Mindtrek
Last week I attended Mindtrek conference, an "international technology conference organized annually in the beautiful city of Tampere, Finland. Mindtrek consists of around 70 different sessions which revolve around different themes like Open Source, Smart City, Immersive Tech, IoT, Blockchain, EdTech, eHealth and AI" as stated in their own website.
And as a task given by the teacher, we have to write about our experience in the event.
Day 1
The day started with a quick introduction from one of the hosts of the event, Trent Pancy. And right after that, there was a Keynote speech from Amanda Cosco, the founder of Electric Runway.
She talked about AR and VR in the fashion industry.
I'll admit I was pretty excited for this one. I'd looked at all the speakers on the website, and this was by far the most interesting to me.
But she didn't talk a lot about fashion, although using VR to design clothes looked really cool.
Most of the talk felt like a VR and AR 101, where she explained what they were and how they are being used to change mostly fashion retail.
Somehow, still made me wanna move to Toronto to work for her.
Then I went to one of the Academic talks about Gamification. This was really confusing. Three different researches were presented in 15 minute rounds. During the first two I had no idea what was going on, since they were using very specific terms, and the video game world is not exactly my area of expertise. But the last one was pretty interesting. The research was about how fitness/movement apps can benefit from making public the level of activeness from the users. Turns out people feel pressured if their activity level is public and they might have to explain a low step-count to their acquaintances.
After that I went to a Smart City talk: "How to connect cities digitally? The case of Finland and Estonia".
The speaker, Ralf-Martin Soe, wasn't the best (I did zone out a few times), but he did approach how technological Estonia is becoming, following the Finnish example.
He also mentioned that you can now get married and divorced online, and that most of the population has an e-ID, something that can be achieved in all cities, no matter the size.
This got me wondering how it would work in a city like Rio de Janeiro, where I grew up. There are about 6 million people in Rio (city only, 12 million in the entire state), and the bureaucracy is endless. Each document you have is issued by a different organisation, and you can have multiple IDs from different states around Brazil, since the states don't have any type of common database. Brazil is a huge mess.
Soe never said how it would be done, though.
After this slightly boring experience, I went to a Keynote speech by Mikko Viitaila, titled: "Microsoft’s open and secure cloud platform for new digital services".
This was essentially advertisement for Microsoft's Azure, a cloud service for apps.
He did stress a lot about how Microsoft values privacy and the safety of their clients' data.
To be completely honest, I felt like this was a bit too advanced for my knowledge of open source and cloud based services. But it was still somewhat entertaining.
To finish the day, I went to a 15 minute talk by Natalia Rincón, CEO of CHAOS Architects, about "The role of AI in City Planning: Our Present and the Future”.
Natalia talked about how AI helps governments make decisions about constructions, maintenance, and other infrastructural matters. It was really interesting to see what type of data was taken into consideration, and how the simplest things influence an entire region of a city.
I really enjoyed this talk about AI in architecture and city planning, because even though it was pretty uncharted territory for me, I was hooked by sheer curiosity.
Day 2
The second talk I was most excited to hear was from the President of Liberland, Vit Jedlicka, titled: “Liberland – a Decentralized Autonomous Goverment”. Unfortunately, he couldn't attend due to some urgent business, so the honorary consulate of Liberland in Finland, Mikko Järvilehto, gave the talk on his behalf.
Back in 6th grade, my English teacher gave us a group assignment were we had to create our own country. This is exactly what this talk felt like, my 6th grade project, but taken to the next level.
Liberland is a 7 km² patch of land between Croatia and Serbia, and there are still some disputes regarding who actually owns the land. You can pay to become a citizen, and they believe in minimal state influence.
You can't actually get to the country by boat, since Croatian border police keeps people from disembarking. They are only recognised as a nation by Somaliland, another unrecognised country.
But they're gonna have a beach festival!
The plan was to attend the "The Internet OS and the Future of Personal Computing" talk next, but Hogne Titlestad, the speaker, was unable to attend because his flight was delayed.
So after a long time waiting around, I got to the last talk I wanted to attend: "From 30 Days in VR to Xdays in XR".
Enea Le Fons talked for 30 minutes about my own personal nightmare: being stuck wearing VR gear for 30 days straight - this is coming from someone who gets motion sickness watching TV.
He conducted a research about using VR for long periods of time, and among many things, how it can improve his overall health considering he works from a chair most of the time.
His virtual architecture work was amazing. He designed an entire city in Mars during the 30 days.
