Hello autumn in Stockholm 2014

Stockholm provides a selection of newsworthy tech-fests and crossover festivals/conferences this autumn in Stockholm. The list might be updated.

Future Perfect, 14-17 Augusti 2014 at Grinda, Stockholm Archipelago
Sustainability conference that also incorporates the tech perspective of the future for new creative regions etc. Discount tickets via @heidiharman

Hybrid Conf 21-22nd of August 2014, Rigoletto, Stockholm
Say hello to design and code in a merry combo for two days of bliss. A few tickets left.

Stockholm Tech Fest 4-5 Sept 2014, Waterfront Congress,  Stockholm
Startup and tech conference with some of Sweden’s and international leading names. Come meet the people and companies behind what many are calling ‘The World’s Next Hot Tech City’. 2 stages, 100+ startups, 30+ speakers, in 1 amazing place. Free tickets available via GeekGirlMeetups FB page.

Nordic.JS 18-19th of September 2014, Artipellag, Stockholm Archipelago.
Nordic.js is a two-day conference all about Javascript aiming to inspire and to get inspired, to meet and learn from others and to to bring our community closer together. The conference will take place on an island in the middle of the beautiful archipelago of Stockholm. Tickets have sold out, volunteer tickets might still be available.

 

 

GeekGirlMeetup Stockholm #makeIT

As a founder that has worked with the internationalization of GeekGirlMeetup, one thing that strikes me is strong belief that we need a diverse uptake of ideas (womens ideas) to create the next Skype and Spotify. One way to get more women into the STEM/ ICT area is to elevate the fantastic women that are already out there. If you have ideas of how to help us with our mission please don’t hesitate to contact us to grow the network or to bring new ideas to the organisation and out to the society. And what better way, but to celebrate the wonders of technology by playing with it!

GeekGirlMeetup is themed “Make IT” this year at the Science museum in Stockholm Sweden on May 24-25th.

Sign up now for tickets and speaking and lets co-create an amazing weekend.

This year we will as the theme suggest be geeking-out in maker-culture. Expect 3-printing, hardware, trans-humanism, knitting workshops and manga-creation.
With speakers, maker and creators like Stockholm maker-space, Carin Ism, Robot-Robyn, Johanna Koljonen, Nina von Rüdinger we expect total geekdom-ness at the three threads of ‪#‎creativetechnology ‬‪#‎socialbusiness‬ and ‪#‎justepic‬. After-party at Spotify!

Like what you see? Our previous themes have been:

2008 The architecture of winning
2009 GAME ON
2010 Code is Queen
2011 We love API’s
2012 Beautiful Data
2013 Enter.Space
2014 Make it

GeekGirlMeetup is a un-conference for women in web, code and startups aiming to elevate female role-models, create new networks and active knowledge exchange.

Some articles:
• The Guardian – Four groups bringing women in tech together
 VentureVillage – Diverse groups make better products

Hi-Tempo hackathon lookback


The Hi-Tempo Hackathon with Protothon and Tempo documentary filmfestival took place in Stockholm (Sweden) this week. Given that I have participated at a dosen hackathon’s and arranged half a dosen hackathon’s myself, it was a pleasure to attend. New to me was the approach with film and the transmedial expression, as Protothon previously worked with several different players for different perspectives. I doubt that any of the 20-something participants knew or could predict what was to come out of this we just had to trust the process. Exciting!

We were either hackathon beginners, experienced or just technically curious of what can come out of this. By trade we were developer, design-thinkers, students from Hyperisland and Bergs School of Communication and many more.

The groups introduced themselves to principles of a transmedia approach, soon my group was working with a solid design-driven process developing a concept after trying a few different concepts. We set up goals and elaborated in the universe that Angela presented us with at the same time as we held our autonomous freedom to do what we wanted. It was fantastic to have access to Angela regarding questions and ideas on background and understanding what visuals and thoughts we could work with.

Angela Bravo’s film is her story about being the child of political refugees from a Pinochet tortured Chile. Angela grew up in Sweden hearing of her heritage, her memories are with animated style of the 80’s like heroes, superman, StarWars portraying activist and perpetrators.  A scenario as a child growing up, that has never been to Chile, Chile very easily became a Imaginary Country, what was real and what was a childhood memory and interpretation? In her documentary she follows the activists as well as Pinochets closest bystanders. We quickly identified that it is not a light subject. We wanted to create something that reaches people’s abstract mind by breaking it down to a humans character and characteristics. What makes you a hero, and makes you a perpetrator? Could this situation that happened in Chile happen again if we are comfortably numb here in Sweden and forget to learn from history?

