CEBIT, formerly known as CeBIT, has undergone a makeover and the grand debut is later this month. 2018 is a big year for the festival, which first opened it’s doors in 1986. Read on to find out more about this new concept, how IBM is involved, and for your invitation to our one-of-a-kind event. What is CEBIT?

CEBIT is a mix of fair, conference, and networking event for innovation and digitization in Hannover, Germany.

Why has CEBIT changed?

This decision was to make the festival

more appealing to Generation Y. There are four platforms at the new CEBIT: d!talk, d!campus, d!conomy, and d!tec. For starters, the festival has been rescheduled to take place in June, rather than in March as usual. The desired effect is greater emotional appeal and more of a festival feel. Read on to find out more about this new concept, how IBM is involved, and for your invitation to our one-of-a-kind event.

What is different about CEBIT this year?

CEBIT is combining technology with emotion. You can even camp at CEBIT this year… how much more festival can it get? Let’s explore the four platforms:

d!conomy – An immersive expo from 12th – 15th June, with over 25 different categories of technology, providing you with the opportunity to host, connect, and secure your digital business. It’s still all about leads, leads, leads!

d!tech – Accompanying the expo is another platform which explores all the latest cutting-edge and disruptive technologies, from Artificial Intelligence to Blockchain. This focuses on developers, startups, and researchers.

d!talk – From the pioneers and lateral thinkers of digitization. Over 600 speakers will share inspiration, information, and innovation for all things digital transformation on-stage. Visionaries, creatives, and experts from all over the world.

d!campus – The heart of the new CEBIT, bringing fun and business together. A lounge atmosphere with street food, live music, don’t forget the 60-metre SAP ferris wheel! There are stages, like at a music festival. It is definitely worth checking out the CEBIT Festival Stage and CEBIT DJ Stage line-ups for each of the days of the festival. Performances from the likes of: Cirque Électrique, Compressorhead, Giant Rooks, Ilgen-Nur, Jan Delay, Mando Daio, Noga Erez, Superorganism, This Ain’t Bristol, and Xul Zolar. It seems there is something for everyone. What else? An awards ceremony from We Do Digital, runway fashion shows of wearable tech, and Guinness World Record winning drone light shows from Intel, sending 300 drones into the sky with up to 4 million colour combinations! It’s easy to see why there’s so much excitement around the new CEBIT format.

How is IBM involved?

Our motto: Let’s put smart to work. Create. Fascinate. Start. IBM CEO Ginni Rometty will give the opening night keynote. Technologies like AI, cloud, Blockchain and the Internet of Things will change world. But only if they can be effectively trained, trusted and applied. Together with our clients, IBM is putting smart to work. At CEBIT we‘ll show you some examples of successful companies and solutions were IBM and it‘s clients make the world a little better.

In a completely new environment, learn more about Watson and IBM Cloud in our Experience Hubs. Discover security solutions that secure your business processes from the ground up. IBM at CEBIT 2018 is located in Pavilions 34 & 35, check out the CEBIT grounds map and come and visit us, we are looking forward to seeing you.

What about IBM Code?

Join our very own Fernando Cejas and team at our one-of-a-kind Meet the Developer Advocates event, as we explore The Art of Coding Disasters! on Thursday 14th June. You are warmly invited 17:00 – 19:00 in the Cloud Dome (Pavilion 34 & 35) to Fernando’s session, to meet and network over light refreshments. We are bringing together the technical community, let’s discuss how we can make the most out of failures and mistakes, to learn and write better software.

“Curious Learner. Engineering. Android. Geek.” IBM’s Fernando Cejas focuses on Cognitive Computing and Mobile Platforms. Fernando has been involved in Android since its first appearance and has worked for several companies in a wide variety of projects in J2ME, C-Sharp, Java, Php, Ruby, Scala, and Kotlin. In his role as advocate he enjoys exploring new technologies, speaking at conferences, and sharing knowledge. Here’s the link to sign-up for Fernando’s talk, including your free entrance ticket to CEBIT.

Call for Code

Calling all developers! We shall also be introducing the Call for Code, a worldwide, multi-year initiative that inspires developers to solve pressing global problems with sustainable software solutions. With a little help from The Linux Foundation, UN Human Rights, and American Red Cross, we are building global solutions for disaster preparedness. Mitigating natural disasters is one of the world’s greatest challenges. The past decade has been one of the worst periods for natural disasters and while weather events may be inevitable they don’t have to become so catastrophic. Unlike other hackathons and code challenges, the code is just the beginning. Call for Code brings startups, academia and enterprise developers together and inspires them to solve the most pressing societal issues of our time.

Will we see you at the new CEBIT festival? We hope so! Here’s the link to sign-up for Fernando’s talk, including your free entrance ticket to CEBIT. Discover more CEBIT IBM at CEBIT 2018 (Teaser trailer) Xing Event Call for Code