By Ela Darling, co-founder of Gamelodge

The process of building an indie video game, especially for Virtual Reality, can be an arduous years-long endeavor. Becoming a professional game developer takes years of specialized study, building connections, and mastering emerging technology, with the reward of working in an exciting creative field. Like any industry, it takes focus and dedication to become a pro. But this barrier of entry can be a limitation on new, diverse game concepts.

For an aspiring game developer without a background in tech, the path to creating a game can be long and daunting, especially for VR. Between navigating the esoteric nuances of a game engine and learning complex coding languages, it can take months to even approach the starting point of development. Identifying bugs and merging branches with a co-developer makes the process even longer. But a new application called Gamelodge seeks to accelerate that process.

It can take months to even approach the starting point of development
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For an aspiring game developer without a background in tech, the path to creating a game can be long and daunting, especially for VR
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Gamelodge, is a new platform that serves as both a depot for games made by other users and a stepping stone for aspiring game developers. It is a cooperative game engine that offers users an all in one opportunity to design, script, and share game ideas socially in VR and on desktop. It aims to resolve common pain points in game development, such as the tedious write, compile, distribute, test process, by eliminating the need to compile code and allowing users to build and test together in real-time. The application is available on Kickstarter through August 22, 2020.

Existing applications that have attempted to offer a sandbox game building environment have a variety of limitations that Gamelodge overcomes. Roblox has become popular with young gamers, but falls short on graphical fidelity and VR controls. Other options that thrive in VR suffer from limited scripting accessibility, poor control systems, and often don’t offer desktop support. These shortcomings are core competencies in Gamelodge.

Gamelodge, is a new platform that serves as both a depot for games made by other users and a stepping stone for aspiring game developers
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From start to finish, a user with no experience with complex game engines or knowledge of code can build a game in a weekend. Objects, particles, and textures can be easily uploaded to the shared database, or users can drag and drop objects from the existing library of models to start building a scene. Users can make games without writing a line of code with the in-app scripting library. New scripts can be swiftly written in Miniscript and immediately applied without compiling a new build or exiting the program. The whole process can be done collaboratively with other users in-game.

Only 20 percent of game released games make a profit
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From start to finish, a user with no experience with complex game engines or knowledge of code can build a game in a weekend
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Even experienced developers can find value from a tool that allows for such swift creation. One study showed that just 20% of released games make a profit, which means a lot of time, money, and energy is lost on games that don’t resonate with their audience. For a creator who is debating the direction to take their next project, the ability to build and test game concepts in an easy and accessible environment can be a form of early market research. An early draft of a game idea, built quickly and shared within the community, may help identify which aspects resonate with players and which parts miss the mark.

In the ever-growing yet slowly diversifying community of game developers, new tools that help democratize the industry are more important than ever. Broadening access to both creating and testing games could reduce developer resource waste and expand the voices and concepts showcased in the game world. Ultimately, a space that allows anyone to play and create games with friends collaboratively across platforms could break down some of the barriers in game development and empower a new community of creators.

In the ever-growing yet slowly diversifying community of game developers, new tools that help democratize the industry are more important than ever
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To become a chef, you must attend culinary school, but you don’t need a culinary degree to cook a good meal. With tools that increase accessibility to game development, you don’t need an engineering degree to build a good game.

About the author, Ela Darling, co-founder of Gamelodge

Ela has a diverse background in Virtual Reality spanning over six years. Cofounder of GonzoVR, a live VR broadcasting platform, and Gamelodge, a comprehensive sandbox game builder. She has spoken about various aspects of VR at conferences all over the world including a TEDx talk in 2016, and is considered a pioneer in certain verticals in the industry.

The post Expert View: Eroding the Barrier to Entry in Game Development appeared first on Tech Trends.

Fail fast culture is essential to creativity and innovation, but what does good, creative failure actually look like?

One of the most overused and misunderstood doctrines in tech is “Fail Fast” or some variation thereof. We have got used to celebrating a culture where it is permissible for most start-ups to flounder in their first year (or even a few months) of poking their head over the parapet, and for entrepreneurs to squander millions on the road to that unicorn valuation.

