imran*

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.

I 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?