We are grateful to our supporters from Eventifier (Eventifier got acquired in 2015 and so the website is not in existence any longer), and especially Jazeel (co-founder of Eventifier) and Ty, who not only made an interview possible with us on why, and how the idea with the #GSP14 Twitter conversation capturing emerged. Additionally touching the field in which way this might have a further positive impact on bringing new technologies and approaches to tackle present challenges of humanity to use, and the role technology hubs will play in the future.
.... here you'll find the interview (Eventifier has been acquired in 2015, and so the link is not valid any longer)
A Mission to Bring World Changing Ideas from Singularity University to the World
Taking on humanity’s grand challenges in education, energy, environment, food, health, poverty, security, space, and water is larger than life mission. Launched in 2008, in the heart of Silicon Valley, Singularity University (@singularityu) has an audacious mission of fostering local innovation through technology on a global scale. Singularity University’s start-up accelerator has empowered entrepreneurs from more than 85 countries to apply exponentially growing technologies, generating more than 100 startups, and numerous patents.
Equally challenging is the goal of helping individuals, businesses, institutions, investors, NGOs, and governments understand these cutting-edge technologies, and how to utilize them to positively impact billions of people. This is the goal of Dresden, Germany, based technology advocates Ralf Lippold and Angela Incampo.
We happily stumbled across Mr Lippold’s and Ms Incampo’s fascinating efforts when they launched a crowdfunding campaign to use Eventifier to bring the innovative ideas discussed at Singularity University’s recent graduate studies event #GSP14 to the world. They were kind enough to grant us an interview so that we could learn more about the story behind their campaign.
Please Tell Us About Yourselves
Ralf Lippold: I have studied economics and my work background is in logistics, and applying digital technology to production processes as done at BMW Plant Leipzig. I am passionate about social media and how it can be used effectively, and value-adding in a business context. Generally, I am appealed by technology and consider myself to be a global, connected citizen. I am running a blog specifically about the developments around Singularity University called Blue Future 2012. There is so much potential if ignited by the right cause. This is what drives me.
Angela Incampo: I am a Customer Advisor Professional from Italy. Ralf is my partner, on a professional and private level. I enjoy tweeting, but Ralf is better with tweeting. I’m more of a blogger.
What is Your Goal for The Singularity University Campaign?
Ralf Lippold: First of all, I have to say that I was not able to attend the event. The intent of this project is to document the social media conversation from the 2014 Graduate Studies Program#GSP14 at Singularity University on Twitter using Eventifier for interested audiences, the participants and supporters of #GSP14, and me of course. I’m deeply convinced that the information and knowledge flowing during the 10 weeks at #GSP14 is of interest to many people.
Why Should Anyone Follow What is Going On At This Singularity University Event (#GSP14)?
Angela Incampo: We strongly believe that it is a shame when information is closely held or disappears. We want more people to be able to participate in the (online) conversation coming out of Singularity University as not everyone can be accepted to attend. Through social media, people can know what is going on and are able to participate in the conversation themselves.
Ralf Lippold: Some of the founders of Singularity University, and its faculty members are tweeting during the sessions. Participants of #GSP14 are tweeting about what they are listening to, share additional information and connect with people from the specific field. There’s an opportunity for you to learn about the people and innovative topics discussed. Also, this makes it easy for anyone to connect with the people there. Some of the attendees are start-ups, and they have an interest in getting exposure to relevant stakeholders. Also, it is -from our point of view- important for politicians and people to connect with these ideas and be exposed to them. Technology is a hot topic in our fast-paced world, and this event will be a conversation enabler.
Why Did You Decide to Crowdfund?
Ralf Lippold: I have done some experimenting with crowdfunding and have seen people be very successful here. This time it is an experiment whether digital communication has the ability to spread, and connect a “technology conference” with the interested public. The payback you’ll get with the contribution is that the event coverage of the upcoming 10 weeks will be presented to you (and others of course) and I will be writing articles on my blog BlueFuture2012. We are also open to other ideas on what we could give you back as a contributor.
Angela Incampo: Another idea that you can do with crowdfunding for the future is to help influencers who add value and are heavy tweeters attend events like Singularity University. Of course, that individual has to have a real need and personal passion about the topic and the drive to dig into the topic. By attending, they can accelerate the whole thing - especially if they are well recognized and willing to share from their own social media accounts.
How Do You See Eventifier’s Documentation of the Social Media From Singularity University Helping?
Ralf Lippold: Angela and I started taking more of a social media approach to online coverage for conferences. This brought me to use Eventifier last year for an event. We also used it to cover an event for the United Nations University. Eventifier helps with a multi-session conference for attendees and interested parties to keep up with the knowledge sharing with the use of social media. When you have more than one session to attend at a time, or when you have no money or are not able to make it, you can always go back to revisit the content. This has helped me get connections in real-time and get conversations going beyond the conference rooms.
Another example, when we followed the 26th International Cartographic Conference in Dresden last summer. With Eventifier, we are still in the conversation because we can reach out to people based on content captured in the social stream even though the conference is long over. It is a much more convenient way to connect with individual people, especially with time zone differences.
Angela Incampo: You may read something today that sparks an idea you may use in 6 months. Eventifier makes it possible to capture and store these ideas and go back in time when the time has come. Eventifier also allows you to see individual contributions to the conversation. This allows you to get more than just using the hashtag on Twitter.
People have a visual memory. With the visuals, you can easily go back to the person or to a video to bring it further. It is good to use hashtags on Twitter, but amongst 1,000 tweets one individual tweet can be buried or forgotten easily; it is harder to connect to meaningful information that way. With Eventifier it is easier to get back to the core of the information.
Thank you, Ralf and Angela, for telling us about your mission to bring the ideas from great events like Singularity University to the world.
Readers: Let us know what event you have coming up and why the world should know about it. If your organization wants to build awareness around ideas discussed at an upcoming event or conference, we’d love to hear from you!
2 notes Jul 29th, 2014
