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Category: Events

  • Leeds Met: Innovation North Showcase 2008

    Itpspringshow08
    Damn – looks like I’ll miss the ITP Spring Show again this year (no cheap flights to NYC..grrr!) but I’ll again have the pleasure of reviewing the work of my alma mater at the VIP Evening of this year’s Innovation North Showcase at Leeds Met.

    Inn08I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of last year’s graduates, so I’m expecting a little more this year…just a few days ago I met with a number of this year’s post-graduates from the Creative Technology programme; it was really gratifying to see that they all wanted to startup companies around their research work…

    • Stefan Phillips is looking to create a sound design business, providing guidance on the use of audio cues in web, broadcast and radio media. I was a little dubious about web, but suggested looking into writing thought leadership pieces on sound design principles for interactive media – perhaps UIs for consumer electronics is more appropriate.
    • Juan Pablo Delgadillo, known as JP – had been applying his background in architectural studies to 3D visualisations. JP and I got talking about how his skills could help in a potential collaboration with Leeds City Council in visualising and democratising the development of the city centre; perhaps as part of the proposed ‘map room’ the City’s toying with. Tarique managed to surprised JP by explaining that his painstakingly crafted environments could be rapidly transformed into real-time, live environment with just a little bit of tweaking!

    So <sighs> maybe I’ll make it to ITP next Spring…third time lucky huh?

  • (Dot)Northern Snippets…

    With Leeds’ bumper meetup month – OpenCoffees, BarCamps & GeekUps – behind us, what’s been happening throughout December…

      • John provided an Introduction to IP and Steve following with thoughts on Commercial Aspects of IP. John is a fascinating individual, we had a follow-on meeting where he described his plans for using collaboration technologies to make legal advice more accessible by connecting clients with cheaper lawyers in the developing world. John’s also observed first-hand the interesting alternate-ethnographics of communication technology in Africa…on hearing this I was breathlessly compelled to introduce him to the work of Nokia’s Jan Chipchase!
      • Both Steve and John suggested that IP should only be secured if you have the financial means to defend and exploit it…often, resources are better spend building, marketing and engineering rather than patenting. Surprisingly, both seemed quite supportive of open source as a positive strategy for securing some form of IP leadership, if not protection. Also, curiously, Steve suggested keeping a log of what didn’t work…it can be as valuable as a positive outcome!
    • Last Thursday, the University of Teeside hosted the Digitex07 digital futures conference. With speakers from NESTA, academia, Codeworks and the BBC, the programme appeared to have a palpably public sector angle. Despite this, the North East – like Manchester, Leeds & Sheffield – seems to be lighting up with the arrival of Refresh Newcastle, guys like Gareth Rushgrove and a handful of meetups…could this be the venue for BarCamp North East?
    • Last week also saw the beta launch of Northcast, a bi-weekly podcast covering events, startups and interviews across the North, led by the ubiquitous Dom Hodgson.
    • Last but most definitely not least I’ve been invited to attend the invitation-only Leeds: City Centre Vision Conference at the end of January, run by the city’s Chief Economic Services Officer. I’m planning to float a vision of Leeds hub of digital industries across the M62 corridor. The meet could be a quango, or it could lead to something profound…

  • BarCamp Leeds {2007}

    Leeds_colours
    It’s ON! After month’s of speculation, logo contests, false starts and calendar battleship across Upcoming and the official wiki – BarCamp Leeds is set for Saturday 17th November!

    With only 24 days before the event we decided to go for a single day BarCamp this time around…if things go well, we’re planning a full weekend BarCamp in Spring 2008.

    Already, we have 56 confirmed attendees and a couple sponsors, including Leeds Met and nti Leeds, who’ll be providing the fantastic, newly refurbished Old Broadcasting House as our venue; OBH is an incredible facility, bridging it’s BBC past with it’s current role as a hub for innovation in the region. Very soon, they’ll be launching the UK’s largest coworking facility.

    Public_space
    Some of the proposed sessions include a workshop on 3D printing (yes, we’ll have one there), augmented reality UIs, mobile technology trends, Drupal, games design, co-creation, PR in the digital age, an SEO clinic, entrepreneurial talks from  the founders of BT Bizbox, Plusnet and eDocr.

    Barcamp_ottawa_homepage
    We’re also planning to run podcasts, a prize draw and link up live with BarCamp Ottowa for some shared sessions and will likely have pair of sign language interpreters thanks to a pair of hard-of-hearing attendees efforts 🙂

    We’ll shortly be launching a sponsors pack to help cover the costs of lunch, snacks, schwag and prizes, so if you’d like to help out financially and gain some publicity for your startup, blog or other organisation, please drop me an email.

    To find out more…

    Please feel free to contact my fellow organisers – Tom Scott, Dom Hodgson, GeekUp’s Deb Bassett and myself – with any ideas, queries and sponsor inquiries you have.

    Spread the word and see you on 17th!

  • Northern Snippets…

    Simonrobertshaw
    This week saw a bumper crop of tech events across the North…

    The MELD launch parties in Leeds and Manchester kick started this intersection of social media and journalism. I went along to the Leeds event and bumped into the former CEO of Leeds Media, Terry Morden and Simon Robertshaw, formerly part of Liverpool’s ICDC and now heading up the Sandbox incubator at the University of Central Lancashire.

