FINDERS KEEPERS: THE STARTUPS NOTEBOOK, (DIRECTLY FROM ALPHA & BETA AREA IN WEB SUMMIT 2017) + BRAZIL TODAY: THE DESIGN EXHIBITION.

Above: still from the incredible Archisketch video, (to check it out in full screen, go to http://www.archisketch.com/feature). 

Cracking startups with incredible app provisions to totally improve and vertically change your everyday life, is a typical feature in the expo areas of Web Summit 2017, in Lisbon, Portugal. Time was short, in order to cover everything in full detail, but here is our condensed list of what we manage to distinguish, among the many companies who revolutionize the tech world with digital media at the service of the citizen. 

1. Archisketch (Interior Design, VR) is the elegant app offering the world's simplest interior design solution and quite frankly- everything a buyer, designer or consumer could only dream to have in his/her toolkit one day. 

2. Alphafish (Hardware, IoT) helps you get control of your peripherals, energy sources and other components, arrange and "smartify" your interiors but also improve your consumption efficiency.

3. Inventify (Hardware, IoT) is the new platform of a team based in London, UK- that performs as an agency connecting designers, engineers and entrepreneurs and helping all ends to meet, eventually produce an idea and place it in the market.

4. FINALCAD (Software), a Web Summit favourite by the audience and the tech critics, is the mega-tool that promises to be the right hand of the civil engineer of the future, offering a number of composites as an app. A super-facility that functions as a team manager, design software, administrative kit, building and safety controller etc.

5. Kaspersky Lab (Cybersecurity) is definitely a Web Summit veteran and it remains something like the Saville Row of the cyberworld - with exquisite custom-made products for every possible known portal or device. 

6. CISCO DEVNET Sandbox (Code, Learning) features a unique dry-run environment for coders of every field. A fully equiped lab for smooth coding and testing at an advanced level.

7. KAZAKHTELECOM-Digital Heart of the Silk Way (Investor, Telecom). This campaign launched by the company for the mythical investment of 1 billion dollars, sets the country as the digital annex of Central Asia in 8 priority sectors such as infrastructure, eHealth, digital agriculture, digital mining, eLearning, fintech, eGovernment and logistics.

8. ScaleUp Porto (Investor, Networks, Strategic Planning) consists of a platform, designed to create a growth network within a city. An overall exemplary and effective case of scaling-up strategy, ideal for other European cities to follow.

If you wish, you can check also people's most favourite startups as they figured in Web Summit statistics:

- Brand Ripplr
- Hyku
- Botly
- Flixel
- Clark
- Zoom.ai
- Contentful
- Flow.ai
- Snips
- Digital Genius
- Deepomatic
- Recast.AI
- Cosmo Tech
- Contentful
- TellMePlus
- Timify
- Seerene

How to pronounce design in Portuguese: Brazil Today, the design exhibition initiated by MUDE museum in Lisbon, is undoubtedly one of the most significant design-related events of the year. Bárbara Coutinho, the director of MUDE invites the curator Frederico Duarte to establish a deep insight of the two countries correlation, their material identity and common culture, now. The result is a fascinating exploration of objects and messages, that transpass the usual design equations of the old continent and stimulate the human intellect to discover new dimensions and new solutions in the contemporary living era. An exhibition of rare beauty and honesty that seriously "flips the coin" of what we used to know up to this point - showcasing products conceived by designers coming from every corner of the vast Brazilian continent - yet so closely affiliated with the current Portuguese history and society, but also aligned to the issues and challenges of the global community. 

From top to bottom bellow, a small selection:
- MELISSA CREATIVES (shoes), 2016: When consumers become designers -CONFETE (prosthetics), 2016, Furf Design: A hopeful prosthesis cover - STED (medicals), 2014, Cusco Studio: An everyday crutch - HAVAIANAS (flip-flops), 2017, Department of Design and Innovation: The Havaianas beyond the flip-flop - UBU (publishers), 2016: All of Ubu's books - LEARN AND PLAY (children's furniture), 2016, Grupo Criativo: A room that grows with its child.

That is all for now!!! More Web Summit 2018 ventures and Lisbon highlights next year, or maybe sooner!

Don't miss our next issue, out around the 10th of December with all the new, hot Press releases about the Salone del Mobile 2018 trends and more!!!

Until then-stay great!

A4D-D4A?-))

Evolutive Digital Technologies: A NEW Terminology (Examples 4 Design & Everything else), powered by Web Summit 2017, Lisbon, Portugal.

In photo above: Steve Raymond, CEO at 8i during his revolutionary presentation on Hologram Making in the immersive era. Technology fusion consisted of Augmented Reality (AI), Virtual Reality (VR), Mixed Reality (MR), Computer Generated People (CGP) etc.- all made anew for you to carry with, among other content, on your mobile data.

