The Next Web Salon
Author: Dennis Koks posted on 19-09-2008
On the 19th of october Bob and Dennis went to the Next Web Salon to give a presentation about the core principle behind Transparent Spaces: " Using online and offline data to improve social cohesion in physical spaces".
The Next Web Salon is an intimate evening (around 60 people) which is organized by Boris Veldhuizen van Zanten (cook and host of the evening) and held in his home. A couple interesting people from all over the world give a presentation about something they're enthusiastic about and afterwards there's room for informal discussions. In the meanwhile we got spoiled by some fantastic cooking by Boris, his wife and Marc Canter.
Other speakers where Peter van Waart, a lecturer at the Rotterdam University of Applied sciences who pitched compellingly for trust. Michael Shanks, a professor in archeology on the university of Stanford talked about rich content. Michael's an amazing storyteller, his talent to speak impressed us all. Last but not least was Michael Totten who spoke about a wiki to improve the world (with an emphasis on climate change). Photos of the evening can be found on Boris's flickr page.
The Emerce Eday
Author: Barry Borsboom posted on 18-03-2009
In the third week of August we where invited by the Ontwikkelings Bureau Rotterdam, (Development Bureau Rotterdam) to fill a stand at the Emerce eDay conference. Even though we where far from done with Transparent Spaces we decided that opportunities it offer's where to important skip. We basically needed to kick-start our company from now on for this conference. We didn't have any business-cards nor a proper website. So beside making a cool presentation for the conference we had some extra tasks in the coming weeks.
Besides the main conference we where also invited for the Emerce Speakers Dinner. The dinner was in the City Hall of Rotterdam. One of the few pre-WWII buildings left in Rotterdam. Definantly a great location for a dinner. We talked to some interesting people and exchanged business-cards
The following day we arrived early at the Doelen, the location for the Emerce eDay. As we were setting up our booth our neighbors arrived. One of our neighbors was Machiel Kunst with his company Redcast also making use of bluetooth hardware. He invited us to come over and learn some more about all the different sorts of bluetooth hardware setups and how to cover a specific area.
We started the day with a few speaker-sessions and some interesting talks at our booth. At 12 o'clock they also handed-out a new magazine from the congregation Rotterdam about young business starters. After lunch Dennis and I went to Marc Canter's talk about data portability. A great and enthusiastic talk about data portability and the need for big company's to open-up. A good thing for us because we want to aggregate as much online-data as possible.
After the eDay itself we went to the pre-night at Mangrove. They had some good food and even better massages. After a long day we finaly went home so Dennis could work some more on his presentation for the Next Web Salon the next day and I packed my bags for a trip to Brussels airport. Had a plane to catch on 4 am.
