Some useful websites...

I have a few links i've been saving up over the last few days so I want to signpost them all in this post.

First up is KnowledgeRICH:

http://www.knowledgerich.com/

It's a free service for businesses to get in touch with Universities in the region to work on innovative projects. What a great idea!

Next up is the Yorkshire Science and Technology Network:

http://www.ystn.co.uk/

I went to their last event in Leeds, it's free (although invite only so you have to sign up to attend) and gives a good networking opportunity to meet people from quite a variety of organisations. They have a couple of speakers at each event and in the past these have included Tim Berners-Lee and Wayne Hemingway.

Next I wanted to point out Cisco's I-Prize:

http://www.cisco.com/web/solutions/iprize/index.html

This is a competition to create an idea that Cisco will then fund anything up to $10 million! The really cool part to it is that when you enter you basically register into a community and then can get ideas from other people and create a team from within that community. A very cool way to encourage collaboration...

Finally, 4mations:

http://www.4mations.tv/

This site allows you to upload your own animated movies and games with the most popular each month winning a cash prize! The site isn't the most user-friendly i've ever come across, but if you get stuck you can click 'help' at the top right of the page to get to a fairly useful FAQ.

Melt 2008

Yesterday I was in Sheffield for the Melt 2008 Inspiration Session, and very inspiring it was too! Melt gives R&D awards to artistic, media and technical talent to explore the creative and economic possibilities of innovative content exploitation - basically they invest in cool, new things :-) They also do a lot of mentoring and giving of advice to help the projects make progress.

Personally my favourite part of the afternoon was the Melt Show and Tell where we saw short 10 minute presentations from 5 Melt projects. I loved them all! :

Healthy Island - an interactive game for teachers to encourage healthy behaviour in their pupils. A great way to bring more modern technology into the classroom without using a whiteboard!
http://www.lovemelt.com/past-awardees/7-earth-heart.html

Call of the Wild - a sound controlled game using animal noises. The added value with this one has got to be the whole 'all the family' can play factor.
http://www.lovemelt.com/past-awardees/13-call-of-the-wild.html

Piefighter - a mobile game using bluetooth and involving throwing pies at friends using your mobile and gaining free beer! Surely a winner with students.
http://www.lovemelt.com/past-awardees/16-blueface.html

Lost Angels - another mobile game, this time in a tamagochi / virtual pet stylie using real world info (i.e. news sources). You can really see this being picked up by the increasingly younger mobile market.
http://www.lovemelt.com/past-awardees/10-lost-angels.html

Wizard Academy - interactive 3D / 4D (think water being sprayed at you in 4D!) game for use in theme parks and visitor attractions. This one I thought was particularly commercially attractive, you can see it being used in lots of places.
http://www.lovemelt.com/past-awardees/14-wizard-academy.html

I shall try to keep my eye on the progress of all of them...