Pacificstream News
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May 07 - Magazine article on 'Creative Siberia'
Roy Jones, Director of Pacificstream on'his bike' - article published in April 07 following the CI workshop.
March 07 - The development of 'Creative Siberia'
Roy Jones, Director of Pacificstream with the Deputy Mayor of Krasnoyarsk following a presentation to the City Hall on the British Council's proposals for the develpment of the Creative Industries in the region.
Presentations:
"CI: Re-Thinking and Re-Imagining the City" - download pdf here
"Creative Clusters: Competitiveness & Success in the Post-Industrial World" - download pdf here
Krasnoyarsk Gallery click here
The goal of the proposed project:
To contribute to positive social changes in Russia by brining CI approach and expertise to Siberia region from the UK
Aim:
To develop an efficient model for creative clusters initiation & development in the industrial cities of Siberia
Objectives:
- To train 4 teams of change agents capable of starting, developing, sustaining and disseminating creative clusters in their cities (Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Irkutsk)
- To develop Creative Agency model in support of creative cluster, creative network, creative community and creative individuals
- To design a mechanism enabling local creative businesses support
- To facilitate the establishment of Creative clusters in the four Siberian cities
- To contribute to creative community and networking development in Siberia
Outputs:
- UK expertise of post industrial areas re-generation disseminated to Russia via appropriate adjustment to local contexts
- Positive long-term partnership established between the North West of England and Siberia
- CI recognised by local policy makers in Siberia as a meaningful tool for post-industrial areas regeneration
- CI viewed as a means for making industrial cities in Siberia comfortable for their citizens, creating unique image of a city, serving a good ground for winning in the world’s competition of cities
Jan 07 - Pacificstream is now part of the Euromed Network for Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for the Dialogue between Cultures
The Foundation is the first common institution jointly established and financed by all 35 members of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership. This far reaching partnership between the European Union and their partners in the southern Mediterranean region was launched at the Barcelona Conference in 1995. The declaration adopted at Barcelona strongly promotes regional cooperation in the economic, social and cultural fields.
The establishment of the Foundation in the ancient Egyptian seaport city of Alexandria underlines the commitment of the partners to work for increased cooperation and solidarity.
The Middle East as well as the southern and eastern Mediterranean region form an area of vital strategic importance to the European Union. The general objective is to transform the Mediterranean basin into a common area of peace, stability and prosperity.
The Foundation's main objective is to bring people and organizations from both shores of the Mediterranean closer to each other and to help bridging the gap between them. Particular importance is given to the development of human resources, while youth is the main target group.
Another priority is the promotion of tolerance among people by furthering exchanges between members of the diverse civil societies. The Foundation acts as Network of 35 national networks established by the Euro-Mediterranean partners.
For more information see: http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/euromed/euromed_foundation/index.htm
Dialogue between Cultures is essentially a dialogue between human beings, not between anonymous cultural entities. Present and future generations must, therefore, be given the instruments for dialogue. In the Euro-Mediterranean region, they need to be provided the opportunity to learn at least one foreign language, preferably more, and to acquire knowledge about all religions and cultural traditions that have shaped this region as crossroads of civilisations.
Jan 07 - Pacificstream joins CONSEN
CONSEN coop born in December of 2006 as the spin-off of the CONSEN EEIG Euro-Group A.E.I.E. with the aim to migrate and boost the grouping of members to a real business cooperation in the recent SCE legal form.
CONSEN coop is committed to the evolution of a networked world in which everything is smart and connected in a complex, ubiqutous and distributed - MeshUp - as information and communication environment which electronical micro-devices are first capable of generating and memorizing meaningful information and second capable of interacting and cooperating among themselves and with the external world for a effective, affective and assisted living and working ambient.
CONSEN coop works toward a networked world, in collaboration and cooperation, in reseach, development, promotion and business, for working, trading, learning and living.
CONSEN coop is part of CONSEN EEIG and actively support its mother company in Innovation and Technology reasearch project to developped solutions focused on Information, Communication and knowledge Society technologies.
CONSEN coop - in process of constitution and registration - is building a Open-Source community of cooperants, partners, and collborators and members to share, manage and exploit jointly their shared pool of knowledge and catalog of competences.
