Body Electric

Next Generation Online Educational Platform

getting ready for international languages
and addressing the MOOCs (Massive Online Open Courses)

Anne Kjaer Riechert

With 35 plus categories, 1000 entries, over 150.000 votes cast only for the People´s Choice and more than 1,000 guests, this years The Europas was anticipated as a highlight of the European tech scene, getting 2013 off to a good start. Unlike the digital industry, award ceremonies are, however, not a numbers game. Were The Europas able to deliver on its great promise?

“When you hear the word ‘Disruption’, take a swing” was the cheeky welcome message from Paddy Cosgrave, co-founder of The Europas, when he took the centre stage at Postbahnhof in Berlin last night. The tone was set for an evening of cheerful celebration in an industry of misfits, rebels and troublemakers, who Steve Jobs rightfully could have named “The Crazy Ones”.

Geekiness is finally attractive in both
women and men;
a turn-on trait in fact!

The upside

Giving the dispersed European tech scene a chance to get together, to recognize the people pushing the industry forward, is a desirable manifestation to show off the high quality of innovation taking place in Europe right now. Not only does it provide significant benchmarks it also functions as an important marketing platform, which will keep the industry busy in times of recession.

The Europas should be praised for this bold and ambitious initiative, as it furthermore provides an opportunity for business angels, venture capitalists, budding start-uppers, seasoned entrepreneurs and media to rub shoulders and share ideas over free drinks. Even Mike Butcher, the European Editor of TechCrunch was attending. Your best chance rubbing shoulders with him was, however, to stand next to his cut-out shape at the front door.

More initiatives like The Europas are definitely needed if the European tech scene has the ambition to provide a viable alternative to the global tech hub of Silicon Valley. On a personal level, it was clear that the nominees and winners were excited about the event too. One quick glance at The Europas hashtag on Twitter clearly displays that. After winning the prize for Best Advertising or Marketing Tech Start-up, Jan Razeen, CEO of Socialbakers, for instance announced on his Twitter: “I am having the best working day of my life!”

Fishermans Friends´ table ratio
was inverse of the general trend,
and populated by 75% female to men.

The downside
But enough of the niceties; The Europas themselves declares that they are “not about backslapping”.

First and foremost, it is possibly the most homogeneous good-looking group of people seen in Berlin in a long time; trimmed, well-dressed Caucasian males in prime – ALL of them! But where were the women and the Grey Gold? The eldest person seen must have been Ben Rooney from the Wall Street Journal, who received the prize for Best Tech Journalist of the Year. But where were the heavyweight investors and the serial-entrepreneurial elders with their deep perspectives? Had they sent their young, hungry and handsome protégés, or is the tech industry still in its infancy, and thus dominated by a new generation of start-up hipsters.

Where are the Women?

You would almost have to be a “Where´s Wally”-pro to spot a woman in the room. But for our part we did our best to address the gender imbalance at The Europas. Fishermans Friends´ table ratio was inverse of the general trend, and populated by 75% female to men.

If we however, consider diversity a business tool, it is pertinent to question the endurance of the European tech scene (-and the quality of future parties), if this imbalance is not corrected. One has to ask, not because gender balance is pleasant, but because it makes good business sense to do so. When we know that at least 50% of the online customers are women, why are 95% of the guests at the Europas men?

organized by the Irish and
executed in Berlin with
an Eastern-European slant,
it goes without saying what
priorities would come first.

There is clearly an untapped market waiting to be explored here, and Berlin is off to a good start with initiatives like the Berlin Geekettes. People visiting Berlin are often surprised to see so many girls about on the tech-scene, hacking along in tech cafes and co-working spaces. It is a welcome development that we now have shed the negative image of the geek guys as spotty pizza eating beer-guzzling Neanderthals. Geekiness is finally attractive in both women and men; a turn-on trait in fact!