Fail Fast is one of the most overused and misunderstood doctrines in tech
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We have got used to celebrating a culture where it is permissible for most start-ups to flounder in their first year
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Innovation does require the space for creative people to take risks and try new things, and it stands to reason that a good proportion of those ideas won’t work the first time around.

Like fat, not all failure is created equal, however. There’s definitely such a thing as “failing well”, just as eating olive oil, salmon and avocado is healthier than scoffing down a deep-fried Mars bar.

Innovation does require the space for creative people to take risks and try new things, and it stands to reason that a good proportion of those ideas won’t work the first time around
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Like fat, not all failure is created equal
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The idea behind good failure is to learn quickly from your mistakes and incrementally modify your approach until you perfect an idea enough to reach the tipping point of success – or run out of money – whichever comes first.

But what do good and bad failing cultures actually look like in the real world? Funnily enough, the best examples I’ve seen recently have come from two UK conferences, neither of which was hosted by a technology company.

The idea behind good failure is to learn quickly from your mistakes and incrementally modify your approach until you perfect an idea enough to reach the tipping point of success – or run out of money
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Failing the smart way

It might come as a shock to those locked inside the Silicon Valley bubble, but the concept of embracing failure isn’t a tech industry invention at all. It has, in fact, long been recognized as an essential part of the creative process for many industries. And UK cosmetics company Lush shows how that can work even in a, extremely competitive retail environment.

At their creative showcase in Manchester last week, Lush displayed a dizzying array of products – many of which weren’t yet available in shops – but that is nothing new in itself. From its earliest days, their R&D process involved constantly trying out new formulations, often discontinuing other products to make room for them in their shops. Customer feedback was always greedily gathered, and sales figures pored over, so that products that failed to hit the sweet spot were quickly withdrawn to make room for the next wave, and so on.

It might come as a shock to those locked inside the Silicon Valley bubble, but the concept of embracing failure isn’t a tech industry invention at all
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Over the years, that has seen the company build up an extremely loyal customer base which appreciates the fact that Lush tangibly listens to them and values their input (hundreds of punters in Manchester queued up for hours and paid over £20 a ticket for the privilege to attend the showcase, which would be a tall ask for any other retailer to say the least) and also grow into an international chain which appeals to an increasingly broader audience keen on ethical, animal-friendly and plastic free cosmetic alternatives.

Which is why, although they’re relative newcomers to the digital space, Lush sounds credible when it talks about its technology roadmap, currently being developed under the leadership of Jack Constantine, son of Founders Mark and Mo.

although they’re relative newcomers to the digital space, Lush sounds credible when it talks about its technology roadmap
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If there was ever a case study of turning failure around and coming out smelling of roses (and many other delicious things) it’s probably Lush
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From AI and image recognition to help customers navigate their sometimes bewildering products, to 3D Printing and VR/AR tech that will allow you to virtually try on their new makeup range, it all makes sense in the context of their ever-evolving approach. It’s an ethos of failure-as-a-stepping-stone-to-success that filters from the top.

Before starting Lush, Founder Mark Constantine went bankrupt with a venture called Cosmetics to Go, which drew in the punters, but ultimately could not make the numbers work to turn enough of a profit. He lost everything and went back to the drawing board with those hard lessons learned. That experience was later enshrined in the Lush Manifesto (which they printed for years on every shopping bag) which stated their fundamental belief in the right to lose everything and start again. If there was ever a case study of turning failure around and coming out smelling of roses (and many other delicious things) it’s probably Lush.

And the other way…

At the Conservative Party conference, the Chancellor of the Exchequer repeated the party line that unspecified technology can somehow magically provide a solution to fundamental and complex political problems
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In contrast, for a glaring example of what embracing failure in a counter-productive and reckless way looks like, we need look no further than the on-going Brexit saga, and a very different gathering happening this week in the UK.

