2005 For the first time the Elevate Festival took place in 2005. In this year, everything had to do with "Independent People/Independent Movements".
Jimmy Wales was an invited speaker at the Festival.
2006 In 2006, the topic of the festival was "Elevate the Debate". The discussions mainly dealt with free media, live video streaming and basic income.
2007 The topic of 2007's Elevate Festival was "Elevate Democracy!" In 2007,
Cynthia McKinney and
Danny Schechter were at the festival in Graz.
2008 In 2008, "Elevate the Commons" was the theme of the festival.
Percy Schmeiser was one of the guests.
2009 The festival was dedicated to the topic "Elevate the Crises" with guests such as
Amy Goodman,
Pat Mooney,
Christian Felber,
Raimund Löw or
Anneliese Rohrer.
2010 The festival featured Mike Bonanno of
The Yes Men and
Bill McKibben among others. The main theme was "Elevate the Civil Society".
2011 Johan Galtung,
Mark Stevenson,
Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed looked into the future to explore how to "Elevate the 21st Century".
2012 "Elevate the Apocalypse?": Christian Payne,
Jacob Appelbaum, Polly Higgins and others discussed whether we need major catastrophes in order to tackle the challenges of our time.
2013 "Elevate Open Everything?" - guests like
Jacob Appelbaum,
Birgitta Jónsdóttir,
Anne Roth discussed radical openness in technology, innovation, activism, and politics.
2014 To honour the 10th anniversary of the festival the theme "Elevate #10 – Discourse & Activism" invited scientists like
John Holloway, computer engineers like
Micah Lee and artists such as
Antonino D'Ambrosio to draw lessons from the past and look into the future.
2015 "Elevate Creative Response!" - the 11th edition of the festival explored how creative thinking provides avenues to tackle current challenges.
2016 As a result of a European festival cooperation, the theme in 2016 was "We Are Europe" and focused on change processes in Europe. Among the guests were journalist and WikiLeaks activist
Sarah Harrison, the philosopher
Srećko Horvat, and the French director
Hind Meddeb.
2017 The topic the 2017 edition was "Big data, quantification & algorithms - Who will be the decision-makers of the 21st century?".
2018 The role of "Risk/Courage" in the context of societal change will be highlighted during the 2018 festival. With a focus on
whistleblowing the controversial
WikiLeaks founder
Julian Assange will be among the speakers.
2019 The Elevate Festival 2019 explores and debates the concept of "Truth" with guests like animal rights activist
Pamela Anderson, poet
Nnimmo Bassey, and philosopher
Srećko Horvat.
2020 presenting the opening speech at the 2020 Elevate Festival "Human Nature" and the relationship between humans, nature and technological development is the motto of the 2020 Elevate Festival. The philosopher
Ariadne von Schirach, the film maker
Douglas Rushkoff and the activist
Elizabeth Wathuti are among the guests in the discourse program. ==Elevate Awards==