Going Global Conference

Another event to blog about, this one is for any industry and is being run by UKTI:

http://www.tradeyorkshire.com/eventdetails.aspx?id=45997

It's all about improving international business relationships, export and trade. Sir Alan Sugar is the key speaker, although personally i'm more impressed with the host, Declan Curry - always been a fan :-)

The event is in Harrogate on the 30th September and even more importantly it's free! It'll be a great opportunity to get free advice, inspiration and more importantly meet other businesses.

Singularity 2008

Just came across an online conference called Singularity which has some very interesting sessions:

http://www.singularity08.com/

It's from 24th - 26th October and features some fairly well known speakers including Tim O'Reilly and Molly E. Holzschlag.

It's not free, which is a shame as it's an online conference but then I guess the quality of the speakers would probably not be as high, however there are 'hubs' where people can get together to watch the conference, the nearest to us being in Manchester:

http://www.singularity08.com/hubs/

I'd be interested to hear from anyone how they thought it went...

AIDC

AIDC is a European Centre of Excellence for Automatic Identification and Data Capture. They basically work in the barcoding, RFID, smart cards, biometrics etc world and are located in Halifax:

http://www.aidc.org/

The building is absolutely fantastic. Covering two floors it's built in a tv / film set style with physical rooms representing different scenarios whereby visitors can walk around and see the technology in practice. Room scenrios include:

* A hospital where you can scan equipment used for surgery to see how many times it's already been used in the past.
* A farm where you can follow stuffed sheep (i.e. cuddly toy :-) ) round the farm with their tags, and even take apart a stuffed lamb (!) and see where the different parts go enabling a supermarket to know not only which farm a piece of meat comes from but even which particular animal on that farm.
* An airport where you can pick up a small tag and walk around the room while watching a moving dot on a screen representing you. This shows how exact an airport can pinpoint luggage moving around its building. The airport room also had smart technology that identified if a runway light needed replacing.
* Town hall, this has a machine that allows the general public to vote using electronic polling stations and their ID cards, this technology has already been used abroad.
* Supermarkets, there are obviously various uses for the technology in a supermarket, my favourite included a smart shelf that knows exatly what products are on the shelf and therefore knows when it needs restocking.

More info about the different room scenarios can be found at:

http://www.aidc.org/page.asp?pageid=74&pagegroup=AIDC&pagetitle=Demonstrators

Digital Print CIC

Today I met with Digital Print CIC who are located at Leeds University. They've been going for three years and are involved with lots of exciting new developments within the world of print. I've been sworn to secrecy regarding most of it but I can say they're interested in hearing from electronics companies and told me about some amazing new products that involve print and electronics.

The website is:

http://www.cic-digitalprinting.com/

I will be keeping uptodate with any events and projects that they become involved with - and will blog about the ones that are allowed to go public!

NorthTech

Another useful link i've come across following the Barcamp in Leeds is NorthTech:

http://upcoming.yahoo.com/group/5015/

It lists upcoming technology-related events and you can add more events to the list.

Barcamp Leeds

Today is the first day of Barcamp Leeds 2008. It's a fantastic event. Totally user-generated meaning that you don't know what you'll get till you get there. The sessions are written on a white board in the morning, updated during the day, and the session speakers are the attendees - so it's a total free for all!

Sessions at this year's Barcamp included Cloud Computing, Virals, Web Apps, Debian, 12 Tips for Startups, Design vs Usability etc, etc.

Useful links include:

http://barcampleeds.com/

and:

https://barcamp.pbwiki.com/BarCampLeeds2008

As you can imagine their's a Twitter page, Facebook page, probably tons of blogs and a load more photos on Flickr.

It's an extremely useful and well-attended event. Tickets (which are free) went in 3 days this year so if you can get one next year, enjoy :-)

Digital Yorkshire

This blog will be a way for me to record all the exciting things going on in the digital and new media industries in Yorkshire and Humberside, and occasionally even further afield.

Hopefully it will become a really useful resource for people working in a particular field to find out about related projects and also for people outside the industries to see all the exciting things going on.