MIT/ILP Europe Conference, 22-23.4.2011, Vienna, Austria
This year’s MIT European Conference took place in Vienna, Austria. The Conference was Co-sponsored by the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber. The talkes focused on innovative and human-centered technology with the aim to connect people ideas and physical places.
As two years ago, the conference program is interesting and also has some topics in healthcare. So my intention to come to this conference was to see whats going on at MIT in this field.
MIT/ILP Europe Conference, 22-23.4.2011, Vienna, Austria
This year’s MIT European Conference took place in Vienna, Austria. The Conference was Co-sponsored by the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber. The talkes focused on innovative and human-centered technology with the aim to connect people ideas and physical places.
As two years ago, the conference program is interesting and also has some topics in healthcare. So my intention to come to this conference was to see whats going on at MIT in this field.
Setting up a twitter hashtag, to comment and connect to the social media communnity as well works well, thanks to the Mr. Brunner (AWO) Mr. Koster and Mr. Wright (MIT) who communicate the hashtag to the audience and support this.The archive of all tweets can be downloaded – look at that possibility in the future – it makes events much more open and lively.
So whats going on on these days? First, a lot of lively presentations, a variety of topics, ranging from how to do innovation strategically up to urban models, new lightning systems and ecological infrastructure and mobility.
Michael Schrage in his talk „The innovation future“ talked about traditional verus modern models to fund and drive forward innovation. One statement is linked to the usefull things people need. So „innovation isn‘t what innovative companies offer, it‘s what customers want.“ Schragge asked us also to ask ourselves:
• What kind of innovator are you?
• What kind of innovator do you want to be?
• What kind of innovator do your customers want?
• What kind of innovation will your customer pay for you to be?
The most impressive talks were „SENSEable Cities“ by Carlo Ratti and „Going SOFT: Design for Ecological Infrastructure, Mobility and the Emergent Public Realm“ by Sheila Kennedy
Downloads are available, but one link I want to share because of a healthcare topic: www.portablelight.org – a global initiative for clean energy and light with the project Portable Light in Southafrica in cooperation with the iTEACH programme
The project description: „provides energy harvesting blankets as part of a home care treatment program for rural patients with multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB) and HIV. Portable Light home care blankets enables patients to generate power and light for their family during treatment.“
Alex Socrum – „Innovation in Medical Device Development: Solving Medical Challenges while Designing and Manufacturing Engineers for Continuous Improvement“
Socrum gave an overview of medical devices but at least theres one critical question for all innovative researchers to ask: „How do I want to move my body to that wheelchair – that s the questions for new products“ and also this one is to think over –„design is not a cookbook“
Markus Buehler – „Turning Weakness to Strength“
Buehler explained how materials in biology are synthesized, controlled and used for a variety of purposes and how technology can make future materials. He stated the importance to link biology to chemistry and engineering and gave the example of the structur and bonds of spider networks.
Damon Centola – „Better Health Through Social Networking“
Damon Centola talked about the behavior of people when dealing with their own health, and as seen as his recent study, the small world therory seems not to work for healthcare networks. He has reached a different conclusion: People are more likely to acquire new health practices while living in networks with dense clusters of connections that is, when in close contact with people . He also gave an overview on what a network is and how networks are working. And asks himself if we really know how real behavior is spreading.
All of the talks are interesting to look at and some are practically and user-oriented, some more theoretically. I want to end my blogpost with two sentences:
„We dont have to invent digital networks they are there“ (Kennedy).
„Bridge the gap between theory and useful technologies“ (Centola)
Facts:
Theres a good archiv on the conference! So click on it to download the presentations you want to see!
(update 4.5.2011, sorry download since today only available for registered ilp members)
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(Fotocredits: Bayer Austria)
