#linkfestival

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'Il Maglio' by Italian Luca Zamoc (@lucazamoc) for Link Urban Art Festival 2021 in Brescia, Italy #lucazamoc #linkfestival #bresciastreetart #streetart #lamolinastreetart 📷 by @inartegin via artist bit.ly/3ND2gcl (bij Brescia) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cfr3tcDrNXK/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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Mural by Italian Vesod (@vesod) for Link Festival 2020 in Brescia, Italy #vesod #linkfestival #brescia #bresciastreetart #streetart #lamolinastreetart 📷 via milano.repubblica.it | bit.ly/3tr6f2G (bij Brescia) https://www.instagram.com/p/CK6qqG0l4Yt/?igshid=33r64afu4662

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New Line Up for the LINK FESTIVAL in Liege, Belgium on July 7th. See you there!! @linkfestivalbe @ben_long_offcial_ @oliverway.mr.o @danyrodriguezart

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One thing we learnt: Link Festival

The one thing I learnt is Gene Roddenberry nailed it! If there was ever a person who put pen to paper to describe what a modern futuristic universe would look like, it was Mr Roddenberry.

As the radiant sun set slowly behind the Yarra river, shining into the eyes of inquisitive designers, technologists, and social entrepreneurs and their weary bodies, getting set to return home to their daily lives. What they leave behind is an exhausting couple of days that has been packed with presenters, panels, printing, poetry, painting, people, and fireworks!

Well not so much fireworks but there should have been. In short, and in my opinion, the Link Festival was a complete success.

From the opening presentation by Tane Hunter and Angus Hervey from Future Crunch, and their view on the multitude of amazing new innovations the universe is using and is “almost” close to using (sorry no replicators yet), I have to say, I’m full to the brim with inspiration and new ideas.

The way that Tane and Angus took us on a journey through an enormous amount of emerging technologies and innovations from 3d printing to holographics, to nanotechnology, to biomimicry, to digital innovation in communities, to open data and security, to the wealth of information on how we’re living longer and healthier, to the stamping out of disease and disease prevention and so much more, was mind-expanding!

Not to stop there, the smaller plenary sessions were brilliant to. I especially liked how the day started big and broad and then gradually got smaller as we hit the nuts and bolts sessions.

I sat in on a session on big data, digital auras and informatics and how it is being used for both good… and evil. I found the discussions on information and town planning particularly interesting and I let my thoughts wander towards how information on utilities and its related services could be used to help and study remote Indigenous communities. Think smarter as in energy and water efficient smart, remote Indigenous communities. (I’m not implying they’re not already smart, just asking: can we be smarter?)

Rolling into day two, I was able to sit in for while on the opening morning presentation about operating in the extremes—whether it be shooting documentaries in a conflict zone, designing at the molecular level, building space start-ups or engineering for deep sea discoveries and found it all just as interesting and motivating as Tane’s and Angus’ presentation. I have a love for the ocean and knowing that we’ve only explored 6% makes me wonder what else is down there?

Next up was my turn. I had the pleasure of sitting on a panel discussion about what innovation in communities looks like and I was happy to share my thoughts and experiences. We had a great mix of perspectives from people like Tom Dawkins from StartSomeGood, Bessi Graham from The Difference Incubator and Kea Pheng from RainWater Cambodia.

Tom and Bessi drew a good picture of how innovation looked in the social entrepreneurship world and Kea gave us a good presentation on how new water storage innovations are helping out in Cambodia. I talked about communication and language and how digital innovation and social change is helping Indigenous communities to connect, learn, grow and preserve their culture.

I also found the audience genuinely interested in how they could go about learning an Indigenous language, which was great. I’d love to start building that framework on something like duolingo with a little bit of help.

Okay, I’d planned to keep this short and so I’m going to skip forward past more amazing presentations and panels and simply say, there was a lot to the Link Festival that deserves to be mentioned and my words probably aren’t going to do it justice. However, if you work in design or technology or social change or even if you don’t but have an interest in those areas, do go along next year!

I found the people eager to engage, open and genuine and I have met some friends who I’m keen to see how their efforts and adventures pan out and I hope that they’re able to share in mine.

And finally, in some ways this festival returned me to my childhood days of watching Beyond 2000 and getting excited about the improvements and innovations that were just beyond the horizon. Sadly, no Star Wars speeder bikes yet, but I am hopeful.

