What’s going on in your neighbourhood?

There are a lot of disconnected pathways in Northern Ireland. It’s plain we don’t talk enough and even when we do, we don’t spend enough time listening. In the Digital Media and Technology space, this means you can have weeks with nothing on and weeks where every day has something on it and in many … Continue reading “What’s going on in your neighbourhood?”

There are a lot of disconnected pathways in Northern Ireland. It’s plain we don’t talk enough and even when we do, we don’t spend enough time listening. In the Digital Media and Technology space, this means you can have weeks with nothing on and weeks where every day has something on it and in many cases, more than one thing. There’s been much talk about developing some sort of ‘open’ calendar platform that will allow people to book events from within iCal or Outlook or even by just sending an email to an address to try and minimise the number of conflicts – but that development requires investment from someone who’s passionate about it. (I’m passionate about it, I just don’t have the cash!).

So, I’m kinda staking my claim on a few days and letting you know what others are doing to the best of my knowledge. You can find a lot of this information on the NICreatives Calendar and some more on the Digital Circle calendar. Some of the things going on are going to be of interest to Creatives, some to technologists, some to creative technologists, some to other sectors as we find ways to extend skills in social and digital media creation, management and distribution into other non-traditional sectors.

Just remember these for April and you’ll not go wrong:

20th April: Refresh Belfast
23rd April: iPhone Dev Day Dublin
24th April: iPhone Dev Day Belfast
25th April: BarCampBelfast

May is also bringing us more xCake goodness, a Leadership Summit in Connected Health and a Geeks Meet Meds-type ICT event for Connected Health. They’ll be appearing on the Digital Circle calendar in the next few days. For this latter event, I’m looking for ‘clinicians’ (doctors, psychiatrists, whatever) who have an interest in what technology can do for healthcare. This isn’t about £10 million budgets, this is about small people, small devices, small changes and big impacts.

Events events…

I’ve just updated the Digital Circle blog with a heap of new events in the calendar – some of them will have their details posted during the day today (delayed publishing in WordPress rocks!). Some of them are: Web 2.0 Expo Future of Web Apps, Dublin 2009 Digital Media Breakfast, Belfast, 5th Feb at 8 … Continue reading “Events events…”

I’ve just updated the Digital Circle blog with a heap of new events in the calendar – some of them will have their details posted during the day today (delayed publishing in WordPress rocks!).

Some of them are:

  • Web 2.0 Expo
  • Future of Web Apps, Dublin 2009
  • Digital Media Breakfast, Belfast, 5th Feb at 8 am
  • OpenCoffeeNewry, 4th Feb at 8 am.
  • SXSWi 2009
  • BarCampBelfast 2009

In order to get notifications of these, you really should be following @digitalcircle.

iPhone Developer thingies

Anton Mannering writes about an iPhone Dev Camp happening in Belfast and Dublin. “The intrepid guys up in the North have been kicking around the idea of an iPhone DevCamp for hose interested in learning how to develop for the platform. … Matt Johnston of the Digital Circle brought this to my attention and is … Continue reading “iPhone Developer thingies”

Anton Mannering writes about an iPhone Dev Camp happening in Belfast and Dublin.

“The intrepid guys up in the North have been kicking around the idea of an iPhone DevCamp for hose interested in learning how to develop for the platform. … Matt Johnston of the Digital Circle brought this to my attention and is one of the main motivators in making it happen.”

We’re going to get some of the people kicking off some meetups in the two regions – aim of which is to raise awareness of the event and also give us some idea of the coverage. This sort of thing is gaining momentum behind the scenes and therefore we want it to go ahead without a hitch.

At the moment it looks a bit like this:

POSSIBLE AGENDA
9:00am Welcome, and overview
9:15am Keynote speaker
10:00am Programming Talk 1 – Developing for Cocoa. Someone builds an application live on stage. On the Projector, we can see what he’s doing. Obviously limited to some simpler projects. Basic Game Development for iPhone – someone goes through the basics of setting up a background, showing accelerometer code, collision code. Keywords: Unity? 3D? 2D? Must bug the UNITY team about this. Spoke to Chris McClelland about the QUB interests in Unity.
11:00am Coffee and bio break
11:30am Programming Talk 2 – Developing for iPhone. Someone builds an application live on stage. TILT – More on the controls needed for games.
12:30pm The App Store – Some devs with experience of the Apple App Store talk through their experiences The Business of Entertainment – Games and entertainment are selling hot on the Apple Store – from the complex Super MOnkey Ball to the simple ‘sound grenade’.
1:00 pm Lunch
2:00 pm Show and Tell
Any developers attending take ten minutes to walk through their projects.
If they wish, they can open the floor to answer questions and take suggestions.
Making it special – adding in location based services or even just a high score page on the net for your game.
2:45pm Coffee and bio break
3:00pm Getting your App to the iPhone for development and distribution
4:00pm Prize Draw (e.g. books, Pragmatic Programmer gift vouchers, iTunes gift cards) for stuff happening that day – prizes from sponsors. And I think this would be a good opportunity to launch an All Ireland iPhone Competition to run over the next few months.
4:30pm Random chattering until home time.

