{"id":3122,"date":"2014-05-24T14:21:35","date_gmt":"2014-05-24T14:21:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3122"},"modified":"2014-05-28T12:18:21","modified_gmt":"2014-05-28T12:18:21","slug":"thinking-digital-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3122","title":{"rendered":"Thinking Digital 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

This week I went up to Newcastle for Thinking Digital<\/a>. <\/p>\n

It was the seventh Thinking Digital, but my first. <\/p>\n

I’d seen a bunch of references to it being the UK’s answer to TED<\/a>, the tickets aren’t cheap, videos from previous years<\/a> look slick and professional, it’s held in The Sage<\/a> which is a hugely impressive venue<\/a>, they manage to get a great line-up of speakers, and the logistics in the run-up to the event were more organised than any event I’ve been to before. <\/p>\n

So… I was expecting a cool and geeky, if faceless, serious, formal, and intimidating event.<\/p>\n

I’d read it completely wrong. It’s absolutely a professionally run event. And there was no shortage of cool geekiness. But, more than that, the organizer, Herb Kim, has created a real sense of community in it. There’s a feeling of almost familial warmth amongst attendees who come year after year after year.<\/p>\n

And they do it without being too cliquey. Everyone I spoke to was very friendly and welcoming, which made the few days a lot easier for an introvert like me. A few days being surrounded by and trying to talk to and socialise with several hundred smart brilliant people is the kind of thing I normally find hugely draining and more than a little daunting. But the crowd at TDC make it easier than most. <\/p>\n

They value their time there, too. More than one person told me they’d paid for their own ticket and expenses to attend. I’m used to corporate-run conferences where everyone is paid for by their employer, or barcamps where people moan about being asked for a five pound deposit, so this surprised me. <\/p>\n

The talks made for a fascinating and thought-provoking couple of days. I can’t do them justice here (when videos of the talks are available I’ll embed\/link them here instead<\/em>) but I want to give an idea of what the programme<\/a> was like.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Jeni Tennison<\/a> – Open Data Institute<\/a>
\nTalked about the potential impact of open data on society, giving examples of how open data could be used to inform and widen access to debate. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Maik Maurer<\/a> – Spritz<\/a>
\nDemonstrated their speed-reading technology – streaming one word at a time in a fixed place, for fast reading on mobile and wearable devices.<\/p>\n

Gerard Grech<\/a> – Tech City<\/a>
\nTalked about the role of Tech City as a feedback loop between Government and the tech community. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Meri Williams<\/a> – ChromeRose<\/a>
\nTalked about the lessons that people managers could learn from artificial intelligence in how to inspire, motivate, and enable geeks to achieve great things. <\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Aral Balkan<\/a> – indie Phone<\/a>
\nGave an impassioned and stirring talk entitled “Free is a Lie” about the conflict between advertising-led business models, and user\u2019s privacy and other interests. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

David Griffiths<\/a> – foam<\/a>
\nTalked about using his background in the video game industry to combine crowd-sourcing and gaming to perform impressive citizen science projects.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Chi Onwurah<\/a> – MP for Newcastle Central<\/a>
\nTalked about the parallels between technology and politics as driving forces for change, and the aims of the current Digital Government Review. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Mariana Mazzucato<\/a> – University of Sussex<\/a>
\nArgued that the image of the private sector as entrepreneurial and public sector as meddling and restrictive is an unhelpful myth and made the case for a bolder, entrepreneurial state. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Erin McKean<\/a> – Wordnik<\/a>
\nTalked about the limitations of search as a model for accessing data and the need for discovery engines to find what you don\u2019t know you want.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Blaise Aguera y Arcas<\/a> – Google<\/a>
\nDescribed the history of machine intelligence and his predictions about what the future of machine intelligence might look like.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Carl Ledbetter<\/a> – Microsoft<\/a>
\nOutlined the history and evolution of digital entertainment, and described the process that went into the design of the XBox One. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Jennifer Gardy<\/a> – BC Centre for Disease Control<\/a>
\nDescribed our progress in increasing our understanding of the human genome, and where it\u2019s complexity lies. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Peter Gregson<\/a> – Cellist
\nGave a representation of the genome work that Jennifer had described. Instead of a data visualisation, it was a sonification. Using a cello.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Sean Carasso<\/a> – Falling Whistles<\/a>
\nTold an inspiring story of how he came to learn about the terrible things happening in Congo, and how he went about trying to bring peace. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Conrad Bodman<\/a> – The Barbican<\/a>
\nArgued for recognition of the impact of digital tech on the arts, and described his projects to exhibit and showcase video games, animation, and digital effects. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Mark Dearnley<\/a> – HMRC<\/a>
\nDescribed the challenges and need for technology in what HMRC do, and their digital ambition for the future.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Xavier De Kesteller<\/a> – Foster + Partners<\/a>
\nTalked about an amazing project to build a base on the moon, using autonomous robots with 3D printing heads to print a building out of moon dust.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Susan Mulcahy<\/a> – Imperial College London<\/a>
\nGave an energetic performance to describe the role of the red blood cell, and the science behind understanding brain injury. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Carlos Ulloa<\/a> – HelloEnjoy<\/a>
\nShowed what was possible using WebGL, bringing native 3D gaming to the browser without the need for plugins.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Jonathan O’Halloran<\/a> – QuantuMD<\/a>
\nDescribed his work to create a mobile genetic-testing device, and the potential that real-time epidemiology from a mobile device could bring.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Blaise Aguera y Arcas<\/a> – Google<\/a>
\nTalked about changes needed in society when more jobs are replaced by technology, and his observations about changes in gender dynamics.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Steve Mould<\/a> – BBC<\/a>
\nGave an entertaining talk about how he discovered, and tried to understand the science behind, the bead chain fountain.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Tom Scott<\/a> – Us Vs Th3m<\/a>
\nEnded the conference with a fantastic performance showing what the impact of technology might be like in 2030. <\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Dale Lane<\/a> – IBM<\/a>
\nAnd I did a Watson talk. I really didn’t want it to seem like a sales pitch, so I tried to put it in a bigger context of being a step forwards in changing how we use computers. I talked about why I work on Watson, what motivates and inspires me about it, and why I think what we’re doing is difficult but hopefully valuable. And I walked through a short demo to explain the value I see in where we are even now. Annoying technical issues (Keynote + clicker + multiple screens = fail<\/em>) aside, it went okay. It was a lot to try and fit into 20 minutes, so I talked fast. \ud83d\ude42 <\/p>\n

Overall…<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was a fantastic event, and one I’d wholeheartedly recommend. <\/p>\n

If you can get to a future Thinking Digital, you absolutely should. <\/p>\n

It’s one of the most thought-provoking and interesting couple of days I’ve had in a long time. <\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

Full-diclosure: As a speaker, I didn’t have to pay for a ticket to attend this event. My travel and accommodation costs were paid for by IBM.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week I went up to Newcastle for Thinking Digital. It was the seventh Thinking Digital, but my first. I’d seen a bunch of references to it being the UK’s answer to TED, the tickets aren’t cheap, videos from previous years look slick and professional, it’s held in The Sage which is a hugely impressive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[512,562,505],"class_list":["post-3122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech","tag-eightbar","tag-tdc14","tag-watson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3122\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}