The 7th annual international ubiquitous media competition, NUMA2013 (Nokia Ubimedia MindTrek Awards 2013), seeks for novel ways to combine ubiquitous computing to media.
The interactive plant interface, Botanicus Interacticus, won NUMA2012

We are looking for disruptive artistic visions as well as clever near-to-market solutions off the beaten tracks! This includes any range of innovative ubimedia, pervasive, or ambient products and services. NUMA2013 is a highly interdisciplinary competition and we invite equally Designers, Computer Scientists, Artists, Economists and Engineers to take a stand on the following questions with their entries:

  • What is the particular aesthetic experience opened up by the rise of ubiquitous and ambient media?
  • What constitutes the specific intelligence that drives future media environments?
  • How will location- and context-aware media services change our social life?
  • How will our future lives look like in the era of ubiquitous computation, and how can society benefit from these advanced technologies?
The ambient audio navigation service Oh Music, Where Art Thou
won the second price 2012

The total award sum for the NUMA2013 is 6 000€. The sum can be awarded to one entry, divided between several entries or not awarded at all if the award criteria set by the jury are not fulfilled.
Valid competition entries include:

  • Pervasive and ubiquitous games
  • Ambient installations
  • Artistic works related to ubiquitous media and computation
  • Business models and management strategies
  • Ambient and ubiquitous media technology
  • Ubiquitous and ambient media services, devices, and environments
  • Context aware, sensing, and interfaces for ubiquitous computation
  • Ergonomics, human-computer interaction designs, and product prototypes
  • Software, hardware and middle-ware framework demonstrations
  • Ambient television
  • Any other inspiring work in the broad context of ubiquitous media
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NUMA2013 is organized collaboratively by TAMK, MindTrek, Tampere Region Centre of Expertise in Ubiquitous Computing (Hermia), Entertainment & Media Management Lab. (EMMi Lab, Tampere University of Technology), Nokia Oyj and the Ambient Media Association (AMEA).
The flying running companion Joggobot got
the third price last year




The Nokia Ubimedia MindTrek Award (NUMA) Winner Workshop and NUMA Awards Ceremony were important events of MindTrek 2012

During the 3-hour workshop the best-ranked ubimedia masterpieces - the finalists and projects awarded with honorable mentions were introduced. The audience could see how the winners actually work and how they were made.

Numa Chairs Ville Luotonen and Artur Lugmayr together with Honorary Chair
Tim Merritt  handed out the prices. Other NUMA core team members are
Jury Chair Björn Stockleben and  Chair Cai Melakoski
photo ©MindTrek
The winners
The first price (€3000) went to
Botanicus Interacticus - Disney Research, Pittsburgh
Jonas Loh installing the plant before introducing Botanicus Interacticus
at the workshop

Ever thought interactive devices could be simply grown in the future? If not, maybe the interactive plant interface, Botanicus Interacticus, will make you reconsider. Using multi-frequency electrical pulses, this technology is capable of sensing the location and intensity of touching on any kind of plant (size permitting). This establishes a surprisingly powerful interface between the organic and the digital world and allows for a literally natural integration of media into the environment. This groundbreaking approach broadens the scope of ubimedia in an exciting way.

The second price (€2000) went to
Oh Music, Where Art Thou? - User System Interaction Programme, Eindhoven University of Technology

Matthijs Zwinderman introduced the OMWAT

Lost in a strange place in an unfamiliar city? This ambient audio navigation service is an innovative ready-to-market solution that relieves you from exposing your expensive phone and enables you to move about like a native. You will enjoy having your eyes free for looking around or interacting with friends, while a clever manipulation of stereo channels leads you the way using your favourite music. Mobile devices make services available virtually anywhere, but still tend to distract us from our surroundings. The jury values that the solution solves this dilemma in a simple and elegant way.

The third price (€1000) was won by
Joggobot - Exertion Games Lab, RMIT University Melbourne

The NUMA workshop was interactive. On left Wouter Walmink from
Joggobot with TAMK media students Yonathan Wolowelsky
simulating the Jogger and Joel Forsman the Robot

There are numerous new popular running applications for mobile devices, but even the best of them cannot replace the motivation caused by the physical presence of a running mate. The flying running companion Joggobot comes surprisingly close to a social running experience. This project shows the potential of ubimedia when it actually manifests in the playful behavior of physical objects instead of being rendered onto small screens.

