Welcome to Yorkshire Y 10 - the biggest tourism event in Yorkshire

On Monday 22nd March 2010 Welcome to Yorkshire will be hosting the biggest tourism event in the region - Y 10.

The event is free to attend and will begin with registration from 10am followed by the conference at 11am and a networking lunch for all delegates until 2.30pm.

Event details:

Date: Monday 22nd March 2010
Venue: Harrogate International Centre

Event programme:

10:00 - 11:00 Delegate registration
11:00 - 12:30 Y 10, followed by networking lunch and a chance to meet with Area Tourism Partnerships.
14:30 - Event closes

You can register online before 1st March.

For more information about the event please visit the website.

Get Connected - Digital, Creative & Healthcare companies - 22nd March

NorthernNet, Daresbury Science and Innovation Campus and RTC North have arranged a pitching and networking opportunity for companies operating in the Digital, Creative and Healthcare markets.

Who should attend?

Digital Creative companies interested in:

•Mobile technologies
•3D simulation technologies (especially interactive)
•Web-based remote learning technologies
•Digital signage and communication technologies
•Real time Web-based or network based information systems (potentially applied in other sectors)
•Web-based, real time communication systems linked to monitoring of activities
•Security technologies

Healthcare sector businesses working in:

•Surgical Simulation
•Telecare
•Medical training
•Remote diagnostics
•Healthcare monitoring
•Healthcare education
•Clinical trialling
•Healthcare operation information & communication systems
•Manufacture of products & systems with potential to go digital

The event aims to:

•Identify relevant partners, customers or suppliers
•Build understanding of technology capabilities in the Digital Creative sector
•Build understanding of market requirements for digital creative technologies in the Healthcare sector

Agenda:

3pm - Delegates arrive for pitch training
3.30pm - 4.30pm - Pitch training
Pitching companies arrive early for pitch training by ‘Winning Pitch’
4.30pm - Delegates arrive for main event
4.30pm – 6pm - Business Pitch
90 seconds focussed specifically on businesses’ ‘offers’ or ‘needs’
6pm – 7pm - Networking and Food
Supported by sector relevant business support ‘brokers’

Date: Mon 22 March
Time: 4.30pm - 7pm
Venue: Round Foundry Media Centre, Leeds

Register Online.

Vodafone Appstar Developer Day: North - 3rd March

Screen Yorkshire is bringing the Vodafone AppStar Developer Day North to Sheffield, giving you the opportunity to meet the experts, design and create your own apps with your contemporaries and more.... You'll also get the chance to win hardware, cash and other prizes!!

On the day you'll learn about:

* Vodafone 360 apps platform & channel to market
* Joint Innovation Lab (JIL) - the global operator alliance for 1 billion customers
* Apps of interest to Vodafone U.K. customers
* Using 360 to grow your brand and business: revenue and reach
* Building and publishing apps: concept to cash
* Meet the experts: SDK, publishing, commercialisation, QA, partner marketing

After the presentation session the rest of the day will be free for coding and creating new apps. What will you design? An app to show traffic camera updates? To save the world? 100 best football goals? Anything is possible...it's all up to you! Check out the Vodafone 360 store for ideas.

Agenda for the afternoon & evening:
12.00pm: Welcome, registration and drinks!
12.30pm: Presentations from Vodafone and Development Partners
2:00pm: Content and Dev Partner live showcases
3.00pm: Meet the experts
5.00pm: Q&A panel
5.30pm: Buffet dinner and beers provided
6.30pm: Evening Hackathon begins!
10.30pm: Judging session - winners and prizes announced
11.00pm: Close

Event preparation:
1. Download the SDK and tools from http://www.JIL.org/vodafone
2. Bring your laptop
3. Bring your proof of concepts, mock-ups and apps ideas to share with us

Venue: Electric Works, Sheffield Digital Campus, S1 2BJ

Register online.

techmesh: Sheffield, 23rd February

Attend techmesh: Sheffield and expand your business connections. This event is about encouraging collaboration, making new contacts and listening to inspiring key note speakers.

Date: Tuesday 23 February 2010

Time: 18.00-20.00hrs

Venue: Showroom and Workstation, Paternoster Row, Sheffield. S1 2BX Map

Guest speakers: Trevor Higgins, BT Partnership Director

Includes: Food and drink

Who should attend:
IT and Telecoms professionals and organisations.

Programme:

18.00 Networking, Food and Drink
18.45 Gary Rowbotham, techmesh Programme Manager
18.55 Trevor Higgins, BT Partnership Director: Discussing Superfast Broadband
19.20 Members Time (5 x 3 minute sessions for members to have an opportunity to make a short presentation on how to collaborate with other members/organisations)
19.45 Networking and Drinks
20.15 Close

For further information, please contact Dawn on 0113 384 5641 or dawn@techmesh.org

Register Online.

Inspirational Women in Media & Creative Business: February 18th

If you are enthusiastic about being a part of the fast growing creative and digital media industry in the North, then don't miss this unique opportunity to hear from some of the most inspirational women share insightful and motivational accounts of their experiences in the business, simultaneously to audiences in Salford, Leeds and Newcastle upon Tyne.

As part of a pan-northern initiative, the regional agencies - Screen Yorkshire, Northwest Vision and Media, and Northern Film + Media - have joined forces using NorthernNet's Media Access Bureaus to present this first-of-it's-kind, 3-way, simultaneous event:

Speakers include:
Kaye Elling, Chair of Women in Games Conference 2010 & Lecturer in Computer Games, University of Bradford - speaking in Leeds
Lou Cordwell, Managing Director, Magnetic North - speaking in Salford
Dianne Nelmes, Managing Director, Liberty Bell- speaking in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne
Eileen Gallagher, Chief Executive, Shed Productions - speaking in Newcastle-Upon -Tyne

WHERE: The Round Foundry Media Centre, Leeds
WHEN: Thursday 18th February - 1.45pm till 4.30pm
Events will also be held simultaneously at:
Broadway 100, Salford
Hoults Yard, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne

Register Online.

