Posted in Digital Birmingham by Simon Whitehouse

Citilab: IT at the heart of a Community

2nd July 2009

Chris Pinchen works as a web content manager for Citilab, a “Space for Creating and Experimenting with Technology” in Cornellà, a municipality close to Barcelona in Catalunya.

Citilab in Cornellà

He had been hearing so much about the vibrant social media scene in Birmingham that he decided to come over last weekend and visit theBirmingham Social Media Cafe and the Moseley Barcamp and Amplified events as well as going down to the Custard Factory to take a look around.

Chris saw quite a change in the city. Born and brought up in Rugby, his stated memory of Birmingham goes back twenty years to when he would “get off at New Street, go to a concert at the Odeon, get beaten up by some Mods and then get the train back, licking my wounds all the way”.

I spoke to him about the Citilab project. Actually, I asked him one question and then sat back as he enthused about all of the marvellous stuff that they are doing. Cornellà is a fairly modern town which grew up around the textile industry and which is now trying to reposition itself in the digital economy. They have renovated one of the old, disused textile factories and turned it into a technology centre.

On the ground floor they have a large area open to the public which has digital mentors on hand to help out, but where people are also encouraged to help each other out. They also have classroom areas where a range of free courses are available. Citilab also hosts Europe’s first Lego MindstormsWorkshop, where kids can learn about technology by building and programming their own robots.

The foundation that the town set up have input from the local university, theUniversitat Politecnica de Catalunya, as well as Columbia University and theToronto School of Art and Design. Upstairs they have a business area which houses start-ups and more established businesses, and gives them access to research facilities as well as providing a Living Lab in the centre itself. eyeOS, a free, Open Source, Cloud Computing Operating System is one of the success stories to have already come out of Citilab.

But, although the technology is key to what the centre delivers, it is also the ethos which is quite remarkable. The interest here is in economic regeneration but also they want to explore the social benefits of new technologies. As such, they refer to themselves as the “first digital citizens laboratory in Europe”.

Some of us in Birmingham might consider that fighting talk, and not just the ex-Mods amongst us.

Digital Birmingham has already become a member of the European Network of Living Labs which Citilab is a part of. Councillor Tilsley has recently announced our ideas about creating a digital district within Birmingham to lead in innovation. And we also have Dave Harte’s ideas about Birmingham setting up a Centre for Excellence in Digital Participation. It seems that we have quite a lot in common with the people at Citilab.

Chris was keen on seeing what was going on in Birmingham, but he also extended an open invite to interested Brummies to go over to visit. It’s an offer that I’m really interested in taking him up on. Is anybody else up for the trip?

We have won awards for blogging, eGovernment, outsourcing but are we getting the best out of ICT? If you would like to see Birmingham among the best digital cities, help us identify what needs to be done.

I run Digital Birmingham, a small team aiming to make Birmingham the best. You can see our work at http://www.digitalbirmingham.co.uk.

We’d like to open up the Digital City debate. The Council has formed a Digital City Group. We would like to share our discussions openly and invite contributions. Our first posting is about the Power of Information (http://digicity.wordpress.com/2009/02/25/the-power-of-birmingham/). My question is what is the best way to engage you? Is it through posting the issues, sharing the meeting records, tweeting, streaming a video? Answers please.

If you to want to keep in touch, add our RSS feed to your reader

Will Perrin, who led the Government’s Power of Information Task Force presented at the first Council Digital City meeting. This report recognised the increasing use and value of social media and of data mashing. Informally he recognised that Birmingham was leading in the social media area (not the Council but the bloggers)
Will came back to Birmingham last week and at a meeting of council people, Digital Birmingham, bloggers, Screen WM etc, the idea of a Power of Birmingham initiative was created. The idea is to bring together those interested in social media and data mash-ups to create a business approach to:
• Improving engagement for public service.
• Engaging the wisdom of the crowd in responding to city issues.
• Showing the world how to use the technology.
• Creating bids for money for projects.

The question for me is who should be part of this, how can it be organised and where’s the money. As the lead for Digital Birmingham I can help make some of this happen. You have existing links and partnerships, monthly coffee events and the world if social media to add to the mix.

What is your view?

Digital Birmingham is a city-wide partnership designed to encourage people, business and communities to gain the benefits of digital technologies such as the computer, internet, mobile phone and digital TV – to name but a few.

It is helping Birmingham make the transition from an industrial city to a digital city by driving forward the use of these technologies in order to increase prosperity, knowledge and quality of life of its citizens.

‘Hello Digital’, the Midlands first digital festival, comes to Birmingham’s Millennium Point this October 23rd-26th. The free four-day event will feature animations, music, videos, robots and games from top names in the digital community and we’ve picked out a few of our favourite events to look out for.

Birmingham promoters Capsule will be creating ‘Home of Metal’ an online digital archive to celebrate the West Midlands as the home of Heavy metal music. Fans of Judas Priest, Napalm Death, Godflesh, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin are invited to join in by bringing along their band memorabilia to a series of open days.

Starting on the 25th October at Wolverhampton Art Gallery the first event coincides with the 40th anniversary of when the term ‘heavy metal’ was coined by music journalist Lester Bangs when describing Black Sabbath.

Stories, images and memories will be collected and digitised to take pride in the region’s claim as the home of metal and Capsule have also commissioned photographer Steve Gerrard to produce a series of portraits of metal fans from the region, which will be on display at the official launch event in October.

Plus Expo’s ‘Field of Light’ project uses over 200 low energy light bulbs to create a tranquil interactive illumination across the atrium at Millennium Point. Light and sound will be programmed to create the effect of a field in bloom, which will move and sway to the light.

The Field is fully interactive therefore anyone from anywhere can get involved by changing the field through a simple sequencer on the website that controls the settings (http://www.fieldoflight.net/home.aspx). Just register on the website and create your own light sequence and if enough people like it it will be played for people across the world to watch on the live webcam.

For more information on all the events taking place see http://www.hellodigital.net/.

In music,  the digital revolution happened well over a decade before the much vaunted ‘digital film revolution’, with bedroom studio musicians everywhere finally getting their hands on affordable digital technology to create experimental music. Any  clubber who was around in the 90’s in Birmingham will be well aware of this, as the city was home to some of the most respected clubs in the country, including Oscillate, hosted by  Higher Intelligence Agency, which brought acts includung Orbital, Autechre, Plaid, µ-ziq, Biophere, Locust, Ultramarine, Spacetine Continuum, Chantal Passamote, Sun Electric  to perform here, and House of God  whose resident  DJ / Musicians included  Surgeon and Sir Real. 

Now Birmingham City Council brings us “Hello Digital”, billed as the Midlands first digital festival, which proposes to introduce the citizens of Birmingham to the wonders of everything digital, and invites them to discover the future, at millennium point next w/e.

Modulates name won’t precisely be up in lights here (well, they could be…) but some of our members  have been working away in the background on one of the interactive installations, “Field of LIght ”, a project dreamed up by the PLUS team, who also devised ’Illuminate‘, another installation which we were involved in.

Modulate’s Bobby Bird has been programmer and technical consultant for the piece, devising a way to control the lights & transfer data gathered via a website into the real-world installation, Modulate member Mark Harris has created a generative sound piece to accompany it, which will gently evolve over the 4 days of the exhibit,  while our trusty ‘ in house’  electrician, Dave Checkly, has been busy wiring everything up in such a way as to ensure the general public won’t be electrocuted.

Part