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pause fest 2020

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The countdown to Pause Fest 2020 is on

A diverse array of the world's best creators, builders, and doers are heading to Melbourne for Pause Fest 2020.

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Pause Fest is the world’s leading festival for business and creativity. 

What started out as a small festival for creatives more than a decade ago has evolved to become something so much more – becoming the largest gathering of critical and creative thinkers in Australia and a meeting place for innovative minds from right around the globe.

Over the years, the team behind Pause Fest has brought people and businesses together. Canva, Zero Latency, AKQA, For the People, Girls in Tech Australia and many more have started at Pause Fest. Tesla showcased its first Model S at the festival, and Dropbox introduced its Paper product to the Australian audiences. HyperloopTT was invited to start conversations around fast transportation between Sydney and Melbourne in 2017, and the team also helped to connect the Victorian StateGov with SXSW, where they are now running the Australia House among other initiatives.

“Pause Fest was created to inspire a new wave of thinking, seeing future and doing business,” founder George Hedon says. “It’s not a conference – it’s a movement of new thinking and doing, and attracts curious minds who seek change in their business and personal lives.”

A new chapter begins this February as we gather in Melbourne once again to tackle the question: who owns the future? Based around the theme ‘New Odessey’, Pause Fest 2020 will look at ways to build capacity for the next generation of entrepreneurs to decipher and solve critical social problems and succeed.

Topics tackled throughout the festival include the problem with the word ‘collaboration’, how to navigate design change in large organisations, the future of work, how to build a quantum tech start-up and much more.

With 53 incredible speakers currently locked in for the 2020 event, Pause Fest is ready to kick off the decade in an incredible way. Get ready to hear controversial, industry-shaking insights and spectacular highs, lows and coming-to-blows stories from the best in tech, creative and business.

pause fest

Who is speaking at Pause Fest 2020?

Pause Fest are once again proving that they are the world’s leading independent festival for business and creativity with over 30 international speakers making their way to Melbourne for the 2020 event, representing organisations including Google, Adidas, Giantstep, Netflix, Walt Disney, Facebook, and Airtasker.

There is a huge list of speakers including Mike Rigby, the Vice President and Executive Creative Director of R/GA who works with the likes of Google, Nike, and Pepsico, Kayla Brizo the Lead Product Manager of Data and Analytics at Sony Music Entertainment, Rich Fulcher who is the UX Director for Google Material Design, the founder of the Future Of Sex podcast and a world-leading authority in sextech Bryony Cole, the Regional Director of Technology Strategy at Facebook Jason Juma-Ross, and Dropbox Brand Studio’s Associate Editorial Director Ladonna Witmer Willems.

pause fest

What are my ticket options?

There are three ticket options – Creator, Leader, and Explorer – perfectly curated for every facet of the industry.

Creator

For founders looking for new experiences, traction, co-founders, connections, mentors and investors.

  • Entry to three full days
  • Access to all stages
  • Access to networking app
  • Access to mentoring sessions
  • Access to tech careers
  • Access to Deal Room
  • Access to Startup Pitch Comp
  • Access to Tech Garden Expo
  • Entry to Founders Night
  • Entry to official Closing Party

Leader

For companies or pros looking beyond the horizon, growth and development, team building, clients and new talent.

  • Entry to three full days
  • Access to all stages
  • Access to workshops
  • Access to networking app
  • Access to mentoring sessions
  • Access to tech careers
  • Access to Deal Room
  • Access to Tech Garden Expo
  • Entry to Founders Night
  • Entry to official Closing Party
  • Access to startup list at the expo
  • Access to trends report

Explorer

For the pros seeking the next step in their careers, trends, new ideas, collaborators, and inspirations.

  • Entry to three full days
  • Access to all stages
  • Access to networking app
  • Access to mentoring sessions
  • Access to tech careers
  • Access to Deal Room
  • Access to Tech Garden Expo
  • Entry to Founders Night
  • Entry to official Closing Party
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For the last decade, founder George Hedon and his team have proudly built Pause Fest’s reputation as one of the creative, business, and tech industry’s biggest events. And from the looks of things, 2020 is set to continue their upward trend.

The underlying theme for its tenth year is “New Odyssey”, and the event will see innovators and curious minds posing the question: who owns the future?

“We now stand at a crossroads, looking towards the new decade while acknowledging the tremendous leap of innovation in the past ten years. The conversation is no longer about individual successes; it’s about our collective exponential development towards a more inclusive society,” Hedon says.

The 2020 edition will build upon last year’s success and welcome over thirty international speakers. The world’s most innovative companies such as Google, Adidas, Atlassian, Amazon, WGSN, Square Peg, Mercedes-Benz, Walt Disney, Patagonia, Ueno, Facebook, Culture Amp are set to come together once again.

Priding itself as a festival and not a conference, attendees can look forward to progressive workshops, extraordinary experiences, the Tech Garden Expo, non-awkward networking, VIP dinner and business breakfasts as well as after-parties.

For their 2020 event, Pause Fest has revealed some of its best speaker headliners yet.

Co-Founder and ECD of Territory Studios David Sheldon-Hicks will make his way to Pause Fest. With credits including Spy Museum, Ready Player One, 007 Elements, Blade Runner 2049, Ghost in the Shell, and The Martian the Territory Studios team have crafted a reputation for creatively led narrative design based off a love of storytelling and technology.

He’ll be joined by Barbara Soalheiro, the Founder of team-based work system Mesa. She has worked with Google, Coca-Cola, Nestlé and Natura, to name a few, and before that she was the Editor-in-Chief of groundbreaking ’90s magazine Colours so we can’t wait to hear what she brings to the festival.

Adidas’ Global Head of Sport Science Paul Francis will also share his knowledge. With over two decades of experience in elite sport with the mindset of a ‘problem solver’, Francis has worked with some of the greatest athletes and performance minds,  in the pursuit of making each athlete better.

That’s just the tip of their speaker lineup, which also includes representatives from Netflix, Google Nest, Uber Air, Facebook, and more.

Pause Fest 2020 will take place at its new home, the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, from Wednesday 5 February until Friday 7 February. Get your tickets here.