Dreamjobs for Students at Demola Innosummer

You will work for a real company as part of a project team. You will develop something that you have always wanted to:

a new UI for a computer game, machinima, or storytelling in Mixed Reality.

You will get paid for the job and learn something totally new. R&D specialists from the enabling companies will guide your work.

Act now! Application deadline is 15.4.2009.

There are numerous projects available in Demola Innosummer. See the listing below and choose 1 to 3 project topics that interest you. You are the person we need for the project if:

a) You are interested in the topic and have good, innovative ideas for it
b) You have skills and interest related to one or more project goals

The point is: You do not have to know about all the topics or goals listed under the project. The teams will be multidisciplinary, composed of people with different kinds of skills. The company that has set the project will provide the technological know how.

1. Play a game hands-free - A thought- controlled UI
2. New ways for mobile video recording, editing and event casting
3. Share your audiovisual experiences
4. A new, digital dimension to Guided Tours for tourists
5. Get a mobile connection to your virtual community
6. Machinima – storytelling in mixed reality; game, theatre, movie
7. 3D landscape as a mobile phone UI
8. Gesture controlled 3D characters in a computer game

Demola
All details about Demola Innosummer (pdf)
More stories about Demola

Demola is an open innovation environment for university students and ICT and media companies operating in the Tampere Region. It is a service provided jointly by TAMK University of Applied Sciences, Tampere University of Technology, Tampere University and Technology Centre Hermia Ltd.

MindTrek CfP: Social Media, Ubimedia, Games

MindTrek Scientific Conference Call for Papers is now open. The Academic Conference is organised in co-operation with ACM SIGMM, and ACM SIGCHI. The Academic Conference is a part of the MindTrek Conference, taking place 30.9.-2.10. at hotel Rosendahl, Tampere, Finland.

September 30 is the main academic day, and it will feature three tracks: Social Media, Ambient & Ubiquitous Media and Digital Games.

MindTrek has been arranged since 1997, and has become the biggest annual international digital media event in Northern Europe. MindTrek has three elements, the international conference (over 900 participants from 30 countries 2008), the MindTrek Awards, and MindTrek Public Events.

TAMK University of Applied Sciences is founder of MindTrek together with other Tampere universities and companies.

TAMK is represented in the Organising Committee of the Academic Conference by Dr Pertti Näränen, who is the Workshop Chair.

Academic MindTrek

Photo: Hotel Rosendahl, the venue of MindTrek Conference

Happy Ada Lovelace Day!

Today blogs all over the world celebrate Ada Lovelace day, so does this blog too.

Many of us find computers quite boring. What fascinates us is all the fabulous stuff we can create using software run by computers. For a long period of time computers were however mostly used for quite dull duties, like calculations for business and engineering, and later for designing optimal trajectories for missiles.

Today our students still claim they are "computing", although they in fact practise impressing creative and artistic work - using software as their tool.

Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) wrote the first computer programmes in world for Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine (which never was built). But the history (and presence) of computers and software is a very male scene.

History and present could be more magnificent, if Ada had continued her work longer (She died 36 years old), or if her work would had got more openminded successors. Ada Lovelace was not only the first programmer, she was also the first to see that this technology could be applied to music and other creative fields.

Now computers are serving a large variety of human needs and dreams, but we have all reason to celebrate Ada Lovenlace day March 24 each year to remind ourselves, that we need both genders to create a better world.

So congratulations to all on the occasion of the Ada Lovelace day, especially to all ladies working with creative digital art and media!

Ada Lovelace Day
Ada Lovelace (Wikipedia)
The Ada Lovelace Day Collection

Nokia Ubimedia MindTrek Award 2009 Launched

The third Nokia Ubimedia MindTrek Award is now open. The purpose of the award is to encourage makers of digital media to generate ideas and develop new innovative ubiquitous media products and services. The most innovative products coming from artists, practitioners, and industry are awarded with a price sum of 7.000 Euro.

Deadline for entries is August 7th.

The competition is organized collaboratively by MindTrek, Tampere Region Centre of Expertise in Ubiquitous Computing, New Ambient Multimedia Group (NAMU)/Tampere University of Technology, TAMK University of Applied Sciences, and Nokia.

Photo: In the centre 2008 First Prize Winner Peter Frohlich (Point-to-Discover, Telecommunication Research Centre, Austria), on left Head of Jury Bjoern Stockleben, RBB, Germany and on right Competition Chair Artur Lugmayr, Tampere University of Technology. This year the competition will be co-chaired by Cai Melakoski, TAMK School of Art and Media.