In tomorrow's world what is Content? What is Creativity? What is Impact? What is a Car? What is Community? What is Commodity? What is Ecology? Take it from the people at Web Summit 2017, who prescribed the new inventions on digital solutions, materials, infrastructures, ethics- from now on and in the far or near future.

Nowadays you can 3Dprint a house for 35 euro, a reality that will enable huge changes on demographics, social cartographies, work, architecture and design in many places of the world. Soon it will be possible to carry live memories with you and place them anywhere you wish in space and time: your beloved ones, your commodities, your list of materials, your course lectures, the actual furniture of your studio, your wardrobe. Companies like 8i specialize on creating entirely realistic holograms, made out of volumetric videos: small, streamable and uploadable on your iPhone 10' Volumetric Content Library, a facility soon to be an asset in the post-digital industrial revolution, (in areas such as retail, health, beauty, education), but also an unprecedented emotional experience for all.

As General Manager of IBM Design, Phil Gilbert (in picture bellow during his speech on Creatiff stage at Web Summit 2017) sets the strategy of making an organization grow through design thinking and a specific mindset, oriented also to Agile infrastructures and DevOpps in the making-of and developing of a project or an idea. In times where most working places kill creativity by a rigid, exercised  management of Power with no empathy, the ability to listen to different voices and align every aspect of the business, remains the biggest challenge. Design thinking is the key to success not as an abstract concept but as a bold attempt to innovate and provoke sceptics in a non-obvious way. 

Plastic pollution eats us up and that's a fact, affecting our whole civilization. How we need to redesign our whole system in order to save our planet, our oceans but mainly our health? Professionals like Tim Brooks, LEGO Vice President of Environmental Responsibility (first from the left in picture bellow with fellow speakers at Planet: tech conference), discussed how companies like LEGO with a huge impact on children's creativity and development worldwide for decades, recognize the need to replace plastic with biodegradable materials, by launching a program to do so in the future, starting with the famous LEGO brick. Plastic retrieval has to be imposed, so it can turn from waste to resource for our whole relationship with the material to be re-evaluated, through clever innovative design and a whole different social attitude. Be an urban backpacker, show up with your own ceramic mug and metal straw at your local coffee place and make people talk!

What is going to be the design of non-driven cars? Equity in transportation is a goal, among other things such as private or public autonomous transport. Time inside the cars can be re-usable and quality time, with AI and Cloud sprouts inside every future vehicle for safety, learning and caring purposes (i.e. for people with special features). Electrification is a very important aspect in the future of autonomous vehicles with their energy capacity to rise as the capital issue of the whole endeavour, alongside with safety and of course their production schedule for the market, expecting finished prototypes between 2020 and 2050. Check bellow the companies and their representatives as they talked about the subject at Web Summit Auto/Tech-TalkRobot conference (in picture bellow, on the right): Philipp von Hagen (Porsche Automobile Holding SE), Jim Adler (Toyota AI Ventures), Shakeel Avadhany (ClearMotion). 

Key Terms: Digital Native, Immersive Computing, CGP (Computer Generated People) vs CGI (Computer Generated Imaging), global nomads, Techfugees, MAS (mobility at surface), NI (natural intelligence), SAFER, market transformative, AI-liaised, millenials privacy crisis. 

OUR FAVES! A4D-D4A selects the the Web Summit 2017 BEST of BEST- names to remember- for the following awards:

TalentTalk (Best Journalist): Kara Swisher/ Ryan Heath

RhetorAMA (Best Speaker): Mmantsetsa Marope

JobSCope A (Best Recruiter): Polina Montano

EntrePerennial (Best Entrepreneur): Rebecca Lynn

TechESThet (Best Image Maker): William Sargent

CrashTech Seminar 2017 (Best Knowhow): Ross Mason/ Jeff Maggioncalda

Planet FEmina (Best Activist/ Spokesman-Spokeswoman): Christine Herron

The Jury Stage (Best Invitee): Brad Parscale

The TechCommunity Award (Best Networker): Mike Butcher

TechHEro Award (Best Social Responsibility Entrepreneur): Ismail Ahmed

The LIFE Achievement Award (Best Visionary): Bryan Johnson

The GENIUS Award (Best Innovator/Scientist): Ben Goertzel

The Ground Politics Award: (Best Political Figure): Fernando Medina

THANKS A MILLION to the Web Summit Team and the City of Lisbon for another amazing experience throughout the whole week of the event and the warmest hospitality ever...We are counting to November 2018 for more innovative and life-changing technologies, in the most important conference on the planet regarding the digital field!

