Digital Futures Lab 2026

Join us for Day 1 of the Kemmy Business School Digital Futures Lab (DFL) 2026

An in-person event opening up a shared space for exploring how digital technologies are shaping, and could reshape, local and regional food systems.

We are interested in how digital technologies can be mobilised, shaped, and reconfigured to support regenerative, place-based food economies.

This as a collaborative exploration, where your engagement directly shapes the direction and relevance of the students’ work over the following weeks.

Your experience and insights are central to the work of the Lab.

On Day 1, stakeholders play a critical role in:

• Sharing real, situated examples of how these dynamics are currently unfolding
• Helping students ground their work in practice rather than abstraction
• Surfacing opportunities, tensions, and overlooked aspects of the system
• Contributing to a process that aims to generate meaningful, context-sensitive interventions

A key aspect of this year’s Lab is that we are not approaching digitalisation as something that determines outcomes. Rather, we are interested in how digital technologies can be mobilised, shaped, and reconfigured to support regenerative, place-based food economies.

The students will be working throughout the Lab to identify and explore digitally enabled interventions, grounded in real practices and constraints, rather than abstract or purely technological solutions.

This year, the Lab is organised around four interconnected themes, each exploring a different part of the food system:

• Digital Eating: How digital tools influence food choice, nutritional understanding, and the visibility of local food cultures.
• Digital Processing: How digital technologies are involved in the transformation of food, from farm and fermentation to kitchens and small-scale production.
• Digital Logistics: How food is coordinated, moved, and accessed through platforms, data systems, and supply chain infrastructures.
• Digital (Re)Using: How waste, surplus, and nutrients are detected, tracked, and revalued within circular food systems.

This will be a full-day, in-person event, bringing together members of the Midwest BioDistrict, students, and faculty for a series of panel discussions, short presentations, and interactive activities. A final running order will be circulated before the event. Sandwiches, tea and coffee will be provided, so please advise if you have any dietary concerns.

We look forward to co-creating the midwest bio district digital future with you.

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Host or Publisher Mid-West Bio District