“Where the f*** is the food”

No ‘sausage fest’ without at least a little mentioning of the catering.
Considering this event was organized by the Irish and executed in Berlin with an Eastern-European slant, it goes without saying what priorities would come first. No matter at the party, pre-party and after-party copious amount of spirits, wine and beer was consumed. The food element was however, more of a symbolic gesture, with strange bubble padded blue tokens adding an element of fun. The 6 Euro denominations on them were definitely hilarious, to say it the least.

But not all people found the lack of food entertaining. Ex-Googler Anil Hanshjee on his Twitter even went as far as to declare, “Worst organised awards I’ve ever been 2. Where the f*** is the food. Glad I did not pay for my ticket. Sorry. Honest feedback”.

Why do I need to mention this? We were not there for the food and free drinks. We were there to celebrate and network. Unfortunately, the 35+ categories were quite simply too many to squeeze in. The content was therefore too compromised, to make it an enjoyable evening for the guests. Luckily there were lessons learned in start-ups agile methodology tradition. Next time round the organisers will have to make a harder swing to ensure that The Europas will become the ‘Disruption’ it deserves to be.

By: Anne Kjær Riechert,

Founder of We Have a Dream

Fizzback Lectrio

GiniCam Foodity

We build tech that encourages shoppers to start their journey towards a weekly supermarket shop by engaging with web & mobile apps (and content) centred on food, wellness, beauty & parenting. As they interact we’re able to gauge their consumer profiles and their purchasing intent, then help brands & retailers to influence their habits & purchases.

Lectrio

Lectrio is the next-generation online learning environment. It’s a new way to engage with students and efficiently share course materials.

Lectrio will ideally fit the needs of individual tutors and small-medium size educational organisations. It is offered for free to educators around the world to increase a classroom engagement. And as LMS-as-a-Service with cost-effective monthly subscription plans for ed companies. Lectrio give them their own cloud-based E-Learning environment that is customisable to their own brand.

Not to mention, Lectrio is very easy to use and mobile-friendly.

GiniCam

Ginicam is an interactive digital broadcast platform that utilises our patented HD video streaming technology called Gininet. Ginicam provides a solution for content producers and e-service providers to monetise their broadcasts in real time. Content can be delivered through 1:1 communication, 1: many and on-demand. Corporations can use the Ginicam technology for their internal and external communications. Ginicam is free to use. However, a commission of up to 15% is automatically deducted on commercial transactions conducted via Ginicam and Gininet, using the Gini currency.

Fizzback (Nice Systems)

Fizzback is the leading software provider for Real-Time Customer Feedback and Customer Experience Management (CEM) resulting in increased customer loyalty

An exhibition of recent works by
Hercules Fisherman

At The Union Club

50 Greek St, Soho, London, W1D 4EQ

From Nov 2012 till January 2013

This is a rare opportunity to see recent works by Hercules Fisherman at Soho’s celebrated Union Club – a characterful watering hole that’s been haunted by artists and writers for decades.

Hercules is an Award winning artist as well as technologist and entrepreneur. He’s had a lower profile in the art world in recent years, during which time had fun time build tech companies and sold a global technology business.

These days Herx is dividing his time between painting on the one hand, and mentoring & investing in technology start-ups on the other. He’s collaborating with other Business Angels to create an start-up incubator space for innovation in central London, he’s also mentoring at a number of institutions and colleges, and he’s working closely with promising start-ups Lectrio, Amoo, GiniCam and Foodity.

Where his artistic output is concerned, his body of work is diverse. He works in all kinds of medium, at times building robots or electronic circuits to generate music and tones, while at other times contributing to performance art, or creating sculptures and installations. He gravitates nevertheless towards his favorite disciplines: painting and drawing, which are at the core of his work. Experimenting endlessly with charcoal, watercolours, oils and pastels.

His drawings and paintings are varied – some are exercises in colorful fauvist abstraction, others more subtle, formal drawings, of faces, figures and animals.

He’s recently been artist in Residence at Hertfordshire’s Paradise Wildlife Park, located not far from his studio. This year he also organized a festival of Arts in collaboration with the park to coincide with HertsOpen 2012. The event included SketchyZoo Theatre which combined performances, workshops and installations.