This was by far on of the best talks in Mindtrek.
Overall I'd say the event was worth it. Yes, I felt a little lost, confused, and out of place at times, but I guess that's part of life. Some interesting subjects were discussed and approached, and I got to learn about things I had no idea existed, like Liberland.
And as a task given by the teacher, we have to write about our experience in the event.
Day 1
The day started with a quick introduction from one of the hosts of the event, Trent Pancy. And right after that, there was a Keynote speech from Amanda Cosco, the founder of Electric Runway.
She talked about AR and VR in the fashion industry.
 |
| loved the color palette of the event |
I'll admit I was pretty excited for this one. I'd looked at all the speakers on the website, and this was by far the most interesting to me.
But she didn't talk a lot about fashion, although using VR to design clothes looked really cool.
Most of the talk felt like a VR and AR 101, where she explained what they were and how they are being used to change mostly fashion retail.
Somehow, still made me wanna move to Toronto to work for her.
Then I went to one of the Academic talks about Gamification. This was really confusing. Three different researches were presented in 15 minute rounds. During the first two I had no idea what was going on, since they were using very specific terms, and the video game world is not exactly my area of expertise. But the last one was pretty interesting. The research was about how fitness/movement apps can benefit from making public the level of activeness from the users. Turns out people feel pressured if their activity level is public and they might have to explain a low step-count to their acquaintances.
After that I went to a Smart City talk: "How to connect cities digitally? The case of Finland and Estonia".
He also mentioned that you can now get married and divorced online, and that most of the population has an e-ID, something that can be achieved in all cities, no matter the size.
This got me wondering how it would work in a city like Rio de Janeiro, where I grew up. There are about 6 million people in Rio (city only, 12 million in the entire state), and the bureaucracy is endless. Each document you have is issued by a different organisation, and you can have multiple IDs from different states around Brazil, since the states don't have any type of common database. Brazil is a huge mess.
Soe never said how it would be done, though.
After this slightly boring experience, I went to a Keynote speech by Mikko Viitaila, titled: "Microsoft’s open and secure cloud platform for new digital services".
He did stress a lot about how Microsoft values privacy and the safety of their clients' data.
To be completely honest, I felt like this was a bit too advanced for my knowledge of open source and cloud based services. But it was still somewhat entertaining.
To finish the day, I went to a 15 minute talk by Natalia Rincón, CEO of CHAOS Architects, about "The role of AI in City Planning: Our Present and the Future”.
 |
| terrible picture, but this was by far the coolest room |
Natalia talked about how AI helps governments make decisions about constructions, maintenance, and other infrastructural matters. It was really interesting to see what type of data was taken into consideration, and how the simplest things influence an entire region of a city.
I really enjoyed this talk about AI in architecture and city planning, because even though it was pretty uncharted territory for me, I was hooked by sheer curiosity.
Day 2
The second talk I was most excited to hear was from the President of Liberland, Vit Jedlicka, titled: “Liberland – a Decentralized Autonomous Goverment”. Unfortunately, he couldn't attend due to some urgent business, so the honorary consulate of Liberland in Finland, Mikko Järvilehto, gave the talk on his behalf.
 |
Liberland is a 7 km² patch of land between Croatia and Serbia, and there are still some disputes regarding who actually owns the land. You can pay to become a citizen, and they believe in minimal state influence.
You can't actually get to the country by boat, since Croatian border police keeps people from disembarking. They are only recognised as a nation by Somaliland, another unrecognised country.
But they're gonna have a beach festival!
The plan was to attend the "The Internet OS and the Future of Personal Computing" talk next, but Hogne Titlestad, the speaker, was unable to attend because his flight was delayed.
So after a long time waiting around, I got to the last talk I wanted to attend: "From 30 Days in VR to Xdays in XR".
Enea Le Fons talked for 30 minutes about my own personal nightmare: being stuck wearing VR gear for 30 days straight - this is coming from someone who gets motion sickness watching TV.
He conducted a research about using VR for long periods of time, and among many things, how it can improve his overall health considering he works from a chair most of the time.
His virtual architecture work was amazing. He designed an entire city in Mars during the 30 days.
This was by far on of the best talks in Mindtrek.
Overall I'd say the event was worth it. Yes, I felt a little lost, confused, and out of place at times, but I guess that's part of life. Some interesting subjects were discussed and approached, and I got to learn about things I had no idea existed, like Liberland.
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