Oct 06- Pacificstream coordinates the Leonardo VIC Pilot Project
Initial meeting at Digitalinc, Liverpool
Sept 06- Seminar on the Creative Industries Development - Krasnoyarsk September 19th – 21st 2006
A brief report
Click here for pdf
Jan 06- Photographs of the Vircouns Liverpool meeting
Click here for links to photo gallery
Jan 06 - On Spatial Aspects of European Cultural Policy
[Non-additive European networking and 'excursionism' ('ekskursionistika')]
Click here for links to pdf
June 05 - Photographs of the Vircouns Vienna meeting
Click here for links to photo gallery
June 05 - Photographs of the Siberian Rock Scene
Click here for links to photo gallery
May 05 - Photographs by Yuri Antonov
Yuri works at Radiotechnic, a youth arts and culture organisation in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia. The young people there produce exciting multimedia work under the direction of Yuri and his colleagues.
APRIL 05 - Report of visit to Siberia
This was a very stimulating and enjoyable visit to the city of Krasnoyarsk, a relatively remote region which appears keen to establish international partnerships. The discussions were productive, the hospitality was superb, and thanks go to the British Council Russia for facilitating the visit.
Click here to read the report
MARCH 05 - DIGEX/ is off to Siberia
Roy Jones
has been invited to represent Merseyside by the British Council to
advise on the development of the ICT and creative industries in
Krasnoyarsk.
Click here
to see the article in Febuary Mersyside ICT Newsletter.
MARCH 05 - DIGEX/ is to work with LYNfabrikken
LYNfabrikken is situated in Aarhus, Demnark's second city and is devoted to extend people's knowledge of the arts, craft and design. Digex will be working with the Design Initiative in the NW and LYNfabrikken to help develop OPN> NETwork an online database of European designer makers.
Click http://www.lynfabrikken.dk to link to LYNfabrikken's web site and for more information on OPN>
MARCH 05 - eCulture Workshop Wednesday 16th March 2005 Natural History Museum London
About 100 delegates attended including representatives from Germany, Italy, Israel, Luxembourg and Liverpool!
Mainly academics but some SMEs, BBC, DCMS, ACE and museums.
Keynote speaker was Pat Manson, Head of Learning and Culture Unit, EC. She went over the main points of the work programme for the new call that will take place in May 2005. Deadline September 2005. With a target for projects to start May/June 2006.
- How to provide users with simple means of accessing and using digitised content
- Developing technologies to enable the maintenance of the digital heritage
- Less emphasis on capture with a shift to conceptualisation, models and access
- Strong relationship to knowledge technologies
- Towards more participative and creative use of cultural heritage by citizens and by cultural institutions, at all levels, through creative, online communities.
An indicative budget of 42 Meuros
Full set of ppt slides will be available on the Information Society Technologies web site:
Other important speakers were:
Prof David Arnold, University of Brighton, Coordinator of EPOCH a current eCulture project.
Alberto del Bimbo, University of Florence
Presentations by prospective proposers were the least successful aspect of the day as most of the academics just wanted to present their latest research. However, two of the most interesting were:
Stefano Tagliaferri
Pf2 Software Sri
Naples, Italy
Merav Mack
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Al Quds University
Cambridge Research
http://www.cambridgeresearch.co.uk/
Scheduled information day – 16th June Luxembourg.
Creative Industries Krasnoyarsk
To contribute to positive social changes in Russia by bringing Creative Industries approach and expertise to Siberia region from the UK and to develop an efficient model for creative clusters initiation & development in the industrial cities of Siberia
Report by Roy Jones on the way forward for the creative industries in the region
Seminar on the Creative Industries Development
Krasnoyarsk
September 19th – 21st 2006
A brief report by Roy Jones MFA
Why develop the creative industries…
The creative industries can bring wealth, opportunity, employment and regeneration to local, regional and national economies. This has been proved in the way the CIs have contributed to the regional NW economy. Supported companies move out of agency environments and achieve sustainable commercial success in their own right.
A creative industry agency can address the following major shortfalls in existing business support:
- Traditional areas of business support are not geared up to dealing with creative businesses;
- There are challenges with persuading talented entrepreneurs of the importance of commercial skills and;
- There are challenges with clients about the worth of their Intellectual Property
What is the definition of the creative industries?
