Conrad Wolfram Co-founder and Strategic Director, Wolfram Research Play (41min) Download: FLV | MOV | OGG | MP3

Almost everyone has a greater need to process information and compute answers than they have capability to do so. How can modern computing and knowledge management bridge this divide? Can we democratise expertise for analysis as successfully as the web and search have democratised retrieval of the base information? How will this affect the “knowledge economy”—business and government information, R&D, and technical education? Conrad Wolfram’s talk will introduce these and other key topics of the conference.

Andrew Dilnot Principal, St Hugh’s College, University of Oxford Play (40min) Download: FLV | MOV | OGG | MP3

These are strange times. The range and quality of data that exists is richer than ever before, and by some considerable margin. And yet we seem to fail to make good use of much of what is available, and to be frightened in the face of numbers. What kinds of strategies might help?

Jon McLoone Director of Business Development, Wolfram Research Play (31min) Download: FLV | MOV | OGG | MP3

While computing has revolutionised the productivity of authors, the output has mostly not changed. By using readers’ computing power to do more than just deliver and render words and pictures, it is possible to increase the bandwidth of communication between authors and readers. But how can we enable authors to put the interactive richness of a software application into their documents without training them as programmers? This talk will examine technologies and workflow principles to overcome this barrier.

Walter De Brouwer CEO, One Laptop per Child, Europe Play (22min) Download: FLV | MOV | OGG | MP3

How much is your health? Exactly how much money makes you happy? Not so long ago everything was veiled in palpable shades of gray. Then everything became code, and behind the code were numbers. The meaning of life itself has become quantifiable. But numbers themselves are elusive: absolutes seem to need their relative counterparts, and constants are only the surface of variables. What we need is a digital neocortex.

C. Alan Joyce Content Manager, Wolfram|Alpha Play (21min) Download: FLV | MOV | OGG | MP3

I will give an insider’s tour of Wolfram|Alpha, a unique project designed to make all systematic knowledge available to and computable by anyone. Attendees will learn how Wolfram|Alpha’s teams of Mathematica programmers, knowledge-domain experts, and data curators have been able to transform raw data—from public and private sources, both on- and offline—into “computable knowledge” that can be accessed and manipulated through natural-language input.

Tom Wickham-Jones Director of Kernel Technology, Wolfram Research Play (21min) Download: FLV | MOV | OGG | MP3

Modern businesses and organisations have access to an increasing amount of information. This includes private internal information such as product usage, user profiles, and sales history, as well as public external information such as data on demographics, economic growth, and weather patterns. Despite this opportunity, traditional technologies and approaches often restrict access to only a small number of specialists. To reach out to a broad set of users and democratise this knowledge requires fresh thinking in areas such as data access, computation tools, interface construction, and deployment. This talk will review the general issues and show how Wolfram Research’s experiences with Wolfram|Alpha and Mathematica give some innovative techniques to solve this key problem.

Conrad Wolfram Co-founder and Strategic Director, Wolfram Research Play (48min) Download: FLV | MOV | OGG | MP3

Computers have revolutionised the conduct of maths, science, engineering, finance—and now potentially democracy. Increasingly, what limits progress is asking the right questions, specifying problems effectively, testing, and imagination—not students’ abilities of manual calculating, most prized in maths education. This talk will discuss why and how our technical education needs to change for this new world.

Chris Carlson Graphics Developer, Wolfram Research Play (22min) Download: FLV | MOV | OGG | MP3

As a vehicle for exploring unknown territory, Mathematica is unparalleled. And lots of fun. I will recount some of my best adventures with Mathematica, from physics to music to architecture.