Design Jam London #2: An ‘Open Design’ initiative supported by Mozilla Labs & City University London

Fresh off the success of last years inaugural Design Jam [0], local London champions – Johanna Kollmann, Joe Lanman, Desigan Chinniah & Franco Papeschi – are back with the cities sequel.

Event Details

Date: 26 February 2011 (Saturday)
Time: 08:30 – 18:00
Venue: University City London, Northampton Square – WC1V 6NX
Nearest Tube: Angel (Northern line, Bank branch)

Can’t attend? If you can’t make London on this occasion, follow the @DesignJamLondon Twitter account – for all the latest news & announcements.

Not anywhere close-by? Perhaps, you find yourself located nowhere near London, don’t despair! Mozilla Labs are fully committed to helping support and spread these initiatives as far afield as possible.

Keep an eye on the global Design Jam Wiki for news of upcoming jam near you.
If there isn’t one listed – email cyberdees[at]mozilla[dot]com today and let’s discuss getting a Design Jam going near you!

Who should attend?

It’s an open call for interaction designers, UX researchers, Information Architects, web and graphic designers + more…. from students to experienced practitioners. Anybody really – who would like to practice their research, brainstorming, sketching or collaboration skills.

Grabbing a spot

Tickets are free, and available in two batches on either:
Monday, the 7th February 2011 or
Wednesday, the 9th February 2011

These will be made available on: http://designjamlondon2.eventbrite.com/

The Topic

One of the surprises of the day is the topic. It’s something we’ve vowed to keep the same going forward and for that reason we’re not releasing the challenge topic just yet. (Hint: Just one look at the mentors should give you an indication of where the topic is headed)

Mentors

The addition of mentors worked so well and received such praise at the first event that the organising team has once again reached reached out to industry. The mentors [1] who’ll be there on the day helping lending a hand are:

Supporters

The event is supported by:

All that being said, it would be fantastic to get even more support – which would be very much be welcomed by the local champions.

Whether it’s a small monetary donation to help with stationery, coffee & other refreshments requirements, or perhaps something larger to help with catering costs during breakfast or lunch.
It would be fantastic to get sponsorship to cover remaining costs, including food, drink and stationery.

Supporters are mentioned all the time, on the wiki, via social media, on the day itself and in all subsequent blog posts and updates.

Like to help support Design Jam London 2? – please email designjamlondon[at]gmail[dot]com

Local Champions

These events would not be possible without the hard work and dedication of an awesome local champion crew. Below is the London Design Jam team [3]:

Keeping updated

Follow @DesignJamLondon, @MozConcept or the #DesignJam & #DJL2 hashtags on Twitter for all the latest news and updates (schedule, activity, outputs etc.)

Also keep an eye on the Design Jam London #2 wiki, which will update and collate a repository of outputs throughout the day.


[0] Design Jams are one-or-two-day design sessions, during which people team up to solve engaging User Experience (UX) challenges. Similar to developer ‘hackdays’ they aim to get designers together to learn and collaborate with each other while working on actual problems. The sessions champion open-source thinking & sharing and are non-profit, run by local volunteers. For more information visit the Design Jam wiki.

[1] Mentors:
Aral Balkan
Aral Balkan is an independent interaction designer and developer with over a decade of experience in creating web, Flash, desktop, and mobile applications. His latest iPhone app, Feathers, was featured by Apple as “New and Notable” and reached #1 in the What’s Hot list in the US. It is often cited as an example of beautiful, emotional design.

Aral aims to build beautiful, empathic apps that create joy and delight. He shares his knowledge, experiences, frustrations, and joys via his Geek Ninja Factory dojos, blog, tweets, and the numerous talks he gives around the world every year.

Mathias Dahlström
Mathias Dahlström is a technology artisan at lastminute.com labs.

labs is a small team inventing services & applications within the wider context of travel and lifestyle. What new services and devices will people use to find the best stuff to do? We have no idea. But we’re going to try ideas out and see what happens.

Follow Mathias, on Twitter as @mdahlstrom, or his site http://flabbergasted.me or his current cooperate home http://labs.lastminute.com/

Tim Brooke
Tim Brooke has worked on a diverse range of projects from self-organising robotic warehouses to self-sufficient wireless networks for vineyards and even multiuser exhibits in museums.
He currently works in Nokia Design’s London studio, building prototype mobile devices from anything that comes to hand – Adobe Flash, Java, bits of electronics, doubled sided sticky tape, even Post-It notes.
He values “learning through building” and believes that there’s nothing like a working prototype to explain, explore and evaluate ideas.
He has also worked for Microsoft (Redmond, Washington, USA), Intel Research (Hillsboro, Oregon, USA) and IDEO (London, UK).

He hold degrees in Computer Related Design MA from the Royal College of Art, MSc Mechatronics from Hull University and a Cybernetics BSc from the University of Reading.

Website: http://www.timbrooke.com
Twitter: @timtwit

[2] Supporters:
Mozilla Labs Concept Series
The Mozilla Labs Concept Series is a hub of community activity to encourage innovation and experimentation for the Web via design and development. Their aim is to provoke thought, share ideas, facilitate discussion, and inspire the future vision of the Mozilla project, Firefox, and the Web as a whole.

Follow them on Twitter for latest news and updates: @MozConcept

City University London
City University London – providing students, the professions and business with the knowledge and skills essential to the success of London as a world city.

Computing and Information Science staff and students benefit from state-of-the-art premises in City University London’s historic College Building.
Located in the heart of London, our approach to education draws on more than 100 years of tradition.
The purpose-built space includes specialist teaching rooms, a SAP Product lab and a high-tech Human Computer Interaction Design lab supported by The Vodafone UK Foundation.


[3] Local Champions:
Franco Papeschi
Franco Papeschi‘design activist, concept designer, community mingler. loves creating job titles, and pencils.’

During the day, Franco is working with the Web Foundation on the creation of mobile training and innovation labs. Prior to joining the Foundation, Franco worked in the User Experience team of Vodafone Group, taking a human-centered approach to envision innovative and meaningful services.

Franco is available on twitter (@bobbywatson), flickr (themepap), and – often – at a meet-up / conference near you.

Johanna Kollmann
Johanna KollmannJohanna started her career in UX at Siemens in 2004 and has since gained experience in both in-house and agency-side roles. In London, she worked at Flow Interactive and Vodafone, and is now a Senior UX Consultant at EMC Consulting. Her background is in Information Design and HCI.

Passionate about building better things through collaboration, she’s an Agile UX retreater and Design Jam organizer. Johanna (@johannakoll) likes dancing at gigs, hiking up hills, ice cream and manta rays.

Desigan Chinniah
All-round semi-decent geek, living in London with his beautiful wife and kids.

Currently, Firestarter at Mozilla Labs, curating the Concept Series and engaging with their passionate global community – while silently working his way through as many coffee shops as possible.

Dees evolves within a magical world of conference calls, IRC and cross-Atlantic flights. When he’s not at his computer, he can be found sporting, snapping pictures or entertaining the kids, but not at the same time.

You should follow cyberdees on Twitter, Lanyrd, Last.fm, Flickr, LinkedIn