The Innovation Platform

The “Innovation Platform” is a conference established by the dutch govenment to raise ideas for the cabinet to raise and improve the competition level of the Netherlands globally. The event took place yesterday in the Vanelle Fabriek in Rotterdam, opened by our prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende.

Due to a participation in the orange contest I was notified that the nominees will be announced on this conference, this for me the main reason to go there. After taking a look at their website I had serious doubts about this event, aswell because I read nothing about free entry for students which was quoted on other spaces though. But after a telephonecall I found out anyway.

And damn, as I proclaimed a free entry pass I guessed the food and beverage would be several euro’s it slightly surprised me that everything on the day itself was free. Yes, everything.

But to return to our main objective, trying to hand out my “21” book to the president (*damn* security…) I pointed several places on the map with lectures I surely wanted to join. Starting with the coffee. And another one. And what the heck, take the whole box instead.

With coffee in the left hand and a brownie in the other I walked trough the main hall, passing Enviu’s sustainable dance floor rapidly entering a conversation with the ‘taskforce innovation utrecht’, an institute that stimulates entrepreneurs helping them to (re)new their products, services or (internal) processes.

Next to it the ‘dutch centre for social innovation (NCSI)’ had a stand, where they let visitors test their way of working, and if they are productive and innovative with handling and using the ICT possibilities within their company. The testing was done by using an online 3d game, which on me raised certain questions confronting the speech holder. Because as I thought, and found out by asking who their target group was (which were mainly older people). I wondered if this approach would be the right one then… and surprisingly the girl agreed…

But nevertheless, the idea is nice, and the ‘centre’ is still in development, so intended sessions, workshops and advice are surely there to become realized.

Further on the day I followed interesting lectures and participated in several discussions, where amongst others one about internships and studying abroad. Besides following the lecture Luis Suarez about a world without email (read a report here in dutch) I followed several lectures within the seminar ‘innovation across borders’. Within the seminar I would like to point out the workshop ‘ICT boosts social economic development’ by TNO, where the task of audience was likely to give feedback and pointing out the opportunities.

Within the workshop four presentations took place, where after the audience was commited to comment, vote and possibly engage. The four presentations consisted out of; Leveraging Microscopy, Rural development (LinkNet), next-door internet (NICE) and collaborative creation for succesfull ict solutions (IICD).

Leveraging Microscopy trough cell phones is a nice technique which saves days waiting for the patient and doctor for the results of bloodtests. By simply making a picture through the microscope with your phone, and sending the image through MMS to the doctor is sufficient to recognize if the patient has malaria or hiv.

Linknet on the other hand is a project in Zambia which inspires local talent in rural Africa to reach their collective and individual potential in ICT, two areas are now covered with wireless and multiplication in all rural areas of Zambia is going beyond imagination plans.

NICE does it slightly different setting up wireless and solar powered multi services where there is aswell an offer in education and work employment. IICD on the other hand enables people in Africa and latin America to implement ICT to help improve their work and quality of life.

You can imagine there were more green cards in the air on the voting times. These sessions were for me one of the most fun presentations I joined this day. And some I had seen desperately needed presentation guidelines... which refers me to Don McMillan's 'how not to do' powerpoint:

To make a long story short. The innovation platform is a seriously interesting conference and I would surely be there on the sequel. And not only because of the snacks. Though I had some questions and remarks, for instance the ‘meeting spots’ which were not working at all to my understanding;

The Social Interaction & Innovation on the event itself could be much better; as there were a lot of ‘formal’ discussions were you could not intervene, which where the speaker is there only to ‘send’ though the whole attention was going to ‘learn’ from ‘each other’?

This ‘formal’ atmosphere resonated trough the conference, which could be easily broken by small things, look at PICNIC for example, by doing and undertaking action on the conference at self, and by doing that meeting new and interesting people.

Besides the atmosphere the surrounding could slightly be better organized, by more centralizing and positioning the event. The location is great, but walking 6 stairs every 15 minutes is a bit overdone.

Then, last but not least; the attention to their website has been slightly overseen I guess. I think this is one of the worst websites I have seen in ages, especially for a ‘professional’ conference of this size. That's a thing that defenitely needs innovation…