“…those industries which have their origin in individual creativity, skill and talent and which have a potential for wealth and job creation through the generation and exploitation of intellectual property.”
This includes the following sectors: Advertising, Architecture, Crafts, Design, Designer Fashion, Film and Video, Interactive Leisure Software, Music, Performing Arts, Publishing, Television and Radio and in addition the cultural heritage, tourism and museum industries are identified as being closely related to the creative industries.1
The development of an agency or incubator…
The potential users of a Creative Industries agency will be emerging entrepreneurs, young startup companies, graduates from art and design schools, enterprise training organisations and specialised business advisors within the development of the creative industries.
The lack of creative industry specialist knowledge is a drawback as employees/start-up
entrepreneurs need access to specific advice and information about supply chains, networks and processes that are not common to other sectors. Although they have the talent and creativity to produce innovative products, the ‘creatives’ do not have the basic business gumption2, know-how or confidence that would convince a potential investor that they warrant the time and expense required of the due diligence process.
This development would address the following business development priorities:3
“to improve the skills and competences of people…”
A CI agency directly addresses this priority by developing very accessible and individual
guidance and business skills development and improving the quality of the professional
entrepreneurship by using and creating an environment that simulates the ethos and business support strategies that are found in business incubators. It also will facilitate positive attitudes
towards technological and organisational change that is required in today’s business world.
“to promote and reinforce the contribution of vocational training to the process of innovation …”
A CI agency directly addresses this priority by improving entrepreneurial endeavours and
promoting new media and innovation by ICT use, stimulating knowledge, assessment and
evaluation, increasing entrepreneurial spirit and business gumption by appropriate and suitable means.
“Developing relevant and innovative e-learning content”
A CI agency directly addresses this priority by stimulating individual knowledge and institutional knowledge by targeted knowledge transfer and providing a learning environment that balances generic business skills learning with the needs of the creative industry. This in turn will encourage the creative designers to see the relevance of ‘traditional’ business skills to the development of the company. The innovative aspects of a CI agency is an exciting engagement that encourages design conscious and design aware people to engage with training that at the same time supports the growth and development of the company.
“transfer of innovation”
This takes place through the agency and its relationship the business World. ‘Spin out’ as well as the ‘Spin in’ of businesses through the Innovative technology/knowledge/product transfer. It will also fast track sustainable business development through comprehensive business support and advice and guidance. Stimulated networking, an important aspect of the agency will also encourage participation. Knowledge transfer will take place by the natural clustering of like minded companies and people, by providing opportunities for synergy, collaboration and partnership and encouraging private enterprise.
The impact of the Creative Industries agency…
Short-term results of the project:
- possibility of offering specialised business training and support in the field of the creative industries for a large number of creative businesses in regions of post-industrial regeneration
- substantial new learning material and new technological approaches which will extend the
- current provision of generic business training to include the specific needs of ‘creative’ entrepreneurs
- creation of a new network of businesses and employees from the creative industries that will be involved with the development, assessment and dissemination of the methodologies
- incorporated into the agency
- development of professional business skills and tools for businesses and employees in the creative industries
- improvement of professional knowledge of the training needs of employees and entrepreneurs in the creative industries
- improvement of the development of post-industrial regeneration areas by the enhanced training of employees and entrepreneurs in start-up creative businesses and therefore
- meeting the already recognised potential growth of business within this sector
- reduction of unemployment in post-industrial regeneration regions because of the growth and development of the creative industries
- established network of virtual incubators (including the EU) with the cross-fertilisation of ideas and collaborative work
- involvement of women as new entrepreneurs
The way forward…
Defining what the way forward is for the agency. Is it to be an incubator, an agency or institution?
Is it culture or business or can you combine both?
Perhaps the way forward is to develop an agency that can support development. It would act as
an enabler and resource for information and support for networks, signposting creatives to other
agencies. The steps to achieve this could be:
- A scoping study/needs analysis of the embryonic creative industries in the Krasnoyarsk region.