At the Conservative Party conference, the Chancellor of the Exchequer (for those not familiar with UK politics, this is the man who is basically in charge of running the country’s economy) repeated the party line that unspecified “technology” (possibly Blockchain?) can somehow magically provide a solution to fundamental and complex political problems, including the extremely thorny issue of free movement across the Irish border.

For a glaring example of what embracing failure in a counter-productive and reckless way looks like, we need look no further than the Brexit saga
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Now, some might generously argue that this figure-it-out-as-we-go-along and hope for the best determination to press on with Brexit is akin to the gospel of Zuckerberg, who has done rather well for himself in moving fast and breaking things (such as democracy). Yet the really scary thing is, even Facebook seems to have a more coherent strategy for where they’re headed than the UK government at this stage.

Constructively using failure to innovate is like feeling your way around a room in the dark. The idea is to gradually build up a mental map of where obstacles and dangers might lie as you bump into them, until you find a path through.

Constructively using failure to innovate is like feeling your way around a room in the dark
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What Brexiteers are doing at the moment, however, amounts to having a map of that dark room which clearly shows a cliff and deliberately choosing to ignore it, all the while insisting that the only way forward is to run towards said cliff at full speed and with a jolly heart.

A culture of failure is in essence a culture of learning, and learning has nothing to do with stubbornly choosing to ignore facts. On the contrary, it requires the humility to recognize your mistakes and pivot accordingly. Sadly, there seems little chance of that at this point, and we’re all probably be saddled with the costly consequences of their disastrous failure for years to come. It’s a sad state of affairs when the hippies making the giant bath bombs are the sensible ones you wish were in charge.

A culture of failure is in essence a culture of learning, and learning has nothing to do with stubbornly choosing to ignore facts
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This article was originally published on The Next Web

The art of failing well https://t.co/OazzzZWFDE

— TNW Contributors (@TNWcontributors) October 3, 2018

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Rinse and Repeat appeared first on Tech Trends.

New CreativeXR funding programme awards £3500 for the development of immersive storytelling projects.

Digital Catapult and Arts Council England just announced the shortlisted five projects that will receive a total of £350,000 in funding to develop immersive storytelling experiences. The funding provided by the programme was achieved alongside match funding and support from a range of creative technology and cultural organisations such as Innovate UK and Immerse UK, and is part of a broader effort to support the development of the UK’s VR industry, which is expected to grow by 76% to reach £801m by 2021, making it the largest and fastest-growing VR industry of any country in EMEA.

Digital Catapult and Arts Council England just announced the shortlisted five projects that will receive a total of £350,000 in funding to develop immersive storytelling experiences
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These projects have all graduated from the CreativeXR programme, which was created to encourage content makers to explore creative storytelling in immersive mediums such as Augmented, Virtual and Mixed Reality. Designed to raise artistic and technical ambition, the programme has enabled the development of new skills, tools and business opportunities. Teams have been given workshops and marketplace events with industry leaders as well as access to Digital Catapult Immersive Labs in London, Brighton, North East Tees Valley and Belfast.

These projects have all graduated from the CreativeXR programme, which was created to encourage content makers to explore creative storytelling in immersive mediums such as Augmented, Virtual and Mixed Reality
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Run by the organisations in collaboration with commercial partners including Google, BBC and Sky, the programme is dedicated to supporting the development of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) products and their application within the creative industries. When it launched in October 2017, over 1,000 teams registered their interest, with 250 submitting proposals for the Open Call.

Experiences range from letting you participate in the ‘Dambusters’ mission to an interactive theatre journey which puts viewers in the shoes of a father and son coming to terms with the onset of dementia
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This pool was finally narrowed to a group of 20 – no easy task according to Jeremy Silver, CEO of technology innovation centre Digital Catapult. The final five projects will now have the chance to develop those projects further with this funding, making those experiences publicly available.

These experiences range from letting you participate in the famous ‘Dambusters’ mission to an interactive theatre journey which puts viewers in the shoes of a father and son coming to terms with the onset of dementia.

“CreativeXR has allowed content creators to focus on R&D and develop riskier projects aimed at the arts and culture space,” says Silver. “The value of taking these projects to full production will be both in surfacing new creative approaches and ways of working, but also in stimulating commissioners and giving confidence to investors in this new medium, where the UK has such world leading strengths.”