The honorable mentions 
Honorable mentions were given to:
Nimesha Ranasinghe and the taste synthesizer

 “Digital taste synthesizer” by the CUTE-Center of National University of Singapore
is according to the jury a visionary project aiming to conquer the sense of taste for ubimedia.
Floating About

“Floating about” by Hochschule Darmstadt, a social location-based game that uses mobile projection devices to render an alternate reality directly on objects in the environment.
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Interactive Shadows was made by our Media students Amir Abdi & Johanna Peltola
and TAMK Business Informations Systems student Siru-Kristiina Kuivanen

TAMK Media Programme is one of the key organisers of NUMA. This year our students also participated in the competition itself with two projects. We are very proud of our students - although they didn't win a price in this tough competition their Demola project "Interactive Shadows" was selected to the short list and became thus one of the projects the NUMA jury considered worth a price.

About NUMA
The Nokia Ubimedia MindTrek Awards is an annual competition with a total prize sum of 6.000 euros in 2012. Numa is open to all kinds of artists, practitioners and researchers. The competition was part of the international MindTrek 2012 conference held for the 16th time in Tampere, Finland during October 3rd – 5th.

The competition is organized collaboratively by MindTrek ry, Tampere Region Centre of Expertise in Ubiquitous Computing, Entertainment & Media Management Lab. (EMMi Lab.) of Tampere University of Technology, Tampere University of Applied Sciences, Nokia Oyj and the Ambient Media Association (AMEA). The competition is funded by Nokia Oyj and the Tampere Region Centre of Expertise in Ubiquitous Computing.

www.mindtrek.org
www.numa.fi
Read more about the ubimedia competition on our blog
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About MindTrek 2012 on our blog:

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UBIQUITUOUS MEDIA LIVE!
NUMA2012 Winner Workshop
Wed 3.10. @ New Factory 2pm to 5pm
New Factory (Väinö Linnan aukio 15)
Finlayson, Tampere
Free admission

The NUMA Winner Workshop brings the topmost of NUMA2012 entries to life on Wednesday New Factory!

During this 3-hour workshop the best-ranked ubimedia masterpieces - the Finalists & Honorable Mentions - will be introduced to the audience. See how the winners actually work, hear more from the authors and be inspired!

Winner Workshop is open for everybody (no entrance fee) and targeted to all those who are interested in state-of-the-art of ubimedia domain.


Botanicus Interacticus - Disney Research, Pittsburgh


Ever thought interactive devices could be simply grown in the future? If not, maybe the interactive plant interface, Botanicus Interacticus, will make you reconsider. Using multi-frequency electrical pulses, this technology is capable of sensing the location and intensity of touching on any kind of plant (size permitting). This establishes a surprisingly powerful interface between the organic and the digital world and allows for a literally natural integration of media into the environment. This groundbreaking approach broadens the scope of ubimedia in an exciting way.

Read more »


NUMA is one of our most important annual global activities, organised together with our academic & industry partners. NUMA2012 nominees are selected, the winner is revealed at MindTrek October 4th. Here's the press release:

Ubimedia comprises technology embedded in its surroundings that enhances our ability to sense and communicate with our environment. The Nokia Ubimedia MindTrek Awards competition (NUMA2012) addresses digital media makers with different backgrounds. It gives them the opportunity to present their visions on the future of ubiquitous media to the unique audience of the annual MindTrek conference in Tampere in October.

Read more »

Submit now:  http://www.numa.fi/

The call for entries is now open until August 6th
The 6th international Nokia Ubimedia MindTrek Awards competition, NUMA2012, seeks for novel ways to combine ubiquitous computing to media. We are looking for disruptive artistic visions as well as clever near-to-market solutions off the beaten tracks! This includes any range of innovative ubimedia, pervasive, or ambient products and services.

NUMA2011 Award Ceremony: NUMA chairs Artur Lugmayr and Björn Stockleben,
1st prize winner Kening Zhu, 3rd prize winner Wilken Holle and competition chair
Ville Luotonen

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The call for entries is open until July 15thThe 6th Nokia Ubimedia MindTrek Awards competition, NUMA2012, seeks for novel ways to combine ubiquitous computing to media. We are looking for disruptive artistic visions as well as clever near-to-market solutions off the beaten tracks! This includes any range of innovative ubimedia, pervasive, or ambient products and services. 

