Q Berlin – Around 800 guests attended the Berlin Conference on Freedom and Responsibility

Berlin, 11 November 2019 "We need sheltered spaces to exchange ideas freely and impartially. Q Berlin is such a space". It was with these words that BBC presenter Tristana Moore opened the third Q Berlin Conference on 7 November 2019 at Station Berlin. For two days, 15 national and international experts discussed the big questions of our time together with some 800 guests. Topics included climate protection, civil responsibility, artificial intelligence, new work and urban life. An emotional highlight was the moving keynote speech by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Nadia Murad who spoke of the fate of her people, the Yazidi, under the "Islamic State".

"The positive response to this year's Q Berlin has been overwhelming and very encouraging. The conference format we employed to inspire interested people about the urgent questions of the time has clearly won them over. We are taking last week's momentum with us and will immediately start conceptualising the fourth staging of Q Berlin in 2020," says Burkhard Kieker, Managing Director of visitBerlin.

At this year's Q Berlin, the top-class panel of experts included, among others, the Berlin stress researcher Dr.Mazda Adli, who spoke about the effects of life in the big city on the mental health of its inhabitants. Dr. Friederike Otto, Director of the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford University, presented alarming findings on climate change. Florian Illies, best-selling author and Rowohlt publisher, raised the question of whether creativity can be replaced by artificial intelligence. The so-called Q Immersions led the participants on the second day of the conference to special places, companies and institutions around the city to deepen the topics of the conference in talks, exhibitions and workshops.

Q Berlin – An initiative of the City of Berlin

Q Berlin celebrated its premiere in 2017. In the past two years Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, star architect Rem Koolhaas and Nighat Dad, an Internet activist from Pakistan, and the young Chinese multimedia artist Cao Fei have previously spoken at Q Berlin. With their ideas, they offered new perspectives on the pressing issues of the present. Q Berlin was initiated on behalf of the City of Berlin. visitBerlin curates and organises the conference.