CreativeXR has allowed content creators to focus on R&D and develop riskier projects aimed at the arts and culture space
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The successful projects all use immersive technologies, combined with a range of traditional storytelling techniques such as documentary, poetry and theatre to provide audiences with unprecedented cultural experiences. The funded projects are:

• Fatherland by Limbik, Norwich & Portsmouth: An interactive theatre experience using real-time motion capture and VR technology that brings to life the journey of a son and father coming to terms with dementia and disembodiment in a modern world. Completed in partnership with University of Portsmouth.
• Traitor by Pilot Theatre, York: A two-player interactive high stakes thriller, combining VR with live action, completed with support from Pilot Theatre
• When Something Happens by Boom Clap Play, Belfast: An epic journey through the history of the cosmos – from the big bang to modern life – written and narrated by poet Boston Williams. Completed with support from Northern Ireland Screen and Northern Ireland Science Festival
• Immersive Histories by All Seeing Eye Ltd, Stroud: An immersive VR experience allowing an audience to physically step into history and experience the famous ‘Dambusters’ mission from on board Guy Gibson’s Lancaster. Completed with support from Other Set and the RAF Museum
• Municipal Dreams (working title) by VR CITY LTD, London: An immersive journey into the complicated history of the notorious Aylesbury Estate, using stereoscopic 360 video, photogrammetry and 3D modelling. Completed with support from Royal Holloway University, Creation Trust and IDFA

“Each of the five organisations are developing cutting edge, immersive content, and are illustrating what the UK can contribute to this growing global market. In time, we look forward to audiences enjoying the immersive experiences that they are creating; connecting with art, history and culture in ground-breaking new ways,” adds Francis Runacres, Executive Director of Enterprise and Innovation, Arts Council England.

The UK has a history of supporting budding sectors with such projects and initiatives, and it has proven a highly successful strategy both from a creative perspective and in boosting the Creative Industries, which account for a large proportion of the nation’s GDP. It will be interesting to see if an how other countries such as the US follow suit in fostering innovative immersive content production.

The UK’s VR industry is expected to grow by 76% to reach £801m by 2021, making it the largest and fastest-growing of any country in EMEA
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This article originally appeared on The Next Web

Investing in creative storytelling https://t.co/etb4RQx9s0

— TNW Contributors (@TNWcontributors) July 30, 2018

To find out how to leverage VR/AR/MR in your enterprise, Tech Trends offers bespoke Virtual Reality Consultancy support

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio and @techtrends_tech on Twitter.

The post Supporting Creative Storytelling in VR appeared first on Tech Trends.

Tech Trends takes a look at the first-ever government run crowdfunding platform and what it hopes to achieve for the municipality of Biscay.

Crowdfunding has come a long way over the last decade or so, and it is fair to say that most people are not only familiar with the concept but have supported some sort of crowdfunded project themselves. Increasingly, therefore, the model is being seen as an essential part of the mix where it comes to financing not only individual projects and companies, but entire ecosystems. We’ve recently reported on such moves being made in places like Cornwall.

Crowdfunding has come a long way over the last decade or so
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The municipality of Biscay (Bizkaia) has gone a step further, however, launching its own equity-based crowdfunding platform. This is the first of its kind to be officially backed by a government for the purpose of encouraging investment and entrepreneurship in the region. The idea is to encourage ordinary people to invest in Basque start-ups by connecting individual small investors and companies seeking funding.

Biscay has launched its own equity-based crowdfunding platform, the first of its kind to be officially backed by a government
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The Crowdfunding Bizkaia website is initially launching with four start–ups, with another four set to follow shortly. The target is to manage between ten to twelve projects a year, selected from a pool of around thirty applicants currently being considered.

Biscay is known for innovation in many areas including its world-renowned gastronomy and education system
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Crowdfunding has become an essential part of the mix in financing not only individual projects and companies, but entire ecosystems
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Biscay is known for innovation in many areas including its world-renowned gastronomy and education system which is amongst the top in Europe and where most parents nowadays opt to have their children be taught in the Basque language.