NUMA2011 Award Ceremony: NUMA chairs Artur Lugmayr and Björn Stockleben,
1st prize winner Kening Zhu, 3rd prize winner Wilken Holle and competition chair
Ville Luotonen

Read more »

Story: Emilia Kwiatkowska

On Wednesday (28.09.2011) at 1 p.m. took place ‘Nokia Ubimedia MindTrek Awards 2011’ workshop where three nominated projects were presented through their representatives. All interested students gathered in New Factory. The Nokia Ubimedia MindTrek Awards 2011 is an international competition arranged by MindTrek, Nokia, Tampere Region Centre of Expertise in Ubiquitous Computing, TAMK University of Applied Sciences, AMEA – Ambient Media Association and New Ambient Multimedia Group (NAMU) / Tampere University of Technology. The total award sum for this competition category is 6 000€.

First from the left: Wilken Holle, Bjorn Stockleben and Prof. Dr. Artur Lugmayr

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Björn Stockleben on left, Artur Lugmayr on right
After a long and hard elimination process the three unique finalists of Nokia Ubimedia MindTrek Awards competition were determined. “Each year the competition entries come closer to consumer products improving the daily life or solving today’s problems as e.g. energy consumption or health care. This year’s competition attracted 34 entrants and the jury had a hard time to find the best projects”, says Artur Lugmayr, the inventor of the competition and General Competition Chair.

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One of our coolest annual international projects is again kicked off!

Call to participate in the 5th Nokia Ubimedia MindTrek Awards Competition 28th – 30th September 2011 Tampere, Finland


Competition deadline: June 15th 2011

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The purpose of the competition is to encourage makers of digital media to generate ideas and develop new and innovative ubimedia products & services. Ubimedia means technology that is embedded in its surroundings. The word “Ubi” comes from the Latin word “ubique” which means “everywhere”. The competition was open to all kinds of artists, practitioners, and industries and the total prize sum is 7.000 Euros.
Head of Jury Björn Stockleben, 2009 winners with DonkeyPedia Frans Alsema and Joost van Eeden and competition co-chair Kirsi Lindfors

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Deadline of submissions July 30

The Ubimedia competition seeks to broaden our understanding of where and how ubiquitous media will influence our future life. We are looking for disruptive artistic visions as well as clever near-to-market solutions off the beaten tracks! This includes any range of innovative ubimedia, pervasive, or ambient products and services. The Ubimedia Award is a highly interdisciplinary competition and we invite Designers, Computer Scientists, Artists, Economists and Engineers to take a stand on the following questions with their entries:

Read more »

One of the exciting and inspiring reasons to enjoy working at TAMK School of Art and Media is the annual MindTrek Conference we arrange together with other Tampere universities and companies every year since 1997.


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Joost van Eeden from Amsterdam is this week in Tampere to visit the MindTrek Conference - like 800 other MindTrekkers from all over. But Joost has a special reason: he represents DonkeyPedia, which is one of the three nominees of the Nokia Ubimedia MindTrek Award. Donkeypedia is also nominated for the online category in EUROPRIX Multimedia Awards, so Joost will attend also the EUROPRIX Multimedia Festival in Graz in November.

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The best Ubimedias have been found
The purpose of the competition was to encourage makers of digital media to generate ideas and develop new and innovative ubimedia products & services. Ubimedia means technology that is embedded in its surroundings. The word “Ubi” comes from the Latin word “ubicue” which means “everywhere”. The competition was open to all kinds of artists, practitioners, and industries and the total prize sum is 7.000 Euros.

Read more »


One of the three focus areas of TAMK University of Applied Sciences research and development activities is Digital Services and Technologies. Ubimedia is one of the most interesting future area of digital media applications. Organising a worldwide competition in Ubimedia enables us to analyse the newest trends and innovations in this field.

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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.

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The nominees of the 2nd international NOKIA Ubimedia MindTrek Award are:

• Babbage Cabbage Empathetic Living Media: Adrian David Cheok, National University of Singapore, Singapore and Keio University, Japan;
• Point-to-Discover: Peter Frohlich, Rainer Simon, Erwin Wittowetz, Gerhard Obernberger, Matthias Baldauf, Telecommunication Research Centre, Austria;
• TreasureHunter: Remco Magielse, Iris Soute, Panos Markopoulos, Department of Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands;

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