- Liverpool Study Visit to see at first hand best practice in business incubation for the CIs. (Both virtual and actual examples of agencies operating on Merseyside)
- Seminar/conference to produce a strategy for the CIs – to continue the valuable work already achieved and to maintain the impetus of those involved
- Development of CI networks
- Development of resources including Virtual Agency
- Seeking financial support
- Refurbishment of a building to house a Creative Industries Incubator
- Promotion of Krasnoyarsk CI nationally and internationally
1 DTI definition
2 gump·tion n (informal)
- the courage to take what action is needed
- demonstrate initiative
- practical common sense and presence of mind
Labels:
PACIFICSTREAM PROJECTS
VirIncCreate - virtual incubator for the creative industries
This Leonardo Pilot project will develop a virtual business incubator for the creative industries using innovative ICT including, CMS, SMS and RSS feeds.
The project will provide specific business support and training for start-up creative companies.
Three key modules for the project will be
1. Content development
2. Online environment and collaborative communication tools development
3. Training programme
The content will include: Virtual Business Support, Virtual Mentoring, Networking and Collaborative Working, and a training programme covering generic and specific support. The virtual incubation process will follow these stages: ENTRY Protocol (Counselling and Application) - Pre-Incubation Activity - Incubation - Green housing (Preparation for independence and progress towards a stand-alone company) - EXIT Protocol.
Research into best practice clearly illustrates how effective business incubation is. However, within the creative industries graduates move towards self-employment in specialist workshops with only 11% of graduate designers progressed into major design companies. The traditional incubator environment is not suitable because of the specialist resources and needs of the industry yet these companies require generic and specialist business support that is delivered in suitable and appropriate modules with on-line support and training. Design graduates are reluctant to develop business skills and entrepreneurial acumen.
Additionally:
Traditional areas of business support were not geared up to dealing with creative businesses
There are challenges with persuading talented entrepreneurs of the importance of commercial skills
There are challenges with clients of the worth of their IP
This project will address the issues above and alleviate the lack of skills necessary to deal with them within the creative industries.
The virtual incubator will support start-ups from the creative content sector, that is, those developing innovative content within art and design industries. It will be developed as a best practice model for business incubation with the specific focus on developing an environment condusive to success within the Creative Industries. This will allow the virtual incubator model that will be developed to be flexible in it’s’ design and implementation and allow it to be adapted to a wide range of industrial sectors.
The aims of the project are to develop, research best practice, test, evaluate the impact, improve and disseminate and exploit an innovative ICT approach to targeted business training and development based upon business incubation.
Partners: Vefsn videregaende skole - Mosjoen Norway, Universitatea “Danubius” - Galati Romania, University of Antwerp - The Centre for Language and Speech - Antwerp Belgium, LYNfabrikken - Aarhus Denmark, Network for Experience Industries- Malmo Sweden, Technická univerzita v Kosiciach - Kosice Slovakia, Design Initiative - Liverpool UK, ANNUR-FORMACION-CULTURA - Badajoz Spain, Splinter Ltd - Liverpool UK, University of Central Lancashire - Preston UK, Innovationworks Ltd - Stockport UK.
Leonardo da Vinci
Period: October 2006 - September 2008
Medics on the Move
In collaboration with Universiteit Antwerpen, Applied Linguistics, Research Unit Language Studies, (BE)
The motivation for medical professionals to work abroad can range from a desire for greater practical experience, financial gain, challenging job conditions and/or scientific curiosity. According to a survey carried out by EMSA, the European Medical Students' Association1, German students for their specialist training preferably select England because of the good training facilities and the growing need for doctors, or Switzerland because of the good salary. But also France and the Nordic countries are very popular. Suffering from a shortage of qualified medical professionals, nearly every European country welcomes and even specifically encourages this “doctor traffic”. In 2004, Germany, to stick to the initial example, had around 18,0002 foreign doctors registered. 7,072 migrated from another EUmember state, mainly from Greece (1,265), Austria (1,130) and Poland (1,086). The biggest group of foreign doctors from outside the EU came from Russia (1,591), followed by Iran (1,265). Generally speaking, half of these people work in a hospital; the other half has his/her own practice. Also in other countries the percentage of foreign doctors is considerable. According to the General Medical Council in the UK only 162,000 of the 230,000 doctors registered are UK nationals; 12,000 come from EU countries as well as Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Liechtenstein and 60,000 from the rest of the world. These highly skilled medical professionals who, are mobile citizens, do not lack the motivation to study a foreign language to its full potential. However, in practice they are so busy acquiring all kinds of other knowledge and skills that they often just not seem to be able to interculturally operate as near-native professionals and remain stuck at a level of acquisition hovering around B1 (Common European Framework of Reference). On the part of the professional this does not only lead to faceloss when in an unequal power relation with his interactant (whether a professional or a patient), but often also to miscommunication and even communication breakdown. This has an adversary effect on the professional status of the practitioner, because these linguistic deficiencies can easily be interpreted as professional unqualification.