Once a regional start-up is accepted onto the platform, it has fifty days to raise its funding target from the public. Once that is achieved, they will also have the option to apply for the government to match the amount raised – up to €30,000 per start-up. Bizkaia has initially set aside a €240,000 fund for this purpose.

This is not just about providing start-ups with seed investment, however, as each business accepted onto the platform also receives a year of free business mentoring and support, helping them reach their growth targets and opening new avenues for financing.

Citizen investors from any country are able to invest a minimum of €75-1,000 and a maximum of €3,000 per project
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Once a start-up is accepted onto the platform, it has fifty days to raise its funding target from the public
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Unlike private sector platforms such as Crowdcube – which allow any business to pitch for funds, the Crowdfunding Bizkaia platform only hosts business which have been vetted by the government to ensure that investors’ money is only channeled towards viable projects.

Businesses from any sector (apart from real-estate and finance) can apply as the aim is to promote a broad range of ventures to strengthen the economy and entrepreneurial ecosystem in the region. Start-ups seeking investment must therefore be headquartered in Biscay, which is hoped will also encourage outside companies to come to the area.

“We want to help grow good projects and attract the best ideas to the territory. Crowdfunding Bizkaia is our new and unique financing tool that offers investors the security of projects that have been screened by an expert team for their economic and financial viability,” says Imanol Pradales, Regional Deputy of Economic Development.

The four companies initially joining the platform are We Are Testers, an online marketing research tool; WATS, a social initiative created to eradicate violence in sports; FractalMed, a mathematical tool that forecasts disease progression in multiple sclerosis patients; and PoliMaker, a biodegradable thermoplastic polymer capable of becoming almost anything.

Juan Manuel Villanueva from FractalMed, said that crowdfunding is an important tool for developing social capital as well as helping start-ups overcome initial barriers such as financing.

Each company that applies to be accepted onto the platform is subjected to a rigorous financial and economic appraisal– similar to the due diligence process which would be conducted by a venture capital firm. This is very different from the situation in similar crowdfunding platforms where it is mostly up to the individual investor to assess the start-up’s viability. This high level of government scrutiny is a key differentiator for investors.

‘Citizen’ investors from any country are able to invest a minimum of €75-1,000 (varying from project to project) and a maximum of €3,000 per project. The annual maximum contribution each investors can make to start-ups on the platform is €10,000. Each company sets its own minimum contribution level, which translates into investor shares and eventually yields a return when a company makes a successful exit.

Each company that applies to be accepted onto the platform is subjected to a rigorous financial and economic appraisal
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This exit strategy again can differ from start-up to start-up, but examples of typical exit plans can include share buyback schemes, IPOs, or trade sales. As part of their investor pitch, each company provides an exit timeline, giving an estimate of when funders can expect a return on their investment.

Businesses accepted onto the platform also receive a year of free mentoring and support
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Another differentiating factor from traditional equity crowdfunding platforms is that the commission fees are substantially lower than the market average– with just 1% of the investment value going to Crowdfunding Bizkaia to cover its running costs.

This platform is just one part of the Biscay government’s larger effort to boost sustainable growth and situate the Basque Country as one of Europe’s most attractive destinations for entrepreneurs.

Each start-up provides an exit timeline, giving an estimate of when funders can expect a return on their investment
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One recent example of this was the launch of the Euro Fond Innova, where ordinary citizens can invest between £3,000 and £5,000 in a fund that will lend to Biscay start-ups in exchange for a tax rebate. The fund aims to raise €100 – 120 million to support Basque business. This is coupled with a range of other investment funds aimed at promoting local innovation. These include the Development Fund, a financing tool focusing on SMEs in the technology sector; FEIS (Entrepreneurship and Social Innovation Fund), geared towards socially beneficial business ventures; and Mikro, aimed at developing microenterprises, including cooperatives.

