Navigator Festival - 5 questions to organizer Annette Walz

On April 24th and 25th, 2024, the Congress Center Düsseldorf will host the Navigator Festival, where the theme is "let's navigate!" The festival brings together visionary creators, digital enthusiasts, and those courageous about the future from small and large enterprises, academia, society, and politics to discuss the current technological trends around AI. We asked Annette Walz, the organizer from Düsseldorf Congress, what the upcoming event is all about.

What are the central themes of the Navigator Festival, and how does it contribute to the development of digital competencies?

Technological innovations like generative AI and ChatGPT are on their way to revolutionize our lives and work. This increases the pressure on companies to adapt and build new skills, known as Future Skills, in their teams to remain sustainable in the long term. The Navigator Festival aims to be a motivation and compass for understanding digital technologies and their impact on existing and future business models. We want to support companies and their employees in learning relevant future competencies, making the participants navigators in their own companies.

What significance do not only digital but also non-digital skills have for successfully managing digital transformation?

The focus here is on humans. Among the most crucial non-digital transformative skills are courage for change, joy of innovation, and resilience. Teams that possess or acquire these strengths will navigate the digital transformation better than those that only focus on digital skills. At the Navigator Festival, we have excellent speakers such as Dr. Arndt Pechstein, neuroscientist, Sabine Sigel, thyssenkrupp Steel Europe, Prof. Isabell Welpe, TH München, and Prof. Sascha Stowasser, ifaa - Institut für angewandte Arbeitswissenschaft e.V., who address these topics and provide exciting impulses for their own teams and companies.

In what way does the Navigator Festival promote collaboration between visionaries from small and large enterprises, academia, politics, and society to collectively shape the digital future?

Digital transformation is a societal task that can only succeed if stakeholders from business, science, and politics share their insights and leverage synergies.

The Navigator Festival offers in-depth presentations by experts in the field of digitization and transformation, interactive workshops, and space for networking and collaboration in a special festival atmosphere.

How does Düsseldorf Congress position itself as a platform for digital transformation, and what role does it play in information, participation, and networking in this field?

With the Navigator Festival, Düsseldorf Congress provides participants with a platform to learn about trends and initiatives in digital transformation, actively participate, and connect with each other. Together with our partners, we bring hierarchies, functions, industries, and institutions together in one place. This creates a unique ecosystem with a strong network. An event from Düsseldorf for Düsseldorf and NRW.

What specific opportunities and possibilities does the Navigator Festival offer companies, especially regarding dealing with the shortage of skilled workers in the field of digital competencies?

Our mission is to strengthen Düsseldorf and the region as a leading location for digital progress. A central element to address the skilled labor shortage is the education and training of existing employees to future innovation leaders. The Navigator Festival showcases concrete examples of essential digital and non-digital key qualifications for this transformation. It not only opens up collaboration and growth opportunities but also provides ways to tackle the shortage of skilled workers, especially in the area of digital competencies.