Our group focused on making a mobile first solution for rapid spreading on social media networks like Facebook, Twitter etc. The solution identified the topic of StarWars being a nice hero/villain style to work with and decided to do a questionnaire and meme-like piece on “what real StarWars character are you?”. By answering a few questions on what life choices you make you were lead down to become Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Chewbacka or a Stormtrooper?

At the end of the personality test you became one of them, however, this was also a play on human traits, and what makes you who you are, so if you tested to be a hero like Luke Skywalker you also carried the same traits and characteristics as Silvia, an activist. The test lead to 4 short interviews with characters from Imaginary Country, activating the landscape of character building or/and deconstructing as a perspective of the movie. The solution was built entirely in Java Script, and the team consisted of 5-6 people. bit.ly/imaginarycountry Please note, this is a mobile only piece. feel free to test being both super evil and very good. You will notice that it’s not always what you think nor expect.

The pieces opened the Tempo Film Festival 2014 and have been standing this week at Debaser Strand, hornstull.

This week was also closed down by two heavyweights in the sector Annika Warn and Simon Alexandersson.

I moderated a panel of Ph.D Annika Warn, Upsala University at the Tempofilmfestival Workshops speaking on pervasive gaming showcasing some best cases in history of transmedia projects.

Simon Alexanderson Ph.D student at KTH, showed us some of the works he was making with stopmotiongraphics, 3d works and animation aiming to be able to create animated characters quicker. This methods is highly applicable, especially in Angela Bravos case where the imaginary country is illustrated by rotoscoping as well as animations though out the film. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing the future of this documentary film as well as to see how the future of media, games and film blend into what future we will in a decade take for a given contemporary future.

**

Protothon – the space between code and creativity

HI-TEMPO-WEB_3

Protothon  have teamed up with Tempo Documentary Festival bring you HI-TEMPO: a two day hackathon exploring radical futures of documentary storytelling.

Three film (amongst them, David Herdies) makers have fearlessly agreed to let the participants use their films-in-progress as a starting point for this adventure. Debaser Hornstull will be the canvas. The rest is waiting to be discovered.

Protothon  wants to know what you can bring to these stories and the way that they are told. Programmer, designer, engineer, writer/director – whatever your background we look forward to hacking with you.

Hope to see you there!

Bonnier Accelerator opens up adminssions

The *Bonnier Accelerator program opens up it’s second year of admissions. I would like to as an Alumni of the program to encourage everyone with a business idea or app idea to apply for the program.

Upon acceptance the program allows you to develop you idea with Bonniers corporate team as well as input from startup lecturers is a tailored program.

You can now book a spot at the Bonnier Accelerator kickoff breakfast March 4! First come, first served.

* Bonnier is Sweden’s and Scandinavia’s largest publishing house, and are also behind Toca Boca and many more interesting digital ventures.

Swedish API legends with Berghs Interactive

Screenshot 2014-01-19 18.42.56I am very happy to be holding a API week for the interactive students at Bergs School of Communication this week. (above, image of Ted Valentin, se text below).

As the communication landscape changes rapidly, API’s have become the bread and butter for expanding startups and organisations that wish to reach outside their own sites as a part of creative interactive strategy. The students will have theoretical lessons but I will aslo have them get their hands work together with some of the best profiles from Sweden and abroad. We will look over the monetiszation that API’s support, how to use them, and learn more about when to use, when to build them.  I am looking forward to working with case specific presentations from some of the most interesting startups in Sweden currently to help widen the perspective of the API landscape.

A legend within the field is Ted Valentin, a coder and entrepreneur who has launched more than 40 websites during his career. Currently he runs a network of review websites (Restaurangkartan.seHotellkartan.sePizzakartan.se etc) with more than one million visitors per month in Sweden. He is also the founder of SocialaNyheter.seBoutiquehotel.me, and PopularaBarer.se – just to mention a few of his latest projects.

ellenEllen Sundh who runs Coda Collective is another Swedish legend, also called the Queen of Code due to her internationally recognised interactive installations. With campaigns like “The sound of Football” Creative Technologist Ellen has won a Golden Egg award, as well as serving on their jury, and often expert quoted at Resume. Many speak of interactive events today, but Ellen definitely takes things to new levels like few before her. She is one of the sharpest minds in code and concept today.

