DK Festival is back in Rovinj on 7 – 10 May and we’re opening the main stage the only way that makes sense: with people who actually built the future everyone else is now reacting to.
The 12th edition of DK Festival welcomes Jürgen Schmidhuber — unconventional professor, pioneer, disruptive genius and the father of modern AI. If you’ve ever worried about a dystopian future in which AI takes over the world, Schmidhuber is the one who taught machines how to think.
Elon Musk said it all: Schmidhuber invented everything. The New York Times went even further, writing that when artificial intelligence finally matures, it will call Schmidhuber “Dad.” The scientist who put the G, P and T into GPT and whose work powers systems such as ChatGPT, Google Translate, Siri, Alexa and contemporary generative models — used across billions of devices worldwide. When the development of modern AI is discussed, there are only a handful of names without which the conversation is incomplete. Schmidhuber is one of them.
His talk Modern AI and the Future of the Universe moves beyond conventional tech narratives, framing AI not as just another industry tool, but as a civilizational force with long-term consequences. It asks the uncomfortable question of what our future — and the future of intelligence itself — actually looks like and whether it remains ours at all. Schmidhuber treats AI as what it is: a civilizational shift.
Foto: Vana Katančić
As with our industry, DK Festival doesn’t settle for average, said Dunja Ivana Ballon, long-time director of the festival and program. Our goal is to create space for an industry that ‘s bold, brave and intelligent.
Foto: Vana Katančić
BECAUSE INTELLIGENCE STILL NEEDS DECISIONS
If intelligence is changing, strategy has to catch up. Rovinj welcomes Mark Pollard, one of the most influential marketing strategists and mentors working globally today. Author of Strategy Is Your Words and founder of Sweathead — a platform with over 1.3 million listeners and hundreds of thousands of followers — Pollard has shaped how entire generations of strategists think about their work.
He has worked with Facebook, Twitter, The Economist and Mozilla, led strategy at McCann and Leo Burnett, spoken at Cannes Lions and TED, and is widely recognized for permanently changing how the industry understands strategy. At DK Festival, he brings Strategy On You, a high-energy, interactive session that turns strategy toward what matters most: how we think.
Highlighting the importance of a strategic approach to communications, Jelena Fiškuš, the most awarded Croatian female creative director and President of HURA, said: Strategy in communication makes the essential difference between investing in growth and throwing money at noise — which without strategy becomes just a collection of random visuals and messages hoping to hit someone. Experience has shown that our market needs more knowledge and a better understanding of strategy, which is why we strategically planned to bring two of the world’s top strategists to DK this year. Anyone who wants to grow shouldn’t miss them.
THE ARCHITECTURE BEHIND BRAND GROWTH
The festival has also confirmed the arrival of elite brand strategist Julie Supan, the woman behind the branding of some of the world’s most influential technology platforms. One of Silicon Valley’s most sought-after brand strategists, Supan played a key role in building tech giants such as YouTube, Airbnb, Dropbox andDiscord as their head of marketing and communications.
Supan approaches brand as architecture rather than decoration — and at DK2026, she brings exactly that logic to Rovinj. In a year when communicators are refocusing on the return of quality branding, she will speak about the role of long-term vision in brand building: how strategic clarity is formed, how vision becomes the foundation for decision-making and how long-term market advantage is created precisely when nothing is obvious yet.
Foto: Vana Katančić
Davor Bruketa, the most recognizable face of Croatia’s creative industry and a member of the festival’s Organizing Committee, added: DK are the most intense three days of the year for everyone who lives communications. One look at our lineup makes it clear where the festival is heading — toward people who change the industry, not just talk about it. It’s an experience that must be experienced live.
WE MADE MORE SPACE FOR BETTER THINKING
Beyond its comprehensive program, the festival continues to build the experience it’s known for — with May sunshine, the sea and the unique Rovinj atmosphere that has long served as the natural stage of DK Festival.
This year also introduces new production solutions that raise the visual execution to a new level, alongside the broadest program to date, spread across nine festival locations — including the beach, the Poolside Stage by the pool and a brand-new hall with new industry topics and Rovinj’s irreplaceable sun.
RECOGNITION THAT SETS STANDARDS
Awards remain a key part of the festival, as highlighted by Angela Buljan Šiber, an important name of the national digital ecosystem and a member of the Organizing Committee: Awards are an unavoidable — and slightly sexy — part of the festival. The excitement, glamour and competitive spirit raise the atmosphere, which is why we have five awards — BalCannes, MIXX, IdejaX, Effie and Young Lions — that encourage creativity and highlight the quality of our market.
Organizers are preparing a three-day industry gathering expected to attract several thousand participants from marketing, communications and media, more than 100 partner and sponsor companies, over 100 media representatives generating more than a thousand media mentions, and a program featuring over 200 leading experts from Croatia and around the world.
The festival is organized by HURA — the Croatian Association of Market Communication Agencies and official representative of Cannes Lions in Croatia — together with IAB Croatia.
Foto: Vana Katančić
Damir Ciglar, one of the initiators of DK Festival and a member of the Organizing Committee, concluded: DK Festival continues to raise the bar — through speaker quality, content strength, visitor numbers and program scope. If you want to know where the industry is heading, this is where you need to be. And yes — your competition will be there too.
We’re here to challenge you. Now’s the time to get your ticket.