Nokia Ubimedia MindTrek Award
MindTrek
Stories about MindTrek in this blog

Ruffian Games from UK Teach TAMK Students

Yesterday one of the top game events of the whole academic year started, an international game design workshop for the media and IT students of TAMK. As the visiting lecturer in the workshop is development director Gareth Noyce from Ruffian Games UK. This is the third year he is attending the game design course of TAMK and that is because "it is just fun". Also the longest partner of the game course, business development manager Lassi Kurkijärvi from Helsingin Sanomat is taking part to the workshop.

During the two days workshop the students are presenting their game concepts which they have developed on the online course that started in January. The most important goal of the workshop is to get feedback from professionals and to create new ideas for the further development - and for the realization of the games. This year also Kajak University of Applied Sciences co-operates with the TAMK´s game design course: on Thursday five Kajak´s game programming students presented their ideas and got feedback trough Skype.

The workshop continues until Friday evening in Demola. At 6 pm there will be a mini workshop about game writing organized by Score Game Club in which visiting guest is senior designer Ville Vuorela from Casual Continent. And after that just free style playing until (and perhaps also after) the midnight.

Story: Leena Mäkelä

Photo: The Workshop was arranged in Demola

Demola selected as Activator of the Year

TAMK and the School of Art and Media are proud members of Demola. We are happy to publish the Demola press release:

The Demola open innovation environment was awarded "Activator of the Year" during the World Telecommunication and Information Society Day on 10th March 2009.

The World Telecommunication and Information Society Day is arranged by the Ministry of Transport and Communications.

Multidisciplinary collaboration

Demola is a service offered by higher education institutes in Tampere, ICT and Media companies and the Technology Centre Hermia to multidisciplinary student teams in order to develop digital products and services based on companies' concepts. Companies ranging from local SMEs (small to medium-sized companies) to international large-scale enterprises collaborate with the teams. The companies bring their project ideas for student teams to cultivate. Demola offers the teams the tools but the teams need to come up with the solutions themselves. The results are honed into real products and services to be part of the companies’ operations. An additional objective is to spawn new companies.

According to Jukka Saarinen, Demola’s contact person at Nokia Research Centre, an essential ingredient of Demola is the unique approach: the teams take the bull by the horns and get to work without being stifled by bureaucracy.

A developing concept

During the first five months, 12 projects have been underway within the framework of the Demola project. Some 100 students have been involved in the projects and their number is constantly growing.

The students taking part in Demola have had positive experiences: they have felt that they have learned a lot and formed connections with real companies. Demola’s premises are located in Tampere city centre. "In the future, Demola will be further extended and developed", says Brand Manager Petri Räsänen from Technology Centre Hermia.

Demola
More stories about Demola

Photo from the gallery at Demola.fi

Learning to Do it the Demola Way in Demola

Demola, the shrine of rapid development has been up and running for a few months now. Surprisingly many of the Demola projects have encountered the same problem: we (students, company personnel and university teaches) tend to approach the project development way too conservatively, not with the Demola ideology. It is much easier to preach "fun and agile" than to practice it!

For this, we asked Teemu Haila and Antti Salomaa from Score, our own game development club, to show what can we do with rapid paper prototyping. The young guys are way ahead of understanding how things get done in the future, because of their game development background.

Games are all about user experience, the fun gameplay. Slowly we start to understand that EVERYTHING is about user experience, from filling out governmental forms to shopping groceries.

Teemu and Antti asked a group of 15 to develop a board game about Facebook in three hours. Three teams of people, who didn't know each other in advance, created three different games. I was involved in one of the teams. Our game was a Illuminati like card game called 6-to-Mark. It was fun, I had fun and I believe so did the other participants.

There's a lot we can do in just a few hours. A goal of playable game requires us to "dive into" the user experience straight away, encounter a lot of bad ideas and replace them with good ones. It saves a lot of time to find out the working ideas in early stages and not mistakingly believe that the good experience can be added afterwards.

Story and photo: Wesa Aapro

Demola

Photo (form left): Vilja Heinonen, Maiju Suutari ja Matti Särkikoski

Demola is an open innovation environment for university students and ICT and media companies operating in the Tampere Region. It is a service provided jointly by TAMK University of Applied Sciences, Tampere University of Technology, Tampere University and Technology Centre Hermia Ltd.

Demola provides students with business relevant and challenging topics for project courses. For the execution of the projects students are encouraged to team up on a multi-disciplinary basis. World class couching for the teams is provided by partners of the Demola community.

Demola stories in this blog

Find the Animal - Win a Two-Day Ticket to MindTrek

MindTrek is the most important annual digital media award, conference and festival in Nordic countries. It has been arranged since 1997, when cd-roms where the multimedia platform and webmedia young and innocent.

We are happy to announce the MindTrek Conference 2009 will be arranged October 1-2 with the pre-conference workshop day September 30. Last year MindTrek Conference had 900 participants from 30 countries.

