Impressions of ThingsCon Amsterdam 2016
On this page we have gathered the reports on ThingsCon Amsterdam 2016 (1 & 2 December). Find the pictures, videos and reports organised around the different talks and sessions. Let us know if we missed a report!
Next to this specific reports on talks and sessions a couple of general reports have been published. In advance Iskander Smit was interviewed at Fast Moving Targets. Adformatie did two reports for each day (in Dutch): day 1 and day 2. Numrush dedicated a podcast on ThingsCon and did a report. Marcel and Iskander were interviewed for the Thingscast podcast. Keep updated throught the new Medium publication on ThingsCon. We made a social media report. TIStv did also a report. And of course we have a great aftermovie!
If you want to check our schedule of 2016 conference, it is still online here.
Pictures
Thursday 1 December
Welcome by Marcel Schouwenaar and Iskander Smit
We opened the conference with an introduction in the focused mission of ThingsCon and some context to that.
Opening keynote Peter Bihr
One of the founders of ThingsCon Berlin kicked off this year’s edition with an overview on the state of the Internet of Things. Read our report here.
Workshops
We had two workshop slots on the first day, ranging from hands-on workshops to panel-discussions. We will add presentations and videos as soon as they are available. Not all sessions have been registered.
Blockchain for things
Introduction presentation by Chris Speed
A journey into the cradle of things
A panel discussion on the experiences of the ThingsCon team in Shenzhen making the first part of the documentary with the same name. This video registration covers the complete session.
Next thing you know
Design fiction is a great tool for designers to envision the consequences of the design choices. Changeist put up a workshop to learn making this design fiction and created a newspaper with the stories. The team have published a report on the Medium-publication of Thingclash:
Design Tools & Methods
Dries De Roeck and Ricardo Brito ran the workshop on design ideation tools twice. They made a write-up at the ThingsCon Medium publication:
Report on Design Tools & Methods
Interview with Dries De Roeck
Studio Dott published a report here.
ThingsLabs
Read the report of Simon Höher on the session.
Interview with Simon Höher
Product as agents, designing for adaptive things
Workshop to explore the research of Nazli Cila on cases for design for dementia. The introduction presentation:
The Design of a Playful Internet of Things
In this session a couple of presentations on the design for the internet of toys. We add the slides as we receive them.
Wouter Reeskamp: Studio Sophisti is a Connected Product Design Company often active in the field of toys and games. With products like Scottie (a connected doll for hospitalised kids) Ping (a connected lamp) and GameChanger (an interactive gameboard) we have gained experience with the Internet of Toys. During the session we shared some of the challenges we faced and our solutions to these.
Interview with Dimitri Hadjichristou of PrimoToys
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIsSVGvto-A
Spec the Stack
How to design for trust?
Partner pitches
Triggi, Connectable, Studio Sophisti, Floris.cc, Makerversity did a pitch as IoT frontrunners and supporters of ThingsCon Amsterdam.
Closing keynote Bram Geenen
The keynote van Bram Geenen on the work of Wevolver, the open hardware platform. Read this report.
Friday 2 December
Welcome Jann de Waal
CLICKNL is the main partner of this year’s ThingsCon again. Jann de Waal is member of the board and part of the Topteam Creative Industries. He is interviewed to describe the importance of ThingsCon for the creative industries. From R&D towards Design and Research. Read more here.
Opening keynote Ame Elliot
Ame Elliot is opening the Friday keynote speakers with a insightful talk on designing for security and privacy in an connected age. She did a workshop on the same theme later that day.
Read here a report.
Interview in The ThingCast podcast.
Demos announcement
An important part of the ThingsCon experience is the demo space where different organisations and companies present their connceted products or services. We asked them to quickly introduce themselves on stage.
Workshops
Smart Citizens
During this session we compared several projects that aim to use technology to facilitate smart citizens in making their neighborhood or city even more interesting to live in. We had presentations by Peter van Waart (Creating010/Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences on the OneBlok project), Klaas Kuitenbrouwer (Het Nieuwe Instituut on DATAstudio project in Eindhoven), Frank Kresin (Waag Society on Smart Citizen Kit) and Usman Haque (Umbrellium, on Voice Over project). After the presentations we had a panel discussion and interaction with the attendees. The purpose of all projects is to empower the people to live better together. The approach is slightly different with all. And different level of technology.
The complete session can be watched here:
Check also the interviews and slides of some of the speakers.
http://www.slideshare.net/kresin/smart-citizens-making-sense
Keynote Alper Cugun
Alper Cugun has a background as gamedesigner and engineer and became interested in the power of the chat as interaction model. In his presentation he dives in to the current status of designing for conversational interfaces. Read the report here.
Keynote Michelle Thorne
In her talk Michelle shows how we could see the Internet of Things as a return to a local crafts movement. Read the report on this site here.
Keynote Justyna Zubrycka
One of the good cases of responsible and human-centric IoT is the Vai Kai dolls. We invited them to present on the design challenges. Check this report.
Keynote Taco Carlier
The internet of bikes is an important domain in the Netherland IoT. Vanmoof is a local (Amsterdam) bike maker with international customer base. They are moving towards becoming a digital company too as Taco explains in the interview on stage. More on the interview here.
Keynote David Li
We made the Shenzhen makers movement into an important theme of this year’s ThingsCon Amsterdam. David Li is director of the Shenzhen open innovation lab and is presenting on the way this new movement works. A report can be found here.
Listen also this interview on CRTV.
Workshop highlights
The workshops energy defined the ThingsCon conference even more this year. We asked a couple of the hosts to share their experiences.
Keynote Usman Haque
We had a great closing keynote by Usman Haque diving deep in the challenges as a designer of the always connected world we live in, the external contexts that are not all positive and ending with a hopeful message. Read the report on the site.
Interview in Adformatie (in Dutch)