Among the personalities already confirmed, great excitement and anticipation surrounds the eminence of computer science Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, who will address the WMF audience on June 16, bringing his own experience and his idea of Web development, offering an analysis of current trends and future prospects for his creature. Also not to be missed is the presence of former University Minister in Spain and world-renowned sociologist Manuel Castells, among the leading analysts of the digital revolution and the resulting individual, social and labor changes brought about by the advent of new information technologies, who will offer a future perspective of society through the lens of digitisation.

Once again this year's Mainstage, whose activities will be translated into LIS thanks to RAI Accessibility professionals, will offer a comprehensive overview of the current world and the world to come through the analysis and discussion of numerous issues of technological, digital, and social innovation.

Artificial Intelligence, Tech Transfer, Robotics, Digitisation

Ample space will be devoted to the discovery of new technological tools, advanced robotics, technology transfer, open innovation, applications of AI for various industries, and its regulation. Guests who will bring their expertise on the Mainstage include Silicon Valley pioneer, tablet inventor, and AI expert Jerry Kaplan, Monica Orsino, Senior Client Development and Training Manager for Microsoft, Oracle's EMEA Head of Commercial Industries, Luisella Giani, CINECA President Francesco Ubertini, Lawyer Guido Scorza, a member of the Garante per la protezione dei dati personali, who will discuss the ChatGPT case and related Data Use, Gianluca Misuraca, Founder of Inspiring Future, who will talk about the Re-imagine Europe project and the work to create an 'international alliance for a human-centric approach to artificial intelligence, and the coordinator of the "Social Cognition in Human-Robot Interaction" project at the Italian Institute of Technology Agnieska Wykowska, who will illustrate how AI and its application to robotics can intervene to support the treatment and management of patients with autistic disorder. Also returning to the main stage will be the world's most advanced humanoid robot, Robot Sophia, accompanied by its creator, David Hanson, Founder & CEO at Hanson Robotics, who will recount its birth and past and future evolutions, focusing on the link between Artificial Intelligence and robotics that characterises it.

Social Innovation, Climate Change and Sustainability, Activism and Legality

"Tech and digital Innovation finds no meaning if it is not applied to produce social innovation, generating positive impact on the community." From this concept, the common thread of the 11 editions enunciated by the Festival's creator Cosmano Lombardo, the WMF - We Make Future project has always been developed, which also and especially on the Mainstage brings to attention activism projects, scientific studies with global impact and virtuous examples of social engagement.

Among the voices and realities that will inspire concrete global change will also be Chiara Putaturo, EU Inequality and Tax Policy Advisor at OXFAM, who will present the new global report on inequality, highlighting the increasing social polarisation of wealth in Italy and around the world; Alessandra Prampolini, General Director of WWF Italy, who will address the issue of the health of the planet, climate change and the reduction of biodiversity by illustrating the "Living Planet Report" and again the Environmental Activists and Digital Creators, Tukumã Pataxó and Samela Sateré-Mawé who directly from Brazil will arrive to tell their battle for the environment and Amazon ecosystems through social media and the web. Finally, during the three-day event, together with authoritative voices such as those of Prosecutors Nicola Gratteri and Giuseppe Lombardo, journalist Antonio Nicaso, and DIA Director Maurizio Vallone, the theme of Legality and the fight against the Mafia, as well as social justice, will be discussed.

Innovation Diplomacy, Startups and Innovative Entrepreneurship

Italian and international institutional representatives will land in Rimini on the occasion of the WMF: also on the Mainstage to talk about their respective national innovation plans are Albanian Minister for the Protection of Entrepreneurship Edona Bilali, Swedish Ambassador to Italy Jan Björklund, Latvian Ambassador to Italy Solvita Āboltiņa and Algerian Ambassador to Italy Abdelkrim Touahria. Also present were Maurizio Forte, Head of the Made in Italy Promotion Coordination Office for ICE Agency, and Bill Reichert, Entrepreneur & Venture Capitalist, Partner at Pegasus Tech Ventures, among the partners of the WMF Startup Competition whose finals, featuring 6 of the best startups selected from around the world, compete against each other, is one of the most anticipated events scheduled each year on the Mainstage.

On the WMF Mainstage, also an important testimony of the use and impact of innovative entrepreneurship directly from Ukraine: in fact, with a talk by ISE Group will show how the Ukrainian tech sector is impacting the dynamics of war through the use of apps and technology platforms offered for use by citizens.

Innovative entrepreneurship and tech transfer will also be discussed with WASP, a company that using the most innovative technologies of the space economy has created a new housing model with self-sufficient and eco-sustainable houses, but also within the Scaleup for future panel, which each year brings to the Mainstage Italian and foreign scaleups that have scaled the relevant markets.

Creator Economy and Regulation of Digital-Tech Professions

Also not to be missed on the main stage will be numerous guests from the world of content creation who through talks, interviews, and panels will provide an overview of the Digital-Tech sector with focus on its best-known and best-loved professionals. Among the already announced guests are content creator & writer Camihawke, content creator & Founder at Breaking Italy Alessandro Masala, creators and gamers Favij, Jakidale, and Pow3r, and, finally, Luca Gervasi, content creator and face chosen by Monge as brand ambassador of digital branding campaigns on social.

At the conduction of the Mainstage, already announced also some of the figures who, during the three days, will go to join Cosmano Lombardo - Founder and CEO of Search on Media group and creator of the WMF.  Among them in fact, also Robot Sophia, the humanoid that combines AI and robotics, who returns to the WMF in this new guise, Diletta Leotta television and radio presenter as well as historical co-host of the WMF, Daniele Pugliese and Riccardo Betteghella of the Casa Surace collective, a successful factory and production house with over 5 million fans on the web, and, for the first time, Alice Mangione, actress, comedian and content creator of the editorial project The Pozzolis Family.

The first concerts announced on the Mainstage

Also online are the first two major artists announced of the many who will bring their music to the WMF, which this year is once again enlivened by a true Music Fest that alternates between concerts on the Mainstage and performances of various genres and niches throughout the Rimini Expo Centre. .

Space then, at the opening of the first day, for the Electronic Set - Left Hemisphere by Dardust: pianist, composer, author and record producer who will bring the first summer step of his Duality Tour right to the WMF. The artist will take the WMF's international audience into a dimension of psychedelic club notes and images ranging from Carpenter and Goblin soundtracks, with echoes to Italo disco, UK Garage, 90s music and Nu Jazz, opening the three-day event with a boost of energy and innovative sound.

Instead, it will be Dargen D'Amico, rapper, songwriter and producer among the most eclectic representatives of the contemporary Italian singer-songwriter scene, who will close the first day of WMF with a live concert on the event's main stage. The artist, who has shifted genre boundaries by fusing, for the first time in Italy, rap with Italian cultured music, will light up the evening and attendees by capturing them with his unique style characterized by deconstructing language and balancing games between the senses of words.

New guests and artists will be announced in the coming weeks describing a schedule, that of WMF 2023, that promises to be one of the most complete and heterogeneous on the international scene.