CoSTAR at Beyond Conference Salford
Beyond Conference Salford, 25-27 November
The CoSTAR team attended the Beyond Conference at Salford, which featured some inspiring talks, panel discussions, a showcase, and an exciting programme announcement. Check out Caroline Parkinson’s blog below for her report and reflection.
We arrived in crisp but sunny Salford on Monday afternoon, and the first event we walked into in Media City was Abertay University, who lead the CoSTAR Realtime Lab in which ECA are a partner, running a quiz in the room on a live link! The crowd were very engaged and competing to win! We checked out the Media City showcase stands and listened to a panel on making it in Manchester as a start-up – the pros and unusually also the barriers as well. Very refreshing. The Edinburgh crew met up in the evening for dinner and a catch up on the afternoon’s activity in a very media-vibe-esque restaurant and of course general blethers!
The conference proper started on Tuesday, and the morning was opened by two Manchester creatives Cory Brown (Rapper & Music Producer aka Superlative) and Keisha Thompson (Artists and Poet) which was a great touch rather than straight into talks and panels. The mid-morning highlight was a short talk by Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester who spoke from the heart about the importance of creative industries and culture and acknowledged the role of music and media in particular in the identity of Manchester and the city’s continuing support for creative talent and creative business development.
The Beyond sessions had strong cities of culture theme with talks from Montreal and Nairobi, amongst others, as particular highlights. Laia Gash, Director of World Cities Culture Forum talked about the skills needed by creatives given 70% of the jobs in 2030 are unknown, and stated that culture is a golden thread to the city, and Brian Afande of Black Rhino VR (www.blackrhinovr.com) was not only an amazing presenter of his business but an advocate about how we should reframe our perception of Africa. (A few slides of these talks attached.) There were presentations from Wales and Scotland including our friend Mel Woods at DJCAD, both were examining the development of place and health and wellbeing in places and the power of creative people and the application of design and housing design in that mix.
In addition to the main theatre there were a few breakout rooms covering various topics in creative tech and AI, VR and immersive,
And a showcase on the top floor where you could get lost in other worlds, don headsets and weird shoes (!) for VR experiences and play!
CoSTAR came out in force – the crew from Edinburgh, National Lab, Foresight Lab and members of StoryFutures from York. Will Saunders of National Lab gave a talk on the Wednesday regarding CoSTAR and announced the Pilot & Prototypes Programme at £3.6m and Fiona Kilkelly launched the Enterprise & Commercialisation support programme worth £3m. And officially provided a long-awaited web link. More to come on those when we officially launch CoSTAR Realtime Lab in February at Waters Edge in Dundee.
As the event was in The Lowry I had to go visit the gallery and attach a couple of pics one is by Bill Brandt one of my fave photographers and of course a Lowry painting. Beyond was closed with a poem regarding the event by Keisha Thompson which is on the Beyond website – it was very moving. The talks are also on YouTube and can be accessed through the website; www.beyondconference.org