A series of events for the Creative, Digital & New Media Industries

@BLYorks runs from 23rd February – 4th March. Business Link Yorkshire in partnership with Creative Networks presents a series of free workshops and events designed to support and inspire the diverse creative, digital and new media businesses in the region.

Headline Events include:

C&binet Regional Conference - Tuesday 23 February

Creative Careers Event - Wed 24 February, 10:00am – 5:00pm
The Atrium, University of Bradford,

Feargal Sharkey, CEO UK Music - Wed 24 February, 6.30pm – 8.30pm
Leeds College of Music

artsmix @ The Loft - Sunday 28 February, 11.00am – 4.00pm
The Loft, Leeds

The Integration of Modern Media with Classic Advertising Principles - Tuesday 2 March, 6.30pm – 8.30pm
Aspire, Leeds

Be inspired with… Linda Barker - Thursday 4 March, 6.30pm – 8.30pm
The Elsie Whiteley Innovation Centre, Halifax,

As well as the monthly Creative Networks event:

Creative Networks presents:
From ‘The Human League’ to ‘The Future of Sound’
An evening with Martyn Ware
25th February 2010

Founder member of The Human League and Heaven 17, Martyn is one of the leading figures in electronic music. As record producer and artist he has featured on recordings totalling over 50 million sales worldwide during a 27 year career to date, working with artists as diverse as Tina Turner, Terence Trent D’Arby, Chaka Khan, Erasure, and Marc Almond.

He founded the Illustrious Company with Vince Clarke in 2001 to exploit, in collaboration with fine artists, the performing arts and corporate clients around the world, the creative and commercial possibilities of their unique three-dimensional sound technology. Clients include: BP, the British Council, The Science Museum, The Royal Ballet, Amnesty International, the V&A Museum, Mute Records, BBC TV, the Royal Observatory Greenwich, BAFTA, Museum Of London, and Tate Britain.

A true pioneer in the industry, Martyn remains a digital innovator.

A highly entertaining speaker, Martyn will discuss the challenges he faced when, much to the disgust of producers, sound engineers and promoters; he rejected the conventional rock and roll style music and made music using basic synthesizers and a lot of creative thinking.

An Evening with Martyn Ware is part of a week of events supporting the creative industry organised by Business Link Yorkshire in partnership with Creative Networks.

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Leeds College of Art
Blenheim Walk, Leeds, LS2 9AQ
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18.00 – 19.00 Hot Food and Registration
19.00 – 19.30 Welcome and opening pitches
19.30 – 20.30 Martyn Ware
20.30 till late Networking in the Mosaic Bar

This event is free to creative, digital and cultural industry professionals.
If you would like to join us, please contact Creative Networks on 01422 399444 or email Bridget March at bridgetm@leeds-art.ac.uk.

There are also several other events during @BLYorks that should be of interest to many.

Future Technologies January - Overview of the year and Google Chrome OS

For January I wanted to do a sort of round up of the year / predictions for the next year type article for my 'Future Technologies' post, but it's just so difficult!

I've been including posts on Future Technologies since April of last year and so far have covered:

Printed Electronics

Business Models

Interfaces

Software Tools

Augmented Reality

3D Technology

Web caching, electronic packaging and acoustic-based inputs

So these are the main areas i've been interested in during 2009. I guess also of note is what I didn't cover.

I didn't cover Cloud Computing, am I the only one who's a little bored of it?! Also most techies I talk to see it as virtualisation and have been doing it for years. I probably should have covered Software as a Service but I think that would have been relevant as being 'new' in 2008 rather than 2009.

I didn't cover Mobile Apps - mainly because i'm not entirely sure where to even start, but also because I still haven't seen anything that's really made me think Wow! I'm sure there are apps that would make me go Wow, I just haven't seen them.

I didn't cover Social Networking, again partly because it's being talked to death and also because social networking sites, although generally fab, are not technologies that excite me. They're usually impressive in their simplicity and it's not the technology thats amazing but the

commitment of its users.

So as a kind of prediction for 2010, during the next 12 months i'd like to learn more about:

Geolocation, I still think there are many interesting and as yet unused ideas around geolocation technologies.

HTML5, i'm hoping this will bring about a new change for websites, sites are getting pretty predictable these days so it would be good to see something new and exciting.

Healthcare technologies, this is such a huge area and I have colleagues who specialize in just these industries so its a bit offputting because there is so much to look at, but there are some really exciting and amazing technologies around healt

hcare.

Finally, I wanted to end with something new-ish: Google's Chrome OS. It's a really new and fresh way of looking at the desktop and there are many features worth pointing out:

Every application is accessed through the Chrome browser. This means that you won't need to have Microsoft Office on your machine in order to use Excel, instead you just use the Windows Live Web-based version of Excel. A lot of software companies are going to need to adapt to that!

Due to the above users will never have to install software or deal with annoying updates. Due to this it's going to mean starting up is very fast and as the Chrome browser has already shown to be extremely fast (i'm a total convert, the speed is everything with this browser, its perfect for the impatient generations :-)) opening files will be really quick.

The majority of user settings are stored in the cloud. This means that you can go to any machine (as long as it's a Google Chrome machine) and it will be exactly the same as using your own.

To pick up on the above, although hardly anything is stored on the hard drive the OS will only work on specific machines. You can't just install it onto the laptop / desktop you have now. Potentially a major disadvantage, but I am interested to see what machines will come out using the OS and i'm hopeful there will be some new innovations there.

So hopefully this is also something that will be interesting to watch develop through 2010.