Innovative/European dimension • The tool helps medical professionals to overcome their linguistic deficiencies in a very efficient way: A unique vocabulary will focus on their linguistic needs in a way that a general language course can never do. The alternative to enhance the specific language skill would be one-to-one teaching, which is time consuming and not cost-effective. • Learning via a PDA is a flexible and self-directed way to broaden the expertise on medical topics (i.e. legal background) and terminology with tailor made information. • The tool enhances the communication between professionals and patient in a field were perfect understanding and precise communication is vital. • It will foster mobility within as professionals will be provided with a profound tool to progress from a level of acquisition around B1 (Common European Framework of Reference) to a level were they will be able to operate as a near-native. • Especially for this target group, with a heavy workload and often lack of time, a PDA gives the possibility to access the information everywhere and in a matter of seconds. The tool will enable this vocational group to continue learning despite of their busy schedules. • The project combines field expertise (hospitals, schools for Nursing and Social work) and scientific partners (universities/ schools for Nursing and Social work/training institutions). • The tool will also pay special attention to intercultural differences that are so crucial for mutual understanding. Centre for Language and Speech, University of Antwerp (BE)
Leonardo da Vinci
Period: October 2006 - September 2008
Virtual Cultural Perception -
To develop a visual rich asset system for cultural archives (inc.
heritage sites) that is fully navigable and available on
multi-platforms targeted at diverse audiences, from subject specialists
through to the general public
TRET
-The aim of Training in
Renewable Energy Technologies (TRET) is to enable managers and workers
in Environmental and Energy departments to put into practice EU
policies towards the use of Renewable Energy Technologies (RET) as a
basis for conservation and recovery of the environment.
link
to the TRET platform
link to the TRET
web site
link to the Review doc
Artificial
Immune System
Keywords:
Artificial Intelligence
Signal & Image Processing
Pattern Recognition
Immunology
eBusiness
eTraining
Partnership:
Digex Ltd – UK
Petita I Mitjana Empresa de Catalunya (PIMEC-SEFES) Spain
Tomsk University – Russia
Institute of Cybernetics – Uzbekistan
The Immunopathology Centre – Russia
Gomel Fr. Scaryna State University – Belarus
Summary
The purpose of this project is to collect a critical mass of experts
from fields of Mathematics, Information Technology, Life Sciences,
Economics, Social/Human Sciences, and Commercial Exploitation to
construct an ‘Intelligent System’ that builds upon recent advances in
Artificial Immune Systems and Computational Immunology. This will be a
scalable proof-of-concept dynamic parallel self-organising middleware
platform that relies upon web-based cellular automata algorithms to
dynamically mirror the actions and functionality of the human immune
system. Hence, further enabling the application and effectiveness of:
- Distance
spanning eLife (commerce, education, health etc.) - Metadata
ontologies - General
pattern recognition - Network
security
By
developing/implementing algorithmic paradigms that can identify
information from data streams, self-heal, react to friend/foe chaotic
stimuli and detect benevolent/malicious behaviour.
The goal of the project will be to establish a core of expertise and
develop an open source toolkit; the emphasis will be to distribute the
knowledge base via downloadable code/documents, explicit papers in
refereed journals and conference presentations. Besides the
aforementioned networking, this will benefit the academic community and
general society by:
Providing tools that will help shift informatic networks from a rule
configured/relational database centric paradigm to an organic dynamic
based philosophy
Reducing the need for endless software patches, virus detection
upgrades, interfering firewalls and archaic techniques in data
warehousing which tend to be labour intensive, inefficient, prone to
failure and cost organisations time and money
Enabling the automatic detection of security violations and identifying
’interesting’ behaviour by recognising systematic patterns out of
seemingly chaotic data streams. Thus freeing resources spent analysing
redundant data and catching malicious behaviour in the act
It is the hope that the core audience will consist of information
driven organisations which can become more globally competitive by
involving paradigms involving computational immunology and metadata
ontologies to alleviate problems and grasp opportunities.
