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As a spinoff from UEF, there are different challenges and opportunities. From the GREAT opportunities was this trip.
We were at working group in Chile as ICT experts, in the topics of e-health and smart cities. Different companies and institutions were there as Epssilon, Fraunhofer Chile, Softex, Universidad de Costa Rica, Universidad de Costa Rica, UN, World Bank, MESCyT, Universidad de Playa Ancha, Center for Wireless Communications, Cepal, and more knowledgeable individuals and visionaries.
Looking forward to work on projects that will have an impact!
CONICyT Chile - Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Technológica
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post written by Carolina Islas
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FinCEAL & VTT Workshop ICT for Societal Challenges and Information Society
Now, if you are good observer you can find a ubium member in the photo of the FinCEAL post.
The photo below is another one than the one in the FinCEAL post. It shares an insight of the event and the interesting venue (we had several screens displaying the same presentation! :) )
PS. Interesting enough, in this event of FinCEAL which mainly focuses on Latinamerica and the Caribbean, we had the chance to talk with an expert of foreign affairs about the opportunities in Thailand. :)
Small world!
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post written by Carolina Islas.
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Much has been talked about the excellence of Finnish education, which as we know, is not easily transferable to other countries. Recently, the common conversation in Finnish media is about the growing Finnish game industry. However, are we able to be playful with our knowledge? Are we able to play, learn and act with others in our physical world?
Ubium, a spin-off from the Educational Technology Research Group at University of Eastern Finland, focuses on contextual games. That is, games that are rooted in the physical world and are carefully knitted to a particular type of knowledge in the specific location. The enjoyment to discover our world is the main driver in the design of Ubium's games, because we want to support the players' fantasy to be the magic key for understanding our planet. As contextual games Ubium has developed LieksaMyst (game at Pielisen Museo) and TekGame (game at the Museum of Technology in Helsinki).
Based on the results of LieksaMyst, Dr. Carolina Islas Sedano (co-founder of Ubium) was invited to join efforts with Dr. Antony Harfield and Dr. Ratchada Viriyapong from the Mobile Computing Lab at Naresuan University and co-founders of Apptitude to build a game prototype for Sukhothai, UNESCO world heritage site. This initiative is an Area Based Collaboration project funded by the Thailand Research Fund and Naresuan University.
One of the Temples in Sukhothai: Wat Sa Si
Thanks to the Finnish education and its openness for research and innovation, Ubium has gained knowledge on the design, development and study of contextual games since late 2005. The result of this investment is today's possibility to collaborate with visionaries in Thailand who want to enhance the richness of their cultural heritage. Furthermore, Ubium also has the opportunity to learn from Thais, how they see the world, and to bring this experience back to Finland, to our region.
From Lieksa, Finland to Sukhothai, Thailand
Ubium believes this collaboration translates in growth possibilities for us as a spin-off, and for the North Karelian province, by making visible what we produce in the region.
We are proud to be part of this visionary project in Sukhothai, and we invite you to follow the results of this project by the end of 2014.
Team (from left to right): Nuttawut Wanitchasiri, Tawatchai Leamwong, Ratchada Viriyapong, Carolina Islas, Antony Harfield
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To create traction in a startup is not easy. One has to pay attention to different details: ideas, development, organizing, administrative, benchmarking,.... and networking.
Often one reads and listens that networking is important. In my opinion it is also a skill to learn and to develop, because it is not enough to meet people. However, meeting people is the beginning, though! :) At some point, in another post, I will write more about the topic, as it is not the focus of this post. :)
In Joensuu there is project entitle et.lakes which aims to support the different parties interested in educational technologies in the region, including startups. On this day, there was a kick-off event in which ubium was invited to the kick-off event at the Kitee Evangelical Folk High School. We went despite being in middle of our moving. [note: we are moving our facilities]. One of the main goals of the event: networking.
During the kick-off, it was the possibility to meet new people and re-connect with others. It is always GREAT to talk face to face! For example, to have a conversation with people of FinCEAL was very useful. Honestly, even if one has all the information on internet, to talk with people who knows about a topic is not replaceable!
The event was well organized and even though ubium was only one day out of three proposed, this day was productive!. If you want to know more about the event, please read the following post of et.lakes.
The next is the picture of this post! :) which actually is not the most representative of the event. Yes, the audience was paying attention, and the venue is perfect for events like this, but the intention is to share that the event also had a little bit of Thai sunshine!
Phitsanulok's handicraft in Kitee
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post written by cais
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While we were working at Naresuan University we ran a game workshop. Actually it was an INTENSE workshop. Well, those who know Carolina's teaching might be aware about this: do your best, have fun, co-create knowledge and work hard. Learning is fun, in our opinion, but one has to put the energy and passion into it.
In this case the workshop was on SUNDAY. Target audience were full time students, which really had a FULL study week and exams were approaching. Hence, at some moments I was wondering: how many people would subscribe to the workshop? in addition to question how would I connect with them? Unfortunately my Thai is not existent thus there is a barrier between me and the current audience.... :( it is a pity when one does not share the same language! Nevertheless, everybody were in good spirits.
Jenjira was at charge to promote the workshop and she made a nice poster, judge this by yourselves:
Finally, the BIG day and we had a GREAT day!
The house was full as you can see in the following photos:
View of the workshop
Another view of the workshop
The participants work very hard the WHOLE day, and this is literal. Also, Anthony and Ratchada were INCREDIBLE supportive for all of us. The students developed interesting games, understanding the key concepts covered in this day. In summary: we had an AWESOME FULL DAY!
By the way, when we write a full day it is really meant a full day. Let me explain, the workshop consisted of two parts (morning and afternoon). Each part consisted of: a lecture, follow by a design task to produce a game prototype, we play-test the prototypes and finally we debrief the play-test and the process. Between the morning and afternoon, we had a DELICIOUS lunch with Thai food as a special treat ;)
The photo below illustrate the outcomes of the first half of the workshop:
Examples of the game outcomes on the first half of the workshop
The event showed us that contextual games in addition to me meaningful and interesting, offer unlimited creativity possibilities!
Thank you to each one of the participants and organizers for intense and wonderful day!
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post written by Carolina Islas
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