The Deputy General of Bizkaia, Unai Rementeria, explained that his government’s priority is to foster start-ups and encourage business growth through a strong industrial policy and a business-friendly taxation system. “This is one of many measures that makes Biscay an attractive place for entrepreneurship with the ability to attract projects from other parts of the Basque Country and Europe,” he concludes.

The platform is just one part of the Biscay government’s effort to boost sustainable growth
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Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasioon Twitter.

The post Crowdfunding Boosting Innovation appeared first on Tech Trends.

As any entrepreneur will tell you, failing is an essential part of the technology ecosystem, and the quicker the pace of advance, the faster an innovation can go from darling child to forgotten footnote

The infographic below digs up some of the bigger flops of the past few years, which have crashed and burned – or merely fizzled out after much initial hype and widespread buzz.

Failure is an essential part of technology and entrepreneurship
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Those involved in the latest Tech Trends might do well to study some of this recent history, lest they fall into the trap of making some of the same mistakes . VR, I’m looking at you…

New technologies can quickly crash and burn, or simply fizzle out
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Looking at how some of this doomed hardware has actually increased in value is also a reminder that mistakes are often a booster as far as collectability is concerned – from wrongly printed stamps to awkward mobile phones, failure can be a relative concept and value is in the eye of the beholder. Makes you wonder what an Oculus might sell for in 20 years’ time.

We look at some collectible doomed tech
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How Much Are Tech’s Biggest Failures Worth Today? – An infographic by the team at SilverDoor.co.uk

For companies looking to get into Immersive technologies such as VR/AR/MR/XR our Virtual Reality Consultancy services offer guidance and support on how best to incorporate these into your brand strategy.

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedInand follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Infographic: How Much are Tech Fails Worth Today? appeared first on Tech Trends.

On Friday 24^th March, Tech Trends will make its way to Switzerland to what has become a highlight of the tech entrepreneurial calendar – the annual START Summit. Organized by a diligent team from the University of St. Gallen, it has become Europe’s leading student-run conference for entrepreneurship and technology attracting more than 1500 attendees last year and already nearly sold out for its 2017 edition.

I will be hosting a fireside chat discussing the potential of Mixed Reality technology to transform education and training. My guest will be entrepreneur Alex Yakubov, CEO and Founder of HoloGroup, a startup that develops apps and solutions for Mixed Reality, including HoloStudy, which uses the Microsoft HoloLens platform to bring lessons to life through interactive 3D holograms.

What will this type of visually-led learning mean for students, teachers and for the next (and current) generation of people joining the workforce?

As well as gaining insight from Alex on the practicalities of developing Mixed Reality applications for education, their experience of crowdfunding, and his views on the future of the technology, we will attempt to explain the differences between Mixed Reality and Virtual Reality applications, and explore with the audience where the future of this exciting technology might lead. If you’re planning on being at the summit, be sure to join us, and feel free to say hello in person or on Twitter @alicebonasio

How will Mixed Reality change the landscape for teachers, students, and the future workforce?
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Very insightful #edtech conversation on #AR, #hololens and the future of education with Alex of @futureholo and @alicebonasio #startsummit pic.twitter.com/NvoHVImCl4

— Marcus Polke (@polkemarcus) March 24, 2017

The post Is Mixed Reality the Future of EdTech? appeared first on Tech Trends.

It’s another improbably sunny day in Helsinki; I’m told by the locals it’s not usually like this, but so far in a country best known for its Winter Wonderland landscapes I’ve been getting a tan.

Mehackit teaches young people programming through robotics, music and visual arts
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Finns are hospitable people and they also feel the urge to soak up the sun while it shines, so we head out to have our chat at a charming local restaurant to make the most of it. My hosts are (Co-founder & Troublemaker) Pia Henrietta Kekäläinen and (Chief Communications Officer & Wizard) Reetta Heiskanen from Mehackit, a start-up that teaches young people programming through an engaging mix of robotics, music and visual arts.

We want to teach young people technological self-confidence and the attitude that they can learn anything
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I start off by asking Henrietta about the road that led her to becoming an entrepreneur. Anecdotally, my impression of the start-up sector in Finland is that it has a healthy dose of female representation at all levels, and I ask her if it might have something to do with the country’s progressive laws which, for example, allow either parent to take generous parental leave as they choose.

I don’t have any official figures around female entrepreneurship in Finland compared to other countries, but I feel it is getting better. The biggest issue is still around investment, because a lot of the investor networks were traditionally male-only clubs, which made it extremely difficult for female entrepreneurs to make the connections needed to fund their ideas.

That said, it seems like Finland is well-placed to lead the way in addressing that problem. Back in 1906, while they were still part of the Russian Empire, the Grand Duchy of Finland was the first country in Europe to grant universal suffrage, which meant that all women, without exception, were eligible to vote and run for office as equals. In 1907 they elected an unprecedented 19 female members to its parliament. Today, with 40% female representation in government, they stand only behind Sweden in that particular metric.

Finland was the first country in Europe to grant women universal suffrage
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Six years ago Henrietta also considered embarking upon a government career, as she has always been interested in diplomacy. She spent a very interesting few months working at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland, where she organised the media program for dignitary visits, such as that of Vladimir Putin.

I learned a lot and had a lot of fun, but in the end my boss advised me that he thought that I needed something more fast-paced. That’s when I got involved with the Aalto Entrepreneurship Society.

This was back in the early days of Startup Sauna, which began as an informal gathering and eventually gave rise to hugely successful initiatives like Slush and fostered the growth of a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem in Finland.

Henrietta also became involved in teaching digital skills through her involvement in Rail Girls, a non-profit organisation that equips women and girls with the tools and inspiration to engage with technology.

We're great at being consumers but we want students to get their hands dirty with wires, sensors, and syntax errors
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These experiences helped pave the way for co-founding Mehackit in 2014, which she describes as a one-stop shop for schools to jump into creative technology education. The format focuses on providing a human mentor to initiate youths into technology principles and spark their interest developing digital skills.

I think that we are great at being consumers, but there’s a huge paradox in making the products so easy to use you don’t need skills, and thus keeping many people away from the process of actually creating it. We want to take down that curtain of simplicity, so to say, and get people’s hands dirty with wires and sensors and live loops and syntax errors.

During the 7-week course, pupils advance at their own pace and build personal projects, which can be as diverse as they like. Local university students are recruited as instructors, but school teachers can also participate and learn without the pressure of being the “technology experts” that can often be daunting when teaching digital natives.

During the 7-week course, pupils advance at their own pace and build personal and diverse technology projects
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The education system in Finland is one of the most well-regarded in the world, but it is also one that’s not prone to rest on its laurels. This makes it a good environment to test out innovative technology-based solutions, and it often leads the way in educational policy. So much so that starting this year coding will become a mandatory part of the school curriculum.

Coding became part of the school curriculum in Finland in 2016
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Mehackit are now looking to expand from high school to upper secondary level, and is also gearing up for international roll-outs in other Nordic markets like Norway and Sweden before moving on to countries like the UK, where the government has acknowledged the seriousness of the digital skills gap problem.

We want to bring technological self-confidence to youth, and the “I can learn anything” attitude is what is going to be extremely important to progress us as a species as the world around us shifts to a more automated society.

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio and @techtrends_tech on Twitter.

The post Teaching Programming with Creative Hacking appeared first on Tech Trends.

“Evangelist” is an overhyped term in tech, yet Chief Evangelist Aape Pohjavirta makes it work.

His enthusiasm is contagious, and after a few minutes chatting about Funzi – the start-up he founded two years ago – I feel like I’ve been drinking the Kool-Aid. Maybe it was the strong Finnish coffee that gave me that buzz, or perhaps it was the fact that Aape can use terms like ‘futurification’ without making it sound like empty nonsense. This is clearly a man on a mission, which he casually outlines as we sit in a swanky Helsinki coffee shop:

“We want a world with no wars, where everyone is healthy, happy and has a job.”

But what, I ask, are his more ambitious goals?


He laughs, but there’s no mistaking that the goals are deadly serious, he’s got an  impressive track record to back them up. Having been involved with education technology since the 80s, he collaborated with some of the early Apple pioneers. Over the decades that followed, he experienced the hype around e-learning and multimedia as well as the meteoric rise of social media and mobile. But, he says, they all failed to live up to the promise of truly revolutionising education.

“The education industry is fragmented and works in silos. There is no global driver. When you look at EdTech companies they usually start off by segmenting themselves by topic, language and geography, so you cannot scale, you’re always just jumping from niche to niche.”

As a friend of his – Chief Technology Officer at Stanford University’s School of Education Paul Kim – once put it, the current education system is simply incapable of reforming itself because everyone in the system is already a product of that system, so disruption needs to come from outside.

“You don’t need any new inventions in order to digitise the whole system of education delivery. Everything you need is already there. The only reason why this hasn’t happened is because publishers of educational books have always been hugely profitable, so disruption in that space won’t come from them. We’re doing to education exactly what Google did to search. We’re destroying other people’s business because other people’s businesses have been wrong.”

We want a world with no wars, where everyone is healthy, happy and has a job
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In order to really shake things up, they started by first looking at how people were using their mobile devices, and how they would best learn through them. Funzi essentially works on the premise that when people can focus on learning the things that they’re good at, and that they’re interested in, education – delivered through technology – can have a much bigger impact

“It’s not about doing the same things better, but about doing better things. We’re using mobile to liberate people from education so they have the freedom to learn.”

Their business model is based on learning outcomes, where user have access to all the content for free, but pay for certification if they wish to validate that learning externally. It’s a powerful concept, since users can be confident that the course works for them before ever making a payment – if they make it at all. And looking at the numbers, that strategy does seem to make the product very ‘sticky,’ meaning that 20 out of every 100 users that try it come back the next day, week and month, with sessions averaging 8 minutes. Impressive stats in an age of information overload and short attention spans.

“It’s a false choice between free learning and monetising, you can have both in this system. We can optimise the way that any learning is delivered anywhere, and we can do this at not cost to the user while still enabling the creation of valuable content and lucrative businesses.”

Another false paradigm, he says, is that EdTech is a competitive market: “This is a 6 trillion dollar a year industry that has to be digitised. 1 percent of that is still $60 billion. Divide that among a thousand different companies and that’s still $60 million each, so could you please tell me where the competition is?”

It’s not about doing the same things better, but about doing better things
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“We’re empowering people with skills to build their dreams” Aape says, pointing to the fact that over 40,000 people have taken their entrepreneurship course in Iraq alone. “We see from implementation how practical knowledge drives the birth of new communities and adds life to existing ones. It’s the desire and curiosity to learn new things that keeps us humans alive.”

At the same time, the global refugee crisis broke out, and like many in the tech community, Funzi felt compelled to help in any way they could (TechCrunch Editor Mike Butcher has been organising such global initiatives under the Techfugees umbrella since last year), so they leveraged the platform’s capabilities and scalability to help streamline the arrival and assimilation process for refugees—from finding reception centres and applying for asylum, to figuring out schools, work permits and the local language.

We’re empowering people with skills to build their dreams
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The next step in scaling up will be working with partners to reach users and deliver learning that’s relevant to them. “We know, for example, that there are 471 million Facebook users on mobile who said they were interested in education. Those are the people we’ll be targeting,” says Aarpe, who’s also cautiously optimistic about Facebook’s own education ambitions:

“We were at F8 (Facebook’s Developer Conference) this year and when I listened to MZ’s (Mark Zuckerberg) keynote it sounded like he was using my script,” he recalls. “From what I heard, he understands the huge responsibility that his organization has. I don’t know if it’s good or bad, right or wrong, but I do know he has a genuine interest in pushing the envelope in the only field that can ever really change the way the world works, and that’s education. At least he’s doing something… And when you look at the proposition, to deliver personalised, free learning to anyone, anywhere, what could be more beautiful, or more democratising? That’s exactly what we’re going to enable.”

To deliver personalised, free learning to anyone, anywhere, what could be more beautiful?
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Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio and @techtrends_tech on Twitter.

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