TAMK Media and EYA 2014 in Graz – Part 2/3

Following blog post summarizes the day two, 20th of November, at European Youth Award festival in Graz.

Tweet wall was used with great responsibility. Photo by Tarina Tommiska.

Web of Needs, Vision Hunting and Innovation Camp
Defining trends for web of needs for Healthy Life | Smart Learning | Connecting Cultures | Go Green | Active Citizenship | Money Matters | Future Living |
by Christina Maria Busch, Florian Kleedorfer and other members of Research Studio


Chrystal: The morning workshop which was conducted by the Research Studio (?) was split into three major parts:
  1. A presentation to introduce “Web of Needs” is about
  2. A collaborative session with all the participants by choosing 3 out of the 8 categories of own interest and discuss possible topics which concerns the “Web of Needs”.
  3. Followed by another round of discussion of the top 5 most voted topics from the second part.

Overall, I find that it assuring that people from different backgrounds and countries in all over Europe (and other parts of the world) seemed to have similar ideas on what our future looks like and how technology would help to shape that future.

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Chrystal, Ida Tuominen, Petra, Helmi, Alessandra, Felipe and other students brainstorming in the workshop. (Photo by Ida Tokola)

Helmi:
After hearing about the web of needs we swiftly moved on to the vision hunting which was an interesting experience to say the least. We would gather in groups and discuss different kinds of topics relating to EX. smart learning, connecting cultures, active citizenship and future living. This session was a bit confusing to me and it was really hard to get your voice heard through dozens of other loud voices. A lot of good ideas were created during that session though! It was really inspiring to see how people from other cultures and countries viewed these topics and what kinds of great ideas they had in store.

I went to the workshop/discussion group about future living and modern nomads, as did almost every single one of us. I found the idea of modern nomads to be nicely topical and interesting in many ways. We worked with the idea with a “roadmap” that Ida drew very skillfully and neatly. The group was a bit slow to start up so the workshop host had to nudge us to the right direction with visual exercises where we stuck pictures to the roadmap to present possible problems and success criteria.  I really enjoyed this workshop even though I wish I would have participated more. It’s a bit too easy for me to just take the spectator’s role when other people are working. I still learned a lot by just watching listening to other people share their ideas and visions. We completed the workshop with a canvas full of different kinds of outlooks on modern nomads so I could go ahead and say that the session was a success!

Petra:
Most of us TAMK students ended up choosing the same discussion group, the one with modern nomads. In MindTrek there was already some talk about these nomads, who are able to work wherever they want via internet so the basic idea was familiar to most of us.

Together we created a road map in which we added succession factors, core goal, secondary goals and challenges. One method we used was adding random pictures cut out of magazines to our road map and describe if it was a challenge, goal or succession factor. Some of the pictures were bit hard to add to our road map but with some wild imagination they all found their places.

There were couple of non-TAMK students in our group too and I was bit sad that they didn’t take too much part in the discussion - but I can’t blame them. It was easy for us to work together as we all knew each other and all had some experience of this kind of brainstorming. Our group leader didn’t have to guide us almost at all, we were working so hard already after we got an idea what this group discussion was about.

Alessandra:
Definitely no surprise when I arrived to the room with my red number-five paper to see that most of our classmates were sitting there, waiting to learn something that they can use when working as a modern nomad, living abroad. I know that my future lies with different project all around the globe, which is why I was rather pumped to know more about this lifestyle. We started to make a mindmap (that Ida so niftily illustrated), what are the first things to take care of before moving, possible obstacles, things to prepare and do when arriving and finding contacts. It was rather helpful afternoon and I did enjoy the fact that so many of us are interested in living abroad, working online and so-on.

Ida Tuominen presented the ideas to make the lives of modern nomads easier. Photo by Sami Lindfors/Felipe Santana.


Ida Tu:
I was really pumped about the topic most of us TAMK students had chosen - the modern (online) nomads - so I wanted to contribute to the best of my ability. I volunteered to draw and write out are ideas on the “roadmap” we created, honestly really inspired by the brainstorming everyone was committed to, and threw ideas back and forth with the other participants in the workshop.

After we gathered to meet up with all the different teams we kicked off a fishbowl session where one representative from each team had to sit in the middle of the room as they were interviewed about their team’s results while other 50+ people took the role of an audience and sat around the interviewees in a circle, hence “the fishbowl”. None of our team was exactly wishing to be the first one picked - I think even our international students have the Finnish mentality of not wanting to be in the spotlight in a stressing situation - and my earlier volunteering landed me in the middle of the room as our workshop leader pointed at me and offered “that tall one there” when Peter Bruck, the host, wanted to know which person is going to represent the modern nomad team. I have to admit it was an extremely stressing situation, but at least later on I was assured it went well and I represented both our team and TAMK in an adequate manner. I was asked consent of having one quote of my speech in an Austrian online magazine Mokant, so there had to be something that was expressed in an inspiring way (at least I can hope so!)

Rolands:
Group discussion - connecting cultures
During the workshop we had to come up with an idea/road/map or whatever how to connect project to its consumers. While everyone was randomly shouting their ideas without purpose I stayed quiet, made notes, simply absorbed floating information and gathered ideas. I arrived to get inspiration from people, projects, presentations but when Joseph (“Trash Out”) saw me making notes, I got into the spotlight, I had nowhere to run so I had to present my ideas. In the end instead of getting inspired I was the one who was inspiring. This lesson I learned has invaluable cost. Everyone has something to give.

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Notes I made during the workshop.

AFTERNOON SESSION: THE BEST IN DIGITAL CREATIVITY FOR SOCIAL GOOD
EYA Winners introduce their innovative digital projects to the audience

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Alessandra:
Later in the evening we headed to the Graz University of Technology. During this evening event, the host went through ALL of the projects, giving the teams a chance to pitch their projects to the audience. With their given time limit of 10 minutes, I was rather surprised that so many professionals there exceeded the pitch time-limit and the host had to cut off. The whole thing took all-in-all almost 4 hours so it was a little bit overwhelming considering the fact that we had only two 15 minute breaks. There of course, were some projects that caught my attention with the way they were presented such as SlidesLive (archive of presentation) from Czech Republic. The speaker ended their pitch in a grandiloquent manner with a metaphor and then literally set a garbage can on fire! love it.