He started his art studies at Behzad Art School (Iran) going on to study at Croydon College of Arts (UK) and was a student of Bruce Mclean. He’s published art books, magazines and prints about and with artists like Lucian Freud, Gilbert and George, Richard Hamilton, Bill Bryson, Yoko Ono and Allen Ginsberg. He established Our Wonderful Culture club at Vic Naylor and the Fridge in Brixton, which featured Vivien Westwood, Brixton Poets, Edward Tudor-Pole, Deborah Levy and Leigh Bowery.

He’s exhibited at galleries and arts centers, including Riverside Studio, DeFabrik-Holand, Paloma7 –Spain – and ArtHouse – Ireland. He has been speaker, judge or guest at the WebSummit, DevTank, 3DS, Mobile World Congress, LeWeb and at the Universities of Middlesex, Nottingham and Manchester as well as LCP and LaSalle – Barcelona. He has won numerous awards and prizes for his achievements over the years, including a British Council Award in 1986.

Exhibition access by appointment only

For a visit to the exclusive private members club, including a complimentary limited edition print (hand numbered and signed), please select preferred time and date at the following link: http://doodle.com/book

Paradise Wildlife Park will be host to various performers and acts, compliments of SketchyZoo Theatre, commencing Saturday the 22nd.

Amongst the great acts, the acclaimed Mayhem Theatre Arts, whose studios were used for rehearsal by the 2011 X-Factor finalists will be making a special appearance and will be performing a snippet of their new production; ‘Back To The Future’. As well as versatile Magician James Merlin, whose notable mind reading tricks have awed audiences.

The most enthralling performer of the afternoon is possibly the legendary John Hegley, celebrated for his poems and music, apart from his work with John Peel, the most victorious being ‘Saint and Blurry (1993)’.

Local artists will also be showing off their skills, students from Hertford Regional College (HRC) and the Persian performers who will enact from; ‘The Epic Of Kings’ (Shahnameh)

Many activities will be proceeding, the most pleasurable perhaps the notepads and sketch book materials that will be given out to the guests so they can participate in the drawing and painting.

Award winning multi disciplinarian artist; Hercules Fisherman is the man responsible for this captivating entertainment, he is the director of the event. Paradise Wildlife and SketchyZoo in corporation with their sponsors will accommodate the audience with available refreshments.

Stage performances start from 4:30pm, ticket includes full day access to the park and super early bird discount starts from £7.50 and the entertainment continues till early evening.

*Super Early Bird Discount

*include free access to sketchyzoo
pass to the park +
free barbque/pizza
+
Drinks /K1 Beer

by Sahar

A game to save the world

by Team Coffee

José Miguel Velasco, Rico Possienka and Hercules Fisherman

Campus Party #campusjam

we choose “Growth” and “Plant” as our starting theme.
our aim was to create an engaging sim game where user grows biofuel, Jatropha is a plant that promises to solve some of the world energy problems cleanly with plenty of ecological benefits to the environment naturally and effectively.

The game is played in the virtual world, but its ultimate goal is to help fund for farmers to enable them afford plantations that in the long run would benefit everyone involved.

The game can work on many level by encouraging sponsorship from companies and individuals interested in sustainability.

The user can gain points for purchasing green products.

try the game here http://tiny.cc/jatrobot

Development progress: we managed to create the base structure of the game, in the future iterations we hope to add robots, other user experience enhancing features.

I arrived to Templehof last night just in time to hear the opening keynotes and mingle with the other campuseros attending cpeurope 2012, this year over 10000 participants in a sold out event. It is in an appropriate settings the very place where Orville Wright and Ferdinand von Zeppelin made history by staging the world’s first flight in 1909.

Glastonbury for geeks

As they changed the world, the hopefuls are also gathering here to see perhaps they can in their own way make a contribution.

delegates getting ready for the day in the grand hall.

Self portrait as the sun 1980′s

“If you are not prepared to be wrong then you’ll never come up with anything original … of being wrong, people are being educated out of their creative capacities.”

“and how we run companies, we stigmatize mistakes”

Ken Robinson