    The launch itself included talks from Paul Egglestone and David Gmiyah (presenting some strange concepts on the future of web news); many people were confused by the apparently convoluted application process but were generally enthused to get their ideas in front of media organisations.

    —

    Unfortunately, I missed two events across the Pennines in Manchester…

    • Celebrating their millionth UK user, LinkedIn held one of it’s three UK events in Manchester, with a chance to meet the company’s UK team as well as other members from the region.
    • The inaugural mashup* conference also took place in the city, run by local maven Manoj Ranaweera and regulars Simon Grice and Tony Fish. Coincidentally, Manoj’s new startup, eDocr, got some coverage with TechCrunch this week, joining fellow Mancs YuuGuu in flying the flag internationally for Northern startups. Competition for eDocr is already hotting up with Adobe’s entry into this emerging market, with Share…another ‘YouTube for documents’.

    —

    Adobecampustour
    Next week, Leeds Met and Sheffield Hallam will play host Adobe’s ten-city Campus Tour, promoting Creative Suite 3 with tutorials and workshops. The Leeds-leg, this Monday, already has 300 attendees registered!

    I’ll be along for midday and afternoon sessions on cross-media design, ‘extraordinary’ web-design and Photoshop CS3.

    Last, and most certainly not least, we’ll be formally announcing the first BarCamp Leeds – registration is open, but the formalities will happen tommorow 🙂

  • ITP Spring Show 2007

    ItpWatch out for the Spring Show of NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, beginning tommorow.

    I asked Raffi if I could come along a few months ago, but unfortunately I couldn’t make it 🙁 However, Mohsin‘s extending his TO+NYC trip by a few days so he can get to the show and also meet Raffi.

    I’ll have to be content with Leeds Met’s Innovation North showcase…in the meantime, here’re my favorites…

    • 888-iPLATEu – license plate numbers as communication identifiers.
    • Better Bin – visualising how many trees are saved by recycling.
    • bottleHunt – an ARG, based on finding messages in bottles.
    • Capture the Corporation – using cameraphones to find out more about brands.
    • Clock-Talk – smart clocks that marshall other appliances eveyr morning.
    • Cousteau – experimenting with proximity based UIs.
    • Distributed Surveillance Company – CCTV monitored by millions of users.
    • Door Secure – a security camera that only powers up when needed.
    • Fairy At The Night – fairies, only visible in the dark 🙂
    • Feel The Sound – sound recogniser for the hard of hearing (interesting transcoding of senses…)
    • Hypershelf – digitally connecting related, physical, books with each other.
    • imPulse – sharing heartbeats intimately over wireless networks.
    • Intimate Game Controllers -games played by couples touching each other.
    • Language Dialer – turns phones into mics for anyone wishing practice conversations in any language.
    • LettrWritr – w letter writing application that transcribes and sends message by post.
    • Live Action Prototyping – using Second Life to produce movie pre-visualisations.
    • MobileVoices – platforms for anonymous citizen media in the developing world.
    • Networked Byte Organ – ever wondered what the network sounds like?
    • News Brews – an novel way to ‘digest the day’s news’ 😉
    • plaYard – 3D space modelling application for the home.
    • Portel -handsets for quadriplegics and people with restricted hand movement.
    • ShiftSpace – ThirdVoice-like service to overlay  annotations onto live sites….couldn’t you just Greasemonkey del.icio.us URL data into a page?
    • Wireless Power Monitoring – wirelessly aggregating data from several electricity monitoring devices in the home.

  • Crunched

    Sadly, the chain of events which led to Sam’s dismissal from TechCrunch UK continued to have repercussions that unfortunately overshadowed the conference itself…

    • Michael Arrington, proprietor of the CrunchNetwork decided to put TCUK on hold, locking out Sam, Mike Butcher and contributors like myself without any warning…though I later managed to recover my password, I figured it was impolite to continue posting!
    • Michael later posted his perspective on the events leading up to the dismissal and closure.
    • A few days later Mike butcher resigned as co-editor of TCUK.
    • Over the weekend, Loïc Le Meur posted his recollection of events and his response to criticisms of Le Web.
    • Yesterday, Natali Del Conti resigned from TechCrunch, partially due to the abusive comments surrounding these events.

    I have sympathy for Sam, Mike A and Mike B’s positions, more so for Natali…each seemed to face unfortunate choices. Le Meur however conducted himself appallingly; I’ve read reacted similarly to criticism last year too. This is a shame, he’s someone who appears to be quite likable and has great enthusiasm and energy – there was no need for his outburst; Sam was justified in his criticisms.

    In just three-and-a-half months, Sam and Mike B lifted TCUK from a standing start and located it at the centre of the UK tech scene. Those of us at the periphery, as contributors and writers, were planning to extend coverage and events around the UK, energising entrepreneurs and innovators wherever they existed. TCUK was doing good work and pretty much for free!

    TCUK was more than a brand and a blog, it was the sum total of relationships and trust developed by its contributors; that won’t dissipate…it’ll follow Sam and Mike to whatever they plan to do next. I hope TCUK will relaunch soon as well as Sam and Mike’s new venture – a competitive news landscape for the tech industry is healthy and neccessary.

    —

    UPDATE: Sam and Mike are back on the air as Vecosys, tracking European statups…great news and I wish ’em both the best of luck. Unfortunately, the spat between Sam and Michael Arrington appears to be getting uglier and distracting from real industry news.