History of the Meltingpot Forum
The first year of Meltingpot took place in 2016. Our great desire to learn and discover was the impulse for its establishment. We followed the tradition of discussion scenes at the music festival Colours of Ostrava. We wanted to create a separate original space for sharing ideas and opinions, a place for dialogue and innovation. Our goal has been "Ideas without Borders", a multi-genre discussion forum open to everybody. During the first three years of Meltingpot over sixty thousand visitors had the opportunity to meet more than five hundred guests from all over the world.
Připravujeme celou řadu překvapení a dvě zbrusu nové scény ve stylově vyladěném designu. Nemůžeme se dočkat! Těšíme se na vás 17—20. 7. 2024
Od 19. do 22. července 2023 se uskutečnil jubilejní 20. ročník festivalu a 6. ročník fóra Meltingpot, které svým rozsahem opět překonalo předchozí ročníky. Na 11 scénách totiž přivítalo přes 200 inspirativních řečníků z celého světa a přilákalo zhruba 30 000 diváků. Hlavní tematickou linkou bylo zdraví, dlouhověkost a biohacking, což kopíruje celosvětový trend péče o vlastní zdraví a psychickou pohodu, dále pak vize budoucnosti, technologie a celá řada dalších oblastí.
Představili jsme hned několik novinek: pilotní projekt Biohacking Expo, interaktivní výstavní a prodejní zónu věnovanou dlouhověkosti, zdraví a výkonnosti s přehlídkou nejaktuálnějších trendů v oblasti biohackingu, stravy, zdravého životního stylu či wellness; novou taneční a workshopovou Cacao stage jako propojení hudebního festivalu a jeho konferenční části a také tajné koncerty nebo speciální design vybraných scén včetně industriálních soch v areálu.
Významní zahraniční řečníci: Matthew Walker (UK), Jamie Catto (UK), Patrick McKeown (IR), John Perkins (US), Carmen A. Medina (US), Bill McKibben (US), Helena Norberg-Hodge (SE), Julia Mossbridge (US), Barbara Paldus (CZ/CA)
Významní čeští řečníci: Petr Pavel, Petr Fiala, Pavel Kolář, Dana Drábová, Míla Fürstová, Marian Jelínek, Martin Dorazíny, Igor Lukeš, Klára Kolouchová, Karel Och, Jakub Szántó, Erik Tabery, Martin Wichterle, Jitka Vodňanská, Brain We Are a mnoho dalších
After two pandemic years, mostly spent in the virtual space, the Meltingpot Forum went live again, on 10 stages and with more than 250 speakers from all round the world. An overall attendance of more than 30.000 people confirmed the audience's hunger for education, inspiration and entertainment, and exceeded our expectations.
Compared to the previous years, we had 3 new stages: Europe stage, reflecting on the occasion of the Czech Presidency of the EU Council, Gamechangers stage, representing outstanding personalities in innovation, science, education and traveling, and SUper stage of the Silesian University in Opava.
In the week following the festival, we organized the first ever Retreat with renowned lecturers in the field of meditation, yoga, spiritual development and healing music in the splendid nature of Beskydy Mountains.
For the second time in a row – and we believe it was the last time – the Meltingpot Forum took place online due to the Covid pandemic. In November 2021, we organized the Meltingpot Virtual Forum, a four-day multidisciplinary online conference, which offered over 100 Czech and foreign speakers on a wide range of current social, scientific and artistic topics, just like at the live Meltingpot forum. With this conference, we launched the coloursuniverse.cz website as a joint interactive platform of the Colours of Ostrava festival, the Meltingpot Forum and the Czech Music Crossroads music conference and showcase festival.
The live Meltingpot forum had to be postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic, as well as the entire Colours of Ostrava festival.
It was a difficult year, but thanks to the huge support of our viewers and speakers, it was possible to launch the Ideas Without Borders Online project in spring, at the beginning of the worldwide lockdown period. Until the end of 2020, Meltingpot regularly broadcast interviews and debates with professionals from various fields on Facebook and YouTube channels.
In 2020, the following partners supported Meltingpot during the implementation of the online project: Česká spořitelna a.s., Google Czech Republic s.r.o., Heimstaden Czech s.r.o., US Embassy Prague, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, the Czech - Polish Forum, the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic and the Moravian-Silesian Region.
Thank you all for your support.
Meltingpot was enriched with two new stages - the Big Bang stage, focused on physics, and the George stage, focused on innovation. It has been the biggest edition so far with the largest number of speakers from 25 countries on 10 stages, and more than 30.000 spectators. The program of the forum was held in the spirit of Leonardo da Vinci, in the spirit of the unity of science and arts, and covered a wide range of topics. As in previous years, we made video interviews with selected speakers for the Voices of Meltingpot project.
Speakers: Joe Davis, Donna de Lory, Mark Gungor, Ingrid Formanek, Manari Ushigua, Andrew Keen, Yan Mei, Tuvia Tenenbom, Devakant, John Perkins, Jim Clancy, Jeffrey A. Winters, Clemens Kuby, František Koukolík, Mnislav Zelený Atapana, Martin Hilský, Přemek Forejt, Petr Pavel, Tomki Němec and others
The third year of Meltingpot brought the largest national variety of performers - 202 speakers from 30 countries presented themselves to visitors. Twenty of them got involved in filming Voices of Meltingpot. You can watch their personal messages here. In addition to the eight stages in the festival venue of Colours of Ostrava, Meltingpot offered a rich accompanying program in the city center.
Speakers: Rüdiger Dahlke, John Perkins, Scilla Elworthy, Bruno Marion, Amit Goswami, Cheikh Lô, Barbara Winton, Jim Clancy, Bboy Neguin, Václav Cílek, Cyril Höschl, Martin Hilský, Radka Třeštíková, Jáchym Topol, Tomáš Sedláček and many others.
Meltingpot within four days of Colours of Ostrava confirmed the increased interest of visitors who could listen to 202 speakers from around the world. We launched the unique film project - Voices of Meltingpot, which keeps the personal messages of our guests alive. Among others you will find there the confessions of Mark Gungor, Zbigniew Czendlik, Dan Millman, Miroslav Stingl, or Ben Aaronovitch.
Other performers: Mike Chinoy, Sugata Mitra, Ben C Solomon, Benjamin Fischer, LP, Václav Bělohradský, Petr Dvořák, Igor Lukeš, Václav Cílek, Petruška Šustrová, Martin C. Putna and many others.
The beginning of Meltingpot. The very first year of the international discussion forum addressed 14,000 visitors. Lectures, discussions, artistic performances, film screenings, educational and creative workshops were presented on 10 stages. There were almost 150 speakers from 26 countries.
Speakers: Daniel Shechtman, Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, leading American theoretical physicist Leonard Mlodinow, writer Robert Fulghum, Steven Lee Myers, Clemens Kuby, Chris Hedges, Yusef Komunyaka, Guillaume Basset, Sidney Strauss, Timothy Snyder, Andrew Zubov, Margit Slimáková, Jan Zrzavý, Andrew Urbiš, Zdeněk Kratochvíl and others.