Userbreezing
From Eurekamp 2009
Userbreezing
Unlike *storming*, breezing is a side activity, not directly aimed at stimulating ideas, but rather wandering around idea-related topics. Userbreezing are additional interactive participant-generated activities in the spirit of the camp. Userbreezing takes place in the 3 UB (UserBreezing) rooms and includes regular activites like discussions, workshops, etc around topics in the spirit of the camp: ideas, creativity, technology, trends, research, commercialization of ideas, etc.
Please add below your activity title with a short description and your name.
Entrepreneurs for the peripheral Israel
For many years we hear about those mega plans to assist the "peripheria" ..especially before elections ..:) … but nothing really happens there.
Can you and me give a hand? Well….yes we can :)
In this session I will speak about what a group of entrepreneurs is already doing …. and doing in the best manner they know….building entrepreneurs in the peripheria for the peripheria…
You are welcome to listen..ask questions.. come up with new ideas ..will be fun
Eitan Efron
Working together to be green: Can we ‘Repose’ instead of ‘Dispose’?
There is nothing like coming back to Israel after a relaxing vacation. You’re in the cab driving towards Tel Aviv, and the BAM – the eyesore of the Hiriya Waste Mountain. Yeah, I know they’re turning it into a park, but that’s dealing with the symptom and not the problem – too much waste, not enough recycling.
As a country that has brought to the world so many technological innovations, we’re a failure when it comes to recycling. Growing up in the US, in the 1980s, between recycling of paper, glass and plastics and the garbage disposal in the kitchen sink, half of our family garbage didn’t make into the garbage.
Ireland eliminated plastic bags. What real steps can we as a community successfully implement? What can we ‘Repose’ instead of ‘Dispose’? What can we re-use OR simply not use?
In the Userbreezing session that I'll conduct, we’ll try to make a list of things that can be ‘reposed’, and through an open discussion, reduce the list to one or a few actionable projects that can be implemented now.
Uriah Av-Ron, Oasis PR, uriah@oasis-pr.com
What will revolutionize the education system? What can we do to make a change?
Open Discussion on Education
Thousands of years ago Socrates opened a discussion about changing the methods of schools and education. The same discussion continues today as teachers, parents and students are crying out for a change. Students are taught today in the same way they were taught 100 years ago, while they are prepared for professions that we don't know will exists when they will embark on their independent lives.
What can we do today to actually make the change happen to the education system? A hi-tech driven society in Israel does not reflect, in any way, in our schools. Can society make the change? Or will a students rebellion do it?
Mini revolution at the Israeli Universities
Israeli Universities are ANTI-business, but they are also strapped for cash. Currently, businesses can help sponsor a course, or fund a lab. Let's create a win-win situation where industry gets trained employees and universities improve their offerings. What if every student was required to spend at least one week a year "helping out" in a live business.
***Feedback is welcome!
Universities were formed to gather knowledge and create new knowledge, not to make a profit.
This is a scary door to open - - big business has been sponsoring labs and other scientific research at universities... how has the influence of possibly lucrative patents affected the freedom of pure academic research? will professors work harder for patents than for tenure? will students reep the benifits of their research or will just the university? will universities, who already bargain away certain freedoms for endowment funds, narrow their academic pursuits to fit corporate expectations? The Piper always gets paid...the question is what will the price be when selling academia? If a course is sponsored by a particular business, will they have the right to affect the curriculim... keep information about their competition out ... can they alter/censor the content of the learning material?
Regarding helping out in a live business - in the US most universty (undergrad and grad) students are required to do internships... no matter what their major is... and most of these internships are not paid... both the business and student benefit. One gets free labor the other experience.
UX (User Experience) Product Review
Boaz Rossano, CEO of 2CENTS (a new consulting firm in which we help our Internet clients review their Internet business model, focus/upgrade it, and provide insight to the methodology and market trends out there).
As part of our 2CENTS consulting service (that we recently launched), we're providing several services, and one of them seemed important to the Israeli high tech market and relevant to you all, that we thought we should share some of its methodology with you)
Its called Internet Product Review
This service helps companies to review their product business strategy and its Web marketing model, compare it to the competition out there, evaluate its user-experience, find its weak and strong spots, suggest ways (and preferably a work plan) to fix or improve them.
