November 1942) is an Argentine-born classical pianist and conductor based in Berlin. He has been since 1992 General Music Director of the Berlin State Opera and "Staatskapellmeist ...

(

Berlin State Opera The (), also known as the Berlin State Opera (german: Staatsoper Berlin), is a listed building on Unter den Linden boulevard in the historic center of Berlin, Germany. The opera house was built by order of Prussian king Frederick the Great from ...

), 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 online newspaper focusing on high tech and startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare. In 2010, AOL acquired the company for approximately ...

), Chris Barton ( Shazam), Christoph Keese (

Axel Springer SE Axel Springer SE () is a German digital and popular periodical publishing house which is the largest in Europe, with numerous multimedia news brands, such as '' Bild'', ''Die Welt'', and ''Fakt'' and more than 15,000 employees. It generated to ...

), Niklas Oestberg ( Delivery Hero), Robert Gentz (

Zalando Zalando SE is a publicly traded German online retailer of shoes, fashion and beauty. The company was founded in 2008 by David Schneider and Robert Gentz and has more than 50 million active users in 25 European markets. Zalando is active in a vari ...

), Greg Dybec ( Elite Daily), Assaf Biderman ( Superpedestrian), and Dirk Ahlborn ( Hyperloop).

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.

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