You can ensure your free seat at the conference by proposing the best theme animal of the conference:

"MindTrek will have a theme animal of the year, and you can be the one that suggests the perfect animal to us. What animal represents MindTrek best and why? Last time it was the geese. We somehow felt they represented well what was going on in the world of the internet and social media. What animal would do that job this year? The person who has the best idea will win a two day conference ticket to the MindTrek 2009 Conference. Fire away! Send your suggestions to info (at) mindtrek.org"

TAMK School of Art and Media has been one of the key organisers of MindTrek from the very beginning.

MindTrek

Photo: MindTrek Conference 2008 flyer with the MindTrek 2008 animal

Erich Wascher from Furtwangen University

Director of Centre for Languages and Culture of Furtwangen University, Erich Wascher visited TAMK last week. On Thursday evening he joined the School of Art and Media Film Festival Party and on Friday he paid a visit to the School itself.

Furtwangen University is in the Black Forest in southern Germany. Their Computer Science in Media course, introduced 1990, was the very first of its kind in Europe.

The TAMK School of Art and Media and the Digital Media Faculty of Furtwangen University have been partners since 1994. Furtwangen students have been a vital part of our Interactive Media Programme for exchange students.

Furtwangen University
The Digital Media Faculty

Photo: Erich Wascher at the roof top garden of the School of Art and Media with Senior Lecturer Eeva Piirainen from TAMK Centre of Expertise of International Cooperation and Languages.

School of Art and Media Goes Tampere Film Festival

Tampere Film Festival 2009 will begin tomorrow Wednesday 4.3. and runs until on Sunday 8.3.
During the week there is a lot of events where TAMK School of Art and Media present or previous students are involved.

Wednesday 4.3.
2.30-3 pm: Film Festival Studio: Live screening produced by TAMK and Tampere University students.
Film Festival Studio
DINA TV

11 pm Cinema Niagara: Tampere premiere of the thriller Piilo and preview of the crimeshortfilm Rahavalta.
Piilo (in Finnish)
Rahavalta (in Finnish)

Thursday 5.3.
10 pm Plevna 2, international competition 3: Familia 068
Director/Scriptwriter Toni Edo has been exchange student in School of Art and Media Interactive Media Programme.
Presentation of the films of the screening (In English)
Story about Toni and the film in our blog (In English)

12 am Hällä: New Films from TAMK School of Art and Media
Presentation of the films of the screening (In English)

2.30-3 pm: Film Festival Studio: Live screening produced by TAMK and Tampere University students.
Film Festival Studio
DINA TV

10 pm to 2 am yo-talo: TAMK School of Art and Media Film Festival Party (In English)

Friday 6.3.
12 am Plevna 2, domestic competition 6: Expensive Shit
Graduation Work by Antti Tuomikoski
Presentation of the films of the screening (In English)

2 pm Plevna 5, domestic competition 10: The Treasured Waters
Graduation Work by Ilkka Rautio
Presentation of the films of the screening (In English)

2.30-3 pm: Film Festival Studio: Live screening produced by TAMK and Tampere University students.
Film Festival Studio
DINA TV

8 pm School of Art and Media Studio: Vialliset otteet
Live film by Hannaleena Hauru, graduate from School of Art and Media:
"My new film by is an experimental work that is screened with live actors interacting with the screen. The film is a part of my studies in the University of Art and Design Helsinki (becoming a master of arts). It's not sure yet, if we'll be having enough time to make English subtitles to the film before Tampere, but in the premiere the non-finnish-speaking spectators said that the film gives a lot even though not understanding Finnish. A seat can be reserved by contacting me." (hhauru{att}taik.fi)

8 pm Plevna 5, International Competition 3: Familia 068
Director/Scriptwriter Toni Edo has been exchange student in School of Art and Media Interactive Media Programme.
Presentation of the films of the screening (In English)
Story about Toni and the film in our blog (In English)

Saturday 7.3.
4 pm Plevna 1, domestic competition 10: Treasured Waters
Graduation Work by Ilkka Rautio
Presentation of the films of the screening (In English)

TTVO Film Festival Party on Thursday

TTVO's Tampere Film Festival Party
YO-TALO, Kauppakatu 6
Thursday March 5 at 22-02
Mykaboom, tickets 7 €.

One of Tampere Film Festival annual events is the famous TTVO Party, always on the Thursday of the festival. (TAMK School of Art and Media is known as TTVO in Finland.) There are of course films, this time selected by Future Shorts Finland plus new TTVO films. Music by soul-funk-pop-rock-band Mykaboom + surprice programme.

TTVO students can buy tickets for €5 at the school cafe Tue 3.3. and Thu 5.3. 12-14, other for €7 whenever at the Film Festival ticket office.

Mykaboom at MySpace
Tampere Film Festival 4.-8.3.