In the Userbreezing session that I'll conduct, we'll try to do a sample case study together, on a Web service of your choice (feel free to suggest them right here) and by doing that, you'll gain some insight on the methodology of product UX analysis (and the matrixes / tools that we use) as well as overall product management.
Feel free to contact me at boazrossano[at]hotmail.com or through our Web site: 2CENTS.co.il
Live Organ Donors
My son needs a kidney. We found a living donor on an Internet Mailing list. More than 800 people are waiting for a kidney in Israel while less than 100 transplants are performed each year. Why are some people willing to donate their kidney? What can we do to increase the number of transplants? Come and sign an organ donor card. You may be able to save a life!
(elliot)
What the hell is developerWorks[1] ?
Web site promotion immediately springs Google to mind, but this is too conventional for your sharp minds, (This is my first time but I hope flattery works :-)).
I will use the six hat[2] methodology (all rights reserved to De Bono) ,Ahhhh Methodology, a great word you have to admit, actually it is only a way to force different point of views on a subject in this case a web site virtues, disadvantages and explore ways to promote it.
I will present the web site for a few mints and than participants will "take a hat" and comment accordingly - (in a nutshell each hat represents a "state of mind" or character like - Optimistic, Judgment, creativity, we might invent some new ones).
You can bring your own hats, the more the better - all shapes colors are welcome
shachar
Text + 3D + Sensors + iPhone = ?
After an overview of the software experiments on text that take place at chronotext.org followed by a presentation of the iPhone and some inspiring applications, we will try to brainstorm on the theme of "text based applications for mobile computing at the age of touch-screens, accelerometers and GPS".
EarthLing - a language for planet Earth
The 21st century is upon us, and it's about time we leave language differences behind. Gadi Guy wants to talk to you about EarthLing - an open source (GPL) project to create a common language for all the peoples of planet Earth. And we're not carbon-based chauvenists - EarthLing will give a voice to anything that has a spark of life in it, from flash drives to space stations.
Can it be done?
Join the discussion to throw in your ideas and see what comes out.
Civil Engineering Challenges at the Green Era
A new look into the buildings we live in and the infrastructure we use.
Jacob Gilat
City Transportation
An open discussion about small steps twoards a big change:
- Obvious reason to go for public transportation
- Whats the problem?
- Can it be done here? working examples from around the world (wow!!)
- Easy first steps solutions
- In the long term...
An open discussion to spark the light of creativity and inspire us all
Uri Milman & Nir Kosover
An Israeli Al Jazeera and Beyond
Radical approaches to effectively communicating Israel's story to the world. What should they look like? How do we get them accomplished?
Israelis seem to know how to effectively tackle just about any problem, except how to tell our story effectively to the world. During every major bad PR situation, pro-Israel voices lament that we've never established an "Israeli Al Jazeera", or something like it, and still it never gets done. As a people, a state, and as individuals, we have amazing stories to tell, both involving the conflict and well beyond it, and yet global public opinion of Israel is consistently based on an extremely limited, and often completely false, picture of who we are. How do we get our story out and change the erroneous paradigms?
This session will address the challenges at hand, and seek to find many solutions for creating and distributing relevant media (in all forms, and through all venues) that will finally help the world understand, and maybe even appreciate, the "real Israel".
Once our voice is clearly heard in the global media, the world may still choose to hate us….but at least it will be an informed decision!! ;-)
Be Forewarned: This discussion is part on an actual ongoing effort of a coalition of experienced and talented media professionals to realize a global Israel TV channel, and the best ideas from this Userbreeze will be applied in the real world! Don't come to kvetch about the problem, but to help solve it!!
(In English)
Chaim Goldman
TV Producer, Social Media Marketer, Creative Director, Videographer/Editor, Entrepreneur, Storyteller....
===
For EureKamp 2007 userbreezing - please click here
For EureKamp 2008 userbreezing - please click here
