Digital Futures Summit 2026: Regenerate
The Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS) has announced its sixth annual Digital Futures Summit, a free and interactive event that brings together leading thinkers from across the screen and audio industries. This year’s theme, Regenerate, explores the idea of rethinking these industries as living ecosystems focused on sustainability, active restoration, renewal, and systemic transformation.
The summit will take place through three online sessions on Thursday, 25 June 2026. It offers a unique opportunity for creative leaders, educators, and policymakers in the Australian and international screen and audio industry to come together and shape the future of their fields.
Key Speakers and Themes
This year’s event features a lineup of notable speakers, including Canadian digital documentary pioneer Katerina Cizek; game developer Naphtali Faulkner; Gamilaraay and Mandandanji creative director Jake Duczynski; and storyteller, strategist, and climate justice advocate Tory Stephens. Their insights will contribute to the broader conversation around how the screen and audio industries can evolve in a more sustainable and inclusive manner.
Dr Nell Greenwood, CEO of AFTRS, emphasized the importance of the summit’s theme:
“Regenerate asks us to think beyond adaptation and resilience, and instead consider how we restore, renew and reimagine our industries as living systems,” she said.
She added that storytelling has the power to not only reflect the world but also to rethink it. The summit aims to bring together global voices to explore how creative practices, technologies, and ways of working can actively contribute to a more sustainable and thriving sector.
Session Breakdown
Session 1: Worldbuilding – Restoring Collective Storytelling, Imagining Better Futures
This session focuses on the intentional craft of worldbuilding and the expansive practice of worlding. It challenges participants to rethink how futures are imagined and made, moving beyond storytelling as representation to positioning narrative as a living system. Through speculative design, collaborative storytelling, and multidimensional research, the session explores how futures are actively constructed across social, environmental, and cultural dimensions.
Session 2: Ancestral to Artificial Intelligence – Reclaiming Human Creativity
This panel invites a critical and hopeful interrogation of the stories we tell and how they are informed by the technologies we use to tell them. The discussion moves beyond AI as a disruptive force to considering it as a tool for amplified imagination. By placing AI in dialogue with ancestral intelligence and community-held ways of knowing, the session explores how machine capability can intersect with human creativity, memory, and meaning-making.
Session 3: Screen Producers’ Next Era of Creative Possibility
Drawing on ongoing AFTRS research, this session examines the skills producers can develop to strengthen their position in the industry. It looks at moving beyond survival towards renewal, restructuring enterprises, diversifying revenue streams, and embedding audience and market intelligence at the core of strategy. The panel unpacks practical pathways for building sustainable, globally competitive slates of distinctively Australian stories.
Insights from AFTRS Research
Dr Alejandra Canales, Head of Research at AFTRS, highlighted the importance of the summit in examining deeper systemic changes shaping the future of creative industries.
“The concept of regeneration invites us to rethink how our industries function—not as isolated sectors, but as interconnected systems shaped by people, place and culture,” she said.
She added that the program brings together diverse perspectives to explore how new models of collaboration can be fostered, community strengthened, and creative futures designed with social, cultural, and ecological impact in mind.
About the 2026 AFTRS Digital Futures Summit
The 2026 AFTRS Digital Futures Summit is set to take place on 25 June 2026. With a focus on innovation, sustainability, and systemic change, the event promises to be a pivotal gathering for those involved in the screen and audio industries.
For more information and updates, visit the official AFTRS website or follow their social media channels. Stay tuned for further details about the event and how you can participate.