The week will aslo include speakers from:
• Rebeca Meritz, Developer at FundedByMe
• Mike Burns, Director and Techie at ThoughtBot
• Ellen Sundh, Creative Technologist at Coda Collective
• Birk Nilsson, Developer at Tictail
• Erik Akterin, Engineer and founder at Qapital
• Ted Valentin, Cafekartan.se and co-workingspace Knackeriet.

 

 

What if, what GeekGirlMeetup IF.

Tekniska museet

Five years ago Andie Nordgren and I both asked “What if” the IT industry sector surrounding us could be altered into being more diverse? By the rate of how we were meeting other women in the industry it would take for ever to have a representative group of ladies to go drink wine and talk web, code and startups with, not to mention role models for ourselves and our future kids.

We needed more female role models, stronger networks and active knowledge exchange to support our own growth all in a participatory driven manner.
Five years down the line we operate internationally in Sweden (Stockholm, Malmö, Göteborg, Umeå, Norrköping), Denmark, Mexico, London, Berlin, Oxford, Hong Kong, Tunisia and we have just ties know its with a sister organisation in Zambia. 4 continents down the line, we have a company in the UK, and an organisation in Sweden, GeekGirlMeetup IF (Ideel Förening similar Nonprofit org) is an organisation form were trying out with an appointed board.

Many of us have become co-founders, speakers, role models, connectors and supporters of each others work making startup life easier and more fun.

As I focus on my startup that goes under project name while in the BonnierAccelerator D2D I am confident that the ladies across the board have all that it takes to keep these this movement and organisation a new thinking and making organisation, promoting tech for young ladies and further the aims we have set up.

On the 19th of November GeekGirlMeetup is having it’s first open board member meeting. Become a member here and participate in making it a bright future for all geek ladies in Sweden, they need one international person keeping all international strings together and one social media manager.

You can also just show up without being a member to listen to their lineup of speakers if you choose not to participate in making future happen, then read more here or sign up here.

Thank you for the past 5 years of joyful co-creation of GeekGirlMeetup:  Andie Nordgren, Maria Söderberg, Miriam Ohlsson Jeffry, Annika Lidne, Therese Göterheim, Anna Oscarsson, Maria Söderberg, Angelica Ohlsson, Matilda Sjunnesson, Louise Wikholm, Mia Strömberg, Olga Stern, Oyuki Matsumoto, Pernilla Lindh, Pernilla Näslund, Henriette Weber, Paulina Modlitba Söderberg, Judit Wolst, Therese Mannheimer, Louise Hamilton, Malin Ströman, Linda “@copylinda” Sandberg, Sanna Wickman, Pernilla Rydmark, Natsha Ehlén, Ebba Kierkegaard, Hanna Metsis, Josefin Hedlund, Emily Green, Magdalena Kron, Robyn Exton, Josephine Goube, Linda Essen-Möller, Kate Sigrist, Javeira Rizvi Kabani, Johanna Nordström, Maria Gustavsson, Ellen Sundh, Jennifer Barba, Jess Eriksson, Michelle Sun, Maryem Nasri, Ella Ethel Mbewe, Karla Gradilla, Irina Delegado, Karina, Thöndevold, Maria Gustafsson, Evelina Johansson, Tilde Mattson, Helena Lindh and you (email me if I have missed to ad you to this list, im not perfect).

Thanks you to all sponsors and connectors that have been exceptionally brilliant to us: Johan Ronnestam, Roman Pixell, Erik Arnberg, Swedish Institute, .SE, Dan Rasumssen, Eze Vidra, Kam Star, Kit Ruparel, Henrik Berggren and many more.

Image, taken by Heidi Harman at Tekniska Museet (The Science museum of Stockholm, Sweden) that has kindly supported our meetups.

 

 

Rollin on the startup Bus.

