International innovation festival and& moved to 21 - 24 April 2021

From April 21 - 24, Leuven will again be the home of and&, the city-wide festival offering a conference, entrepreneurial summit, music program, art exhibition and an experience track for kids. As was the case for all events the coming months, and& had to be rescheduled due to the Coronavirus. So Leuven MindGate and the city of Leuven had to announce earlier in March. Renowned keynote speakers such as Uri Levine, Jimmy Wales and Chris Messina already reconfirmed their presence for 2021.

“Our 2020 edition would’ve revolved around ‘Innovate for the Better’. It’ll be no different for our 2021 edition. Moreover, in the light of COVID-19, this is the perfect time to rethink how we function as a society, how we can collaborate on a global scale and how innovation can contribute to this."

Pieter Goiris, intendant and&

In general, the program will stay the same. The focus of attention will remain a two-day conference and an entrepreneurial summit - a platform to connect entrepreneurs, start-ups, scale-ups and investors - that will take place on Wednesday April 21st and Thursday April 22nd. More about what the program will look like will be released later on. “We consider this an opportunity to further fine-tune our festival”, Pieter Goiris. 

In the meantime the festival already reconfirms a couple of their top-notch keynote speakers for the conference: Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia; Uri Levine, co-founder of Waze; Dr. Payal Arora, author of ‘The Next Billion Users’ and digital anthropologist; Chris Messina, inventor of the hashtag; Theo Priestly, technology evangelist and anti futurist; Erika Cheung, Theranos whistleblower and ethical entrepreneur; Cal Fussman, world-renowned interviewer and author. More reconfirmations and new names will follow in the coming weeks. 

^{Ticket buyers will receive a separate email. All purchased tickets will remain valid for the next edition in 2021. Those who would already have questions, can contact and& at info@andleuven.com.}