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Weekly update (16 Feb 2015)

Project Advisory Committee

Last week we had the pleasure of hosting the second IDX Project Advisory Committee meeting here at the Hub. The Committee was assembled to support and provide advice to the IDX team as we develop the Initiative and carry out our charter.

The Committee is comprised of (in alphabetical order):

Hugh Bradlow, Chief Scientist, Telstra

Gavin Brown, Director, PwC Indigenous Consulting

Dr Bronwyn Carlson, University of Wollongong

Monty Hamilton, Director, Telstra Digital

Tyson Mowarin, iCampfire.TV & Weerianna Street Media

Dana Shen, Director Family by Family, TACSI

The first meeting occurred last year (in August), but was primarily focused on getting everyone up to speed with the broad trajectory of the Initiative and what we were up to/aiming to achieve. This session was much more focused on connecting the IDX team with the Committee members, to ask questions and engage much more interactively, and it was a really great from our perspective (and feedback from Committee members was this was a reciprocal view, which is always wonderful to hear!)

Topics of discussion ranged from how to most effectively embed a cultural perspective in the digital learning opportunities we are working on, where the focus of the IDX Hub should be in terms of mission-aligned activities vs. general bookings (i.e. from the community), future directions and approaches to the Community of Excellence, and more.

Link Festival

Today and tomorrow, IDX Experience Architect Michael Rome will be attending (and presenting tomorrow) at Link Festival in Melbourne.

Michael will be participating in the Beyond the buzzword—what does innovation look like in different communities? at 11:10am at the ACMI Cube, followed by one of the “6 degrees of link” sessions between 1:45pm and 2:15pm at Deakin Edge.

The Festival sold out over the weekend, so it looks like the program has really resonated with people. We’ll make sure we get a debriefing up on the blog once Michael’s back on deck, later in the week.

Other bits and bobs

We’ve also been busy planning our next round of prototype workshops on robotics, MIT Scratch, and 3D printing. We’ll hopefully have more to share on that front soon…

Related: later this week I'll be joining a panel at the new Makers Place pop-up in Leichardt, talking about some of our work with digital making and creating engaging learning environments. If you're in the area, would love to see you there...

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Weekly update (28 Jan 2015)

This past week was a big one for the IDX team, primarily focused on our preparations for Yabun festival, according to the organisers, largest one-day celebration of Indigenous cultures in Australia, held at Victoria Park in Sydney on Survival Day.

The NCIE has been a sponsor and supporter of Yabun for many years, so this year we were delighted to host a panel discussion entitled “Old ways, new tech: Cultural expression in the digital age”.

We were stoked to have Prof. Peter Radoll (University of Newcastle), Dr Bronwyn Carlson (University of Wollongong), artists Jason Wing and Djon Mundine (who’s exhibition “Bungaree’s Farm” opens this week), and Mikaela Jade (PwC Indigenous Consulting) join IDX’s Michael Rome on the panel.

The panel was held in the Speakout tent, which was packed for the session. The discussion was wide ranging—from protocols for digital storytelling to privacy to the potential for digital technology in sharing culture and some of the challenges.

We live-tweeted the panel over at the @IndigenousDX account, but 140 chars is a tough way to capture the depth and breadth of the panelists’ conversation. See Tweets about yabun2015 ncie

Thanks to all the panelists for taking the time to join us share their insights. We really enjoyed the session, and the feedback we’ve received has been really positive.

Link Festival

Speaking of festivals… Our next outing will be at the Link Festival in Melbourne on 16–17 Feb 2015.

Michael will be joining a panel "Beyond the Buzzword; What does innovation look like in different communities?”. He’ll be joining Kea Pheng from Rainwater Cambodia and folks from Social Studio, with the session facilitated by Tom Dawkins, Founder of crowdfunding platform for social change projects StartSomeGood.

The blurb for the session is: 

Looking at the varied approaches that different communities have to innovation and social change, this panel will discuss how they each use design and technology to innovate and shape the world. We'll hear perspectives from the indigenous community, overseas communities and the social enterprise community in Australia.

Link Festival are currently running a competition for free tickets:

We're offering you the chance to WIN your place at Link - a FREE 2-day pass valued at $699. Simply tell us the change you want to see in the world—enter here! Competition closes 30/01/15 and the inner will be notified by email. 

If you don’t win the comp, you can still get $50 off by using the discount code ‘$50DISCOUNT’ when you book your tickets.

We hope to see you there!