It’s not set in stone of course and I kinda want there to be three tracks:

  1. Developing apps using Cocoa (using the standard Cocoa controls)
  2. Game development (or developing stuff using OpenGL, collisions, non-standard controls)
  3. The Business of Apps (or realising that getting your app on the App Store is 10% of the work)

Before then, let’s get together and have Belfast and Dublin Meetups to pave the way – a quick show’n’tell, a quick demo. What do you say?

What’s happening in Ireland …

We’ve got quite a few things happening over here so this is a little micro-link blog post about the sorts of things you can see if visiting sunny Ireland. On Wednesday the 15th January, the Northern Ireland Science Park are holding a “Seed Capital” event about how to attract early stage funding for your venture. … Continue reading “What’s happening in Ireland …”

We’ve got quite a few things happening over here so this is a little micro-link blog post about the sorts of things you can see if visiting sunny Ireland.

On Wednesday the 15th January, the Northern Ireland Science Park are holding a “Seed Capital” event about how to attract early stage funding for your venture.

On Monday the 19th Jauary, Mobile Monday Belfast will be entertaining us with presentations and discussions about Location Based Services with speakers from Locle, RateMyArea and Anaeko.

On Tuesday the 20th January, OpenCoffeeBelfast opens it’s doors at 9 am in Charlies Coffee Shop in Bradbury Place, Belfast. The opportunity to mix with technologists, entrepreneurs and people with great ideas is too good to miss.

On the 28th January, there’s a ‘free’ Digital Marketing Roadshow in Dublin. This free one-day conference will bring you up to speed on successful digital marketing for your business. From designing a website for the user experience, through building brands online, leveraging search engines, social media, and blogs, to campaigns, online PR and digital marketing. Hear from high-profile, industry leaders during this information packed day.

On the 6th and 7th of February, Unconvention launches in Northern Ireland. Backed by Belfast City Council and the Northern Ireland Music Industry Commission, it will have an innovative format of participant-led panels, workshops, speed mentoring, open-floor presentations and informal networking, coupled with a showcase of some of our best musical talent, Unconvention will be the first of its kind in Northern Ireland.

We’re also working on an event for collaboration, learning and networking for the Irish iPhone development community. Discussions to be found at the XCake site.

Design Week Events

The Creative Entrepreneurs Club is delighted to invite everyone to two events being held as part of Design Week. Title: Design Week Events Location: Belfast Link out: Click here Start Date: 2008-11-03 End Date: 2008-11-08 DIGITAL FUTURES @ 6 pm, Wednesday 5th November Speakers: Jane Fielder, Creative Director for Red Bee Media Nicolas Roope, Creative … Continue reading “Design Week Events”

The Creative Entrepreneurs Club is delighted to invite everyone to two events being held as part of Design Week.

Title: Design Week Events
Location: Belfast
Link out: Click here
Start Date: 2008-11-03
End Date: 2008-11-08

DIGITAL FUTURES

@ 6 pm, Wednesday 5th November
Speakers:
Jane Fielder, Creative Director for Red Bee Media
Nicolas Roope, Creative Director, Poke
Two of the industry’s leading lights share their experience and thoughts on developments in design for digital and broadcast media.
Admission: £5
Venue: The Lecture Theatre, University of Ulster, York Street, Belfast.
RSVP: To reserve a space, email Rita. To purchase tickets, go here.

PLACE MAKING

@ 6 pm, Thursday 6th November
Speaker:
Peter Higgins, Land Design
Lines, words, pictures and sound. Peter Higgins shares his thoughts on the convergence of architecture and communication media.
Admission: £5
Venue: The Lecture Theatre, University of Ulster, York Street, Belfast.
RSVP: To reserve a space, email Rita. To purchase tickets, go here.