3D printing workshop, Southampton - 27 June

Steve Brewer

3D printing has the potential to change the world, although not necessarily in the manner that we anticipate today. The academics and business champions who met at Wide Lane were keen to examine how and why this revolution could come to fruition. As with previous workshops, bringing together experts with different perspectives - chemistry, engineering, computing and business - proved to be a useful catalyst. The meeting begin with fascinating talk on the history of 3D printing or additive manufacturing as we now know it should be called, by Dr Shoufeng Yang from the University of Southampton. A report will be published shortly and we will announce a number of initiatives to follow up this fascinating day of demonstrations and discussions.

Design approaches for IT Utilities: a two day quest for the optimum interaction design models for IT utilities.

The Design workshop that takes place at the start of July has attracted much interest. Partly because the two day event provides an insight into two very different organisations, IBM and ustwo, and partly because the topic of design has emerged from previous workshops as being critical to many aspects of the digital economy. Furthermore, Dublin-based accessibility experts SMARTlab will be contributing their perspective on why design is crucial to addressing diversity issues.

Although the workshop involves sessions where both of the hosts will present their techniques, this is a participatory event and we will allow time to discuss and reflect upon the processes. There may still be places if you are quick, and we will certainly be returning to design matters again.

Digital Economy All Hands: DE2013 Open Digital, 4 - 6 November

We have previously mentioned that the fourth All Hands meeting for the RCUK Digital Economy Theme will take place from 4 - 6 November at Media City, Salford. The ITaaU Network+ will be present and we hope to be able to run some stimulating workshops that will help cement the role of IT utilities within the digital economy. We hope that many of the members of the ITaaU Network+ will be able to join us in Media City to share the experiences and achievements of the various activities that are emerging from our contribution to the Digital Economy.

Human Data Interaction: big data gets personal - Open Data Institute, London - 2 Oct, 2013

This workshop is focused on the emerging topic of Human-Data Interaction (HDI). It arises from the need, both ethical and practical, to engage users to a much greater degree with the collection, analysis, and trade of their personal data. HDI puts the human at the centre of the data flows that concern them, which requires provision of mechanisms for citizens to interact with these systems explicitly.

HDI is inherently interdisciplinary, encapsulating elements not only of traditional computer science ranging across data processing, systems design, visualisation and interaction design, but also of law, psychology and sociology. This workshop will initiate exploration of HDI from a few of these perspectives, with the aim of initiating conversations that will result in future collaborations around this exciting topic.

We are pleased to be able to announce that the meeting is scheduled to take place at the Open Data Institute located in the heart of Tech City, London.