The next Newcastle Dorkbot will be on the 4th March 2010. Here’s more info on our speakers…
Georgia Rakusen, Haus Projects
Georgia is Co-Director of Haus Projects, the North East production company specialising in the creative and cultural sectors. HausProjects manages festivals, events and productions with a digital focus.
Georgia has a background in film production, and was a Creative Fellow at the Institute of Digital Innovation. She launched HausProjects with co-Director Beckie Darlington in 2009. In under a year, they have project managed and produced content for Northern Stage, Tyneside Cinema, audiovisual group The Sancho Plan, Transmediale in Berlin, and many others.
Georgia will speak about the challenges and rewards of running a business that supports an honest urge to make cool stuff happen. She will elaborate on the trials of creative project management in the digital sector, what opportunities exist for those trying to launch new creative ideas, and how the North East scene has impacted the shape and direction of the company.
Georgia’s confessional will set the tone for the evening, introducing three speakers who have come up with interesting ways of surviving – and triumphing – in their different digital and technology fields.
Sam Goldwater, Polygon Fiction
Sam Goldwater is Creative Director of the Newcastle based animation studio Polygon Fiction. He is the director of the award winning ‘machinima’ short -The Monad. The company, founded out of the Digital City fellowship scheme in 2008, is developing an animated drama for the web. The film, Dissident Wire is an original IP, a pilot episode for a serial about censorship, the Internet and political descent.
Sam’s background is in games studies. He’ll speak about developing original IP – about freedom of speech and the internet, the techniques he’s been using in animation, with rotoscoped social realism, and insight into the complexities of conceiving and creating original content in the digital market.
David King, 1DayLater
New to the startup scene, brothers David and Paul King’s first venture into business “activity tracking” takes the KISS ethos (Keep It Simple, Stupid) to the extreme without compromising on value or service.
Speaker David King is obsessed with the Box, and more specifically, how the hell to think outside of it. In his own words “if there’s noreally good reason not to do something, that’s a compelling reason to give it a try…”.
David will talk about Using computer games to get motivated
A brief look into how the “achievement” systems used in computer games can be applied to business in order to drive motivation and give insights into any company.
He’ll talk about:
Why achievement systems work in games
A little on the mathematics involved (very simple)
How it can be applied to pretty much any environment
A demonstration of how it works for the King Brothers in their work
Brian Degger, Transitlab
Dr Brian Degger is an art and science researcher with an background in biotechnology and open source hardware. He is interested in the boundaries between art, technology and science and how these can be made permeable. Brians work and thoughts range across divergent domains such as (but not confined to) fish conservation; micro-climates modification; biomemetics and robotics; diy kits; and advanced grafting. Through LAB in a BOX he is researching the production of affordable kit that allows people to engage materially with DNA and genetics. He has recently given a workshop with the Sneha Solanki at Ptechnic/Star and Shadow on ‘biologically’ motivated work made using scientific methods and DIY techniques.
He will talk about the curve from scientist to new media and how what informs his practice and his nascent business. Like the other speakers tonight, he is a former DigitalCity Fellow, interested in turning his varied passions into a sustainable business, that will help in fostering an engaged future.
