Festival as Lab: Call for Entries | FUTURE EVERYTHING

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FutureEverything invites proposals for self-funded research and innovation projects to be presented as a part of the 20th anniversary FutureEverything Festival, 26-28 February 2015.

Successful applicants will be given a unique opportunity to stage co-design, prototyping and public trials, engaging festival visitors and residents of Manchester at festival venues and across the city. Projects will showcase ground-breaking concepts, products and services to commercial enterprise and the international design and innovation community.

A physical Festival as Lab (FAL15) hub with WiFi and A/V equipment will be provided for presentation of data, workshops and public engagement at The Shed, hosted in partnership with MMU Digital Innovation. Projects must launch and remain live over the festival period. Projects could be live place for those days, or run over a longer period.

The opportunity will appeal to research teams, design and new product development companies, innovation agencies, and commercial enterprises. We encourage applications from consortia and organisations with established commercial partnerships.
FAL15 is presented in association with ENoLL as a part of FutureEverything 2015.

FAL15 Themes 
There is a particular interest in city sensing projects and trials. One option here would be to combine a number of sensing projects into a sensing lab. More widely, themes of relevance include:

  • Smart Cities, Future Internet, Internet of Things
  • Smart Mobility, Wayfinding and Transport Innovation
  • Digital Social Innovation. Civic Participation. e-Government
  • City Sensing, Citizen Observatories, Data Services
  • Creative Media, Experience, Personalisation, Identity

Each Festival As Lab project could relate to some aspect of the festival experience or journey, digitally enabled urban innovation, city infrastructure or it could be presented as a standalone festival project/event, which engages participants around a theme.

Festival As Lab – Characteristics
Festivals as agile research and development environments for real-world rapid prototyping, open innovation and user-led design.

  • Experts and passionate amateurs coming together to imagine and experience the future
  • City as playspace – People and businesses play and experiment with the infrastructure of a city
  • These experiments devise and test innovations, and generate visibility and engagement

Submissions
Please send a 4 page application detailing your proposed Festival As Lab project and supporting information to include project partners.
Portfolios and supplementary visual resources are encouraged, although will not be considered without a detailed written application.

Submit proposals to Tom Rowlands, tom.rowlands@futureeverything.org by 5pm, 27th October 2014

Download Full Call for Entries (PDF)

More Info: http://futureeverything.org/

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