Yesterday i steppen on the rolling startup bus, filled with north european entrepreneurs from Copenhagen to Paris (London bus was unfortunately cancelled) on my way to LeWeb in Paris. On tuesday approximately 40 pitches will take place at LeWeb. I joined the StartitUp Team.

StartitUp.com TV is a production company producing a docu-series about startup bus, aiming broadcast in the US during spring 2013. Team: Tommy Talley @tommysTV, Thom van der Veen, Heidi Harman, @heidiharman

Some more info here:
Nya Affarer – Busprenorer pa startup bus
VikingBus
Rockstart – Vikingbus journey to le web kick starts today
Trendsonline – Vikingbus hits the road to Le Web

I ♥ WebFest #webfestme

I am just back after spending a few brilliant days at the WebFest in Montenegro where I was invited by the host .me registy, CEO Predrag Lesic, after meeting in London at the SeedHack (SeedCamps financial hackathon) where I had won second place with the Saving app I am developing earlier this spring. We we had a chat about GeekGirlMeetup.com and I was later invited to speak at the WebFest 2012 about the international project that is now in Swede, Denmark, Mexico, London, Hong-Kong and from last week, Berlin,  aiming to create more female rolde-models in the startup scene.

WebFest 2012 delivered a wonderful line-up of startup and internet speakers – Intelligent, heart-full and enlightening talks. WebFest was a few days of pure excellence in Montenegro, with national and international speakers like Brian Wong (Kiip.me) and Ryan Wong (About.me) and Ruth Barr (seoMoz) as well as the local movers from the region Dejan Nikolić (Njuz.net aka The regiobal the Onion)Ivan Brezak Brkan (Netokracija).

Taking place at the Montenegro riviera, it was truly like the theme suggested – a webFest – A web conference to note in your calendar for next year. Here are some of the goodness i picked up:

Speaker Brian Wong – Kiip
Brian Wong shook us up properly with his reckless, endless energy and wild at heart talk about his startup Kiip.me.

The 21 year old Mr Wong finished college at 21, worked for Digg where he describes “being fired because he sucked at his job” after 4 months. Luckily he already had an idea, about a moment based advertising system targeting games, that would allow users that be rewarded for leveling up also getting freebies from advertisers, and advertisers only pay on collected freebies. Brian, bought Kiip.me and provides game developers with a system they can implement in between levels that allows players to get freebies when they level-up. The concept that generates over a 140 000  moments per month and growing has got be called genius as it is indeed revolutionizing the ad system.

Brian says, “Out of all the shit we have done as a human nation, from rocket launches to moon-landing, we have invented is a annoying banner that we place close to the important buttons on a n app. You should not pay to get rid of banners. As an (ad) industry you should understand you fugged if people are paying to make you go away.”

Brian continues: “Instead we created great moments of leveling up, instead of banners, we would give these moments of winning, where you already feel great even better by winning a freebie. We only work with big brands to give away trusted rewards.

We want to avoid the painful situation of the old advertising fake-win, when you get some thing free for an entry in an iPhone competition, all you do is sell your soul and end up giving away your credit-card number. Who wants that? We work with cost per engagement, with redeemed freebies. 75 cent which leaves about 50 cent to 1 dollar per redeemed action for the game makers. Its a win for everyone.

No one loves ad companies, we wanted to create something that people loved.”

Brian on entrepreneurship – I love being young, reckless, having endless energy operate properly after 40 hours with no sleep. You should abuse your body now – it’s the only time you can. It’s only age, it’s just a number. Being wild at heart is the most important thing, even older people under 40 who are wild at heart can and should inspire others.
You don’t wake up and say I’m going to being entrepreneur. I played Counterstrike when i was a kid, it made me a better designer, I had perfect mouse precision. I ripped psd, (no twelve year old can pay for psd), then started doing design for others. I was doing something i was wired to do, also the world is constructed that what i do will help the world economy so there something for me to.

If you are starting a company to be entrepreneur, that’s wrong. Take what you know and create some value. Thats entrepreneurship.

Brians thoughts about anyone who is not in Silicon Valley.
You are not as entitled. Graduated graduate from Stanford with an ‘I deserve attitude’ is not very pleasant and it doesn’t mean they produce anything better. The ones that don’t believe deserve anything you try extra hard.
European startup economy has grown as you have revenue, user experience, basic but follow these principles as a european plan. Never mind the short cutters that build for three years with investment with out revenue, just never mind. Make money. Its been two years. I’ve have had at least 100 friends that have started companies and then they pick up and leave to go home. The ones that came there for the right reasons, you need to know it (your reason), if you know it you will succeed!