Don't miss our next post towards the 29th of the month, featuring startups from the Alpha and Beta areas at Web Summit, plus shortcuts from a design exhibition uniting two enormous cultures!-))

Until then, stay fabulous!
A4D-D4A

ReDESIGNing Values for the Post-Digital Era: Important lessons from the Web Summit 2017, Lisbon, Portugal (1.0)

Photo above: In the Beginning was the Word...Paddy Cosgrave, CEO and co-founder of Web Summit in action, during his opening speech at this year's event.

International media call it the "Davos of Digital Technology". The truth is that Web Summit is far more that just another international forum, it is all about scratching the surface, discovering the crucial people and technologies and not just the tycoons, the royalties, the rockstars of the web technology trade. A true treasure lays underneath, therefore a revolution regarding all the important aspects transforming our everyday living, our society, our conscience.

Some quotes, questions, remarks and revelations that mostly engaged, inspired and animated the audience during this Web Summit 2018, on key terms such as Super-intelligent AI, Lawful Algorithms, AI Malevolence vs AI Competence, dystopian future, cryptocurrency, (Initial Coin Offering) ICO, utility token, povertics, cyberhygiene, Appropriateness of Use, Wisdom Race.

Stephen Hawking, (Physicist, Cosmologist - in picture bellow): "...Many government officials ask: We don't give gorillas Personhood. Why give it to a Robot?...."

Bryan Johnson (CEO, Kernel - in picture bellow): "What if, in our cognitive system, we learn to destroy not our enemies but the concept of enemies or conflict?"

Margrethe Vestager, (EU Commissioner for Competition - in picture bellow): "AI algorithms should learn what they can or cannot do, according to democratic laws."

Carlos Moedas, (EU Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation - in picture bellow, on the right): "Diversity creates Innovation."

Michael Spence, (Vice-Chancellor and Principal, University of Sydney - in picture bellow, second from the right): "What graduate attributes you need to have in order to tell Machines what to do and not the opposite?"

Ilonka Jankovich, (Venture partner, Randstad Innovation fund - in picture bellow, first from the left): "Storming, Norming and Forming your startup: as a founder (you have to) be the Role-Model".

Dick Kramlich, (Chairman, Green Bay Ventures): "Investors should be stricter about indiligence: the frame of (sexual) harassment at work."

Tim Draper, (Founder, Draper Associates): "...Banks are so heavily regulated right now, that they are pushing out anybody who's willing to open an account with 3 euro initial capital as a deposit...".

Professor Einstein Robot (Hanson Robotics), in conversation with Sophia the Robot and Ben Goertzel (Chief Scientist Hanson Robotics, CEO SingularityNET) - watch a shortcut bellow and the full video here: "It is not a Technology problem to make a positive future between Humans and Robots. It is a VALUES problem."

                                     

"Any company or institution, that does not work as a Startup by 2020, it will become obsolete and eventually will vanish. It just won't be able to keep up with the pace".

Whether it has to be AI employment to reform our brain in order to respond differently to many challenges and manage critical problems alternatively or even to provide academic support to acquire transdisciplinary competences not just skills- the ethical side of the AI industry is again one of the capital issues in this year's Web Summit. Democracy is in the centre of the operations of an investment strategy that is definitely slower but also more dedicated to pluralism and a Fair Play policy involving all sides, exploring all potentialities, discarding predators. The future of work seems to be brighter with a more precise mindset, focusing on the personality and not just a dry, academic curriculum or a series of consequent positions. The importance to be earnest remains an issue, because sexual harassment is not just a case of misconduct also implicating the global platforms of the digital game, but a deeper institutional reality that affects businesses worldwide. Monetary systems emerge ahead with possibilities of different digital currencies, that can guarantee a macroeconomic, sustainable marketing and provide credible assets, now that the previous capitalism shows somehow inadequate for stability in the long run. 

Design is always present and it remains a Factor. Stay alert for our next post on Evolutive Digital Technologies*: A NEW Terminology of Examples, powered by Web Summit 2017.

To be continued!-))
A4D-D4A

WEB SUMMIT 2017...GETTING THERE.

Web Summit 2017 is kicking off in less than 48 hours. The biggest technology-and-beyond congress on the planet, with a rich program of very important speakers from all over the world- will reveal the high-tech essential normcore alongside with the most unbelievable technologies of the future. Furthermore, parallel events and round tables regarding technology and gender, social issues and politics - will take place plus all sorts of artistic manifestations and gatherings. Lisbon becomes a network city of light-speed developments in the digital field and every science liaising with it. A4D-D4A: your favourite blogzette, will resume key-points from mega-speakers, interviews, inventions and schemes and will lay it before your very eyes.

Stay tuned for videos and lots of goodies and of course our FIRST Web Summit 2017 dedicated post around the 12th of November!-)
Until then,
Peace, Love & Design*
*A4D-D4A