I can’t believe that I missed this. How could this delicious and amazing event have escaped my notice? An entire week devoted to discussing, developing, and understanding the internet right here in damp old London.
Internet Week originates from New York (of course!) and has been running there since 2008. This is the first time it has come to Europe and so it will be interesting to see how well it fares and what comes out of this delectable experience.
The entire idea behind Internet Week is to help the digital industry raise its profile through a series of conferences, parties, meetings and other such fascinating things. The entire event is open, too, so anyone can climb on board and get networking.
Some of the events that really captured my attention included the Can You Draw The Internet event where the organisers will be pitching the professional responses to this question against the minds of young children. This is one that I am particularly interested in seeing.
There is an event looking at the future of digital publishing, a talk showcasing 15 years of the creativity and inventiveness that build the web (called Digital Archaeology – a brilliantly fascinating title), and a live BBC Twitter Lunchtime session where you can chat to people at the BBC in real time.
In fact, there are so many events that make me drool I wish I could clone myself and attend them all. Honestly, can you imagine participating in a discussion about digital archaeology? Or meeting up to talk about cloud apps for fun and profit?
If this event is successful, it’s going to be really good for the industry as a whole. Here you have an open platform where people and organisations of all levels can meet, greet and network in an atmosphere that’s all about the internet. Hopefully it will bring about some great ideas and innovations too.
The cloud is expanding, the internet is changing, 2.0 is becoming fully integrated into life and business. Sometimes I sit back and think of the mid-1990s when this would have all seemed like some futuristic Matrix-style movie dream. Now we are living it.
I believe that events like these are essential to shaping our future. Where these brilliant minds come up with the ideas that will amaze us in ten or twenty years time. Have you ever sat and wondered what life will be like in another twenty years? Whether we will slow down and things will plateau, or whether it will literally be a world of flying cars and skyscraper cities.
No matter what, this event is definitely worth attending. Oh, and those of you who happen to be proud owners of ASUS netbooks will love the fact that Skype is offering free wi-fi for the duration of the event. Nice…