Here are #1 & #9 out of his points he talked about later, about building successful services.

Existing pattern of behavior #1 What do they(the users) already do? Where do you go when your really drunk?  McDonalds. People are already playing games, look at the the fuel band, it allows you to track your quantified self. Tracking what you are already doing. Karma, recently quietly acquired by Facebook, its similar to similarly to Wrapp, its a gifting app. I had a look at what people already do, and tried making that simple. When are people engaging in your product? Try to make an app that humans like, after all the user is a human being. Apple for example do this do this really well.

Build a story #9 Montenegro has a great story. With you creating good companies what you can do is amazing stories, they have to be shared, a thats how people relate to you, with a good story. You care about bringing the spotlight back. How to craft that story. How do we make it human. It all starts with Love.

Ryan Freitas (About.me)
Ryan Frietas is a previous UI/UX guy who has now moved to product after starting the About.me startup that recently got acquired by AOL.

Ruth Barr on SEO (SeoMoz)
Ruth Barr from SeoMoz gave a great talk on SEO, some affirmative (produce good constant and don’t bother with trix – the search engines will figure it out), and a lot of new info that i felt I can implement and use directly. This techy lady has the gift of gab, and a brilliant sense of humor. Slides provided here.

Startup Competition.
Seeing the regions present and deliver in the startup competition was a pleasure, as there is talent and ambition the region, it was a pleasure seeing the region come together support the winners with the startup competition, sending the winners to New York for 4 moths. Prizes are always going to be important as we do indeed need to reward and encourage the ambitious young entrepreneurs that work focused and ambitiously.

Thanks to
Also not to forget I am so thank for for the Webfest team for providing such a friendly and inviting culture at the WebFest as well being excellent hosts. I cant have asked for a more welcoming stay 🙂

Extra thanks to
Extra thanks for eminent company making my stay a wonderful experience to remember Predrag Lesic, Natasha, Masa Dickson, Mikele Neylon, Brian Wong, Ruth Barr, Ryan Freitas, Kelly, Ze Fontainhas.

The small stuff that makes the difference
Another thing that came to mind is the wifi quality. It’s given that if you have a web conference participants will expect to have wifi. Kraven/demands/ expectations of the wifi rises as web-conference participants usually have two devices, (phone and lap-top) so the wifi will be strained and if you can get in extra access points to support the quality every will be happy. The Splendid Conference Center delivered perfect wifi.
Wifi Points: 5/5.

Web Fest.ME is the largest regional Internet festival dedicated to the promotion and advancement of Internet and society in general. Web Fest .ME consists of on-line competition for the best website/web project and conference that brings together the world best-known experts from all areas of the web industry.

And then we went for a swim in the Adriatic sea

Finding new ways to give with Charity API’s

I recently started working on an autumn project with the the amazing team at TheGivingLab, an R&D department at a charity aiming to find new ways of giving with Charity API’s, a project funded by NESTA amongst others.

When it’s a given that chuggers (charity muggers) hasseling you on the street for a signup doesn’t really work, and neither does starving babies on posters, we need to go further than choosing between several old-fashioned ideas of giving, making place for contemporary ideas.

By early 2013 we aim to have 5 launched ideas proving that charity API’s is the way to go and we are inviting developers, designers, UI/UX and idea-creators to a series of Hack Days we are running this autumn.
We aiming to hack together asquirky and loving ideas as possible like last week we already worked with Windows8 Code Weekend and Dev4Good, read more about the ideas here.

TheGivingLab has 3 more hack days coming up this autumn, here are the confirmed ones:

  • Mark 13+14th of October in you calendar. Eventbrite - GeekGirlMeetup Hackathon with The Giving Lab
  • Games 4 Good, with TIGA (International Gaming Association) at Birmingham University 17+18th of November.
  • TheGivingLab Charity Hack days at GoogleCampus on the 24+25th of November. The Theme is #holidayHack Eventbrite - TheGivingLAB - Hackdays 24+25th of November

Links to the previous and already hosted Hackathons: