The Bath Digital Festival is a collection of events celebrating the place of digital technology in all our lives, and the considerable impact that Bath has on the digital sector.
In recent years, Bath has become home to a number of innovative knowledge-sharing groups with a focus on web, mobile and silicon technologies. Bath Digital Festival is our celebration of this.
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XML Bath is the must-attend event for anyone focused on creative and commercial success in the digital age.
X Media Lab Bath gathers digital media and entertainment visionaries from around the world to share their insight into the rapidly evolving media, entertainment and technology industries. It is your chance to learn how to succeed in today’s environment and to thrive in tomorrow’s.
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Download a ringtone and join a global Orchestra!
Mobile Sinfonia has been conceived and composed by artist and musician Jem Finer, and is the result of his year-long work as Artist in Residence at the University of Bath, with the Department of Computer Science. Jem is creating a global orchestra made up of mobile phone users, with specially composed ringtones. Join the world-wide orchestra! Participate in Mobile Sinfonia by adding free ringtones to your mobile devices; then come to the Roman Baths for a celebratory opening!
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The University’s Centre for Digital Entertainment is hosting a public lecture on Thursday 15 March. The lecture will be delivered by Dr JoAnn Kuchera-Morin from the University of California, the researcher behind the creation of the AlloSphere.
The AlloSphere is a unique scientific instrument consisting of a 30-foot diameter sphere built inside a three-story cube. The AlloSphere is a physical place in which scientific data can be visualised, manipulated and explored.
The AlloSphere offers science an entirely new way to see and interpret data, in full colour and surround sound. Users can dive into the brain, feel electron spin, or even hear the music of the elements.
Put a face to your feed at Bath’s monthly meetup for Twitter fanatics! Make new friends, learn new things and maybe even gain a follower or two at this St Patrick’s Day special.
No speeches, no science, just beer and a chat. And if you want to bring your non-tweeting friends to be converted – the more the merrier.
We’ll be taking over the upstairs bar of the Westgate from 7pm.
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The motion:
Digital is killing the print industry: the presses will stop running in ten years
There is a revolution occurring in relation to how we compile, disseminate and digest information. For every evangelist of the new order, however, there are others who fear the consequences of this shift. Traditional business models are being destroyed, and some fear that deteriorating profitability will gradually erode the quality of journalism/authorship generally and infantilise us in the process.
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Film professionals, feature length and short film makers gather for an open discussion led by Nic Jeune and Rob Brown from MA in Feature Filmmaking at Bath Spa University.
Digital is changing how we make films. What do we learn from the new ways stories are told? What should we keep from the age of film? How low is low? What next for cameras? What will cinema look like in 2020? Come and join the lunchtime conversation with film directors, film producers, film financiers and film festival promoters.
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Gov West is a halfday mini-conference consisting of nine 20 minute, case study talks from digital leaders working in or with the public sector with a particular focus on speakers from the Westcountry.
We have confirmed speakers from Devon County Council, Jisc, Delib, BBSRC, Eduserv, Gallomanor Communications and the Government Digital Service with hopefully more to come.
Eduserv will be sponsoring drinks at The Cork pub in Bath after the event.
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Join local web agency Storm and friends for an open hack day. Developers and designers: bring your laptop, join a team and build some fantastic web and mobile apps. Everybody else: we’d love you to come along and see apps in the making!
If you’ve ever wondered how web and mobile apps make it from ideas through to real product, then this is an unmissable opportunity.
The ticket price includes a buffet lunch, along with free tea and coffee throughout the day!
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Teaching Digital is supported by Bath Spa University, and organised by Joelle Adams and Katharine Reeve.
The UK has the largest creative industries sector in the world, with our design, film, music, and publishing being internationally recognised for its excellence. However, Skillset and the Government warn that we’ll need digital skills to keep up, and that this needs to be happening in our schools and universities right now.
Our panel of lecturers and teachers from our local university, colleges, and schools will offer their experiences and explore the debates surrounding the teaching of digital creativity and the use of digital tools in education.
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Bath is home to Netcraft which has tested the security of many of the Internet’s best known names, including American Express, Visa and the Olympic Games.
However, on Tuesday 20th March, Netcraft will be security testing for Bath’s web application developers.
Or, if you don’t want to set us loose against your web site right now, join us in conversation on Tuesday to review the kinds of things that we look for, the types of problems that we find, and learn more about the latest innovations and the most illuminating mistakes in the struggle between attack and defence.
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The diversity and breadth of the internet is one of the most exciting things about it, but for so many people this can also be terrifying.
To help out, we’ll be offering unique sessions aimed at people who are less comfortable with technology, which will address some of the barriers to getting online. Whether it’s exploring a hobby on the web or having fun with photographs, recipes and music – or keeping in touch with family, we should be able to help.
The sessions are designed to be friendly and interactive, and will be delivered by experienced teacher David Kingston. David is a mentor for Digital Unite, one of the UK’s main providers of digital skills learning.
Each session is free and will last for 45 minutes. Booking is required and places are limited: if you are interested please use the form below to book a day and your preferred location. Once you’ve done that, we’ll be in touch to finalise timings.
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Organisations in the not-for-profit sector have a huge amount to gain from the web, but often the least amount of time or money to spend on it.
With the emergence of cheap web tools, and the ever-rising popularity of social media, the big questions in digital for not-for-profits are often around real world best-practice: hints and tips which help struggling teams make the most of the opportunities presented to them by digital.
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We’ll be joining forces with Moorlands School to run some sessions for children and their parents looking at how to get started with coding using MIT’s amazing “Scratch” tool.
Scratch is a programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art — and share your creations on the web.In this session, Doug Poole, a teaching and learning consultant, will take some Year5 Moorlands children and parents through the initial stages of designing a maze game using the incredible MIT Scratch tool.
The Big M and openMIC events during the Festival will focus on making money from mobile.
openMIC is a barcamp-style event for discussion and debate around the development of new mobile applications and mobile web services.
During the Festival, openMIC will consist of six speakers, each giving a 30 minute presentation aimed at giving an insight into a new mobile development.
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BathCamp is a monthly meetup for interesting people. We talk about web, mobile, design, hacking, startups…or anything else that we think might be interesting.
This month we’re celebrating Bath Digital Festival with a very special session – a Dragons’ Den format – where a panel of expert entrepreneurs and investors will consider ideas put forwards to them and support…or…otherwise… Read more →
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Imagine a large hall with lots of soldering irons, screwdrivers etc. together with a group of people who have no prior electronics experience, but want to learn how to make gadgets out of electronic components and then program them to do something fun.
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Learn something new, be amazed, amused and enthused.
TeachMeet BaNES (Bath and North East Somerset) is an informal gathering of those curious about teaching and learning, technology and pedagogy.
Anyone can share great ideas they’ve trialled in their classrooms, ask important questions or simply sign up to take part in learning conversations.
Unlike the unhelpful London cabbie who says “I wouldn’t start from here, mate …” Andy Braithwaite and Andrew Sandiford, both experienced business advisors, will identify some of the traps to avoid and help keep you on the right track when starting your own digital business. Read more →
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Part of Bath Digital Festival, BA1.FM presents Axis of Bass, an eclectic mix of digital music and visuals by some of the best Bristol/Bath electronic producers, DJs, singers and VJs. Read more →
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Ignite is a global event during which participants are given five minutes to speak about their ideas and personal or professional passions, accompanied by 20 slides. Each slide is displayed for 15 seconds, and slides are automatically advanced.
The aim of Ignite presentations is to ‘ignite’ the audience on a particular subject, to stimulate thought and action, and create discussion.
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This year The Big M (Bath Life Event of the Year 2011) is building on the huge success of the first event in 2011 by joining forces with the legendary mobile gathering, openMIC!
The Big M is running two intensive workshops for web developers looking to move into mobile.
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Even though your kids are – obviously – the best thing in the world, they’re also quite tiring, right?
Now think about how nice it’d be if you (geek dad*) were to head out on a Saturday morning with your kids to meet up with some fellow geek dads* in your area.
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Dark Energy Pro is part of the Academic Social Business Network project which is currently collaborated with the University of Bath.
To show our support towards the Digital Festival, Dark Energy Pro have joined up with both Bath Universities and College, to create 2 competition events designed to give the students of Bath an extra opportunity to perform as part of the Digital Festival. The Battle of the Bands Final has also been included into the program of events. All of the competition events will have free admission.
Discover the magical world of performers and digital artists, Kristin and Davy McGuire.
Davy and Kristin are an award winning duo who specialise in fusing performance, video projection and intricate paper models into unforgettable productions. Their projects range from music videos, commercials, animation films and installations to live theatre shows, dance performances and everything in between. Their client list includes Cirque du Soleil, Microsoft, Canal+, The Guillemots and Aardman. Their work has been viewed over 325K times on Vimeo last year and has also featured onthe BBC, on TV in Japan and France, as well as being published in Kerrang, Digital Arts, Contageous Magazine, Time Out, Metro and the Times.
Come and see Creative Bath’s iPhone app competition reach its finale!
Creative Bath will be running a competition throughout March during which 13-18 year olds will be asked to simply come up with a great app idea that is somehow connected to Bath.
During the Festival an expert judging panel of local digital media experts is coming together to hear pitches from all those who entered, with the winner having their design made by a real app development studio!
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Digital technology is changing the way we do business. From web apps to social media; businesses need to embrace digital technology in order to grow in today’s competitive market.
The Business Clinic is your opportunity to put forward your burning questions on how to integrate digital within your business for success. Our panel of industry experts include technology specialists, marketing experts and creative thinkers, all of who run digital businesses or embrace digital technology as part of their lives.
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BathSPARK and Bath Digital have come together to organise Bath’s very first tech awards – The SPARKies.
The aim is simple: there is so much great stuff happening here, so let’s celebrate everything that is great about Bath’s tech sector: the people, the companies, the products and services.
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