Digital Ergo Sum - Festival of Culture and Digital Society

A festival that questions the digital world

Digital Ergo Sum - Festival of Culture and Digital Society was founded in 2023 in Rome with a clear ambition: not to celebrate technology, but to understand it. In a landscape of innovation events often focused on products and startups, this festival chooses to put people and the cultural and social consequences of digital transformation at the center. The title, a play on the Cartesian phrase, perfectly summarizes the initiative's intent: if digital is now a constituent part of our identity, it is worth asking what it is making us become.

The format: short talks, fast-paced

The formula that has made the event recognizable is that of inspirational talks of about fifteen minutes, which follow one another throughout the day. Each speaker brings a different perspective—academic, entrepreneurial, journalistic, educational—allowing the audience to traverse a broad map of contemporary digital society in just a few hours. There are no endless round tables or commercial presentations: the pace is deliberately fast, designed for a diverse audience that can stay for the whole day or choose the sessions closest to their interests.

Recurring themes

• Conscious use of digital tools among children and teenagers, with constant attention to media education and digital citizenship;
• Artificial intelligence and work: what really changes in professions, and which skills become decisive;
• Sustainable entrepreneurship and new business models born around technologies;
• Gender equality, diversity, and multiculturalism viewed as levers for innovation rather than accessory topics;
• Disability and inclusion in digital contexts, from tool accessibility to service design;
• The future of journalism in the age of algorithms, including podcasts, creators, and new forms of information.

Live podcasts and networking

One of the festival's most recognizable features is the live podcasting space curated with ASSIPOD, the Italian Podcasting Association, which accompanies the day by recording conversations and interviews intended for online distribution. The audio component is not a detail: Digital Ergo Sum extends its life well beyond the event through a dedicated podcast and a publication that collects content from the editions. The day concludes with a networking aperitif, a moment designed to bring together professionals, students, businesses, and non-profit organizations.

Target audience

The ideal audience consists of those who work, study, or teach in contact with the digital world: university and high school students, teachers and trainers, journalists, podcasters and content creators, communication professionals, entrepreneurs, and third-sector operators. Admission is free with online registration, a choice consistent with the event's educational and inclusive vocation.

Rome, the Casa delle Tecnologie Emergenti, and the Lazio region

After being held in various locations over the years—the 2025 edition took place at Technotown, inside Villa Torlonia—the festival found a particularly significant home in 2026: the Casa delle Tecnologie Emergenti of Rome Capital, hosted in the commercial gallery of Tiburtina Station. A place that is both a transport infrastructure and an urban innovation laboratory, in the Municipality of Rome, the heart of the Lazio region. The choice speaks volumes about the event's vocation: to take the discussion on digital technology out of specialized circuits and into a daily transit point for thousands of people. Rome, with its fabric of universities, research centers, newsrooms, and creative businesses, offers this type of festival a natural catchment area and resonance that goes beyond regional borders.