EDORCO
- E-Developing of Oral Competence for Power Engineering Specialists
The project has been designed in response to a need brought about by a
new unifying EU markets with power energy. The process of
liberalisation and deregulation of energy markets will start in the
near future in 2004 and will last to 2009. / from the
document "Liberalisation on European energy market", European Union
Issues and Trends, /. As it was stated in the document " the Council
reached an agreement on a draft regulation on cross-border electricity
exchanges, which is crucial to the creation of a single energy market
as opposed to the coexistence of fifteen liberalised markets." The
document "Energy policy of the European Union" indicated energy to be a
key factor for Europe's competitiveness and economic development. The
aim of the project is to develop the online courses enhancing the oral
competence in two official European languages, English and French that
are important for vocational communication of power engineering
specialists (PES) on the European level. It is the first online
language course in English and French for the sector of energy
production and supply aimed at upgrading oral skills in
specific vocational areas.
The co-ordinator of the project is the Technical University of Kosice,
Slovakia. The partner countries involved in the project are the UK,
Belgium, Poland, Greece, Germany and Slovakia. All the products of the
project will be developed and disseminated in mutual cooperation of all
partner institutions within two years. After the procedure of
accreditation of the project products in all partner countries
the online courses in English and French will be delivered across
Europe. During the project EDORCO the learning materials will be
developed in two modules, English and French.
download
Dissemination Guide documents from here
download valorisation presentation from here
VIRCOUNS-
Lifelong Learning and
Carrier Counselling using new ICT approach and Tools
To improve
the access to continuing vocational training and the lifelong
acquisition of skills and competences by developinga new ICT based
approach and methods in vocational guidance and counselling - the
virtual cousellor (VIRCOUNS) The project will also promote
entrepreneurship, envisaging the development of new employment
possibilities
view
Quality Management Background document from here
view Quality
Management Plan example from here
LINGUA 2[04]
view
documents from here [EN]
view documents from here [DE]
DEPTH -Digital
e-procurement
techologies in health
view
documents from here
Health
Technologies Task Force link
Innovations
not reaching patients 17th Nov 04 - BBC News
Measures
are to be taken to speed up the delivery of lifesaving new medical
technologies to patients.
A report by the Healthcare Industries Task Force says
innovations do not reach patients quickly enough, partly due to
structural flaws in the NHS.
It recommends the NHS's Device Evaluation Service be modernised, and an
innovation centre established to stimulate to promote new ideas.
Health Minister Lord Warner has pledged to act on the recommendations.
The task
force was set up by the Department of Health and industry last year,
and charged with drawing up proposals to promote better use of medical
technology in the NHS.
Among its other recommendations is the creation of academic centres of
excellence to pioneer specialist treatments and techniques.It also says
NHS staff require improved training and education on the use of medical
devices.Better information should also be made available to patients
and the public on healthcare products.And a new data collection system
is needed to gain a clearer picture of the industry and its performance.
Sir Christopher O'Donnell is co-chairman of the task force and chief
executive of the medical equipment company Smith and Nephew.
He said: "A lot of technology is available, but it is a case of how can
we speed this up across the whole of the NHS and develop innovation,
and really improve patient health."
Sir Christopher said examples of technology which could be made more
widely available included MRI scanners, deep brain probes for
Parkinson's disease and new materials for orthopaedic surgery.
The NHS is not a unitary market, it is series of trust hospitals.
"What we are looking to do is have a consistent evaluation system for
new medical technology which is also locked into the procurement system
in such a way that once you have tested something, and got a firm
opinion on it, you can get it more widely used more quickly across the
whole of the country."
Sir
Christopher said it was particularly important to help smaller
companies gain access to the huge NHS market.
Health
Minister, Lord Warner, welcomed the report.
He said: "An enhanced Device Evaluation Service and a new Innovation
Centre are particular practical improvements we want to follow through
with. "We will continue to work in partnership to encourage the best
use of NHS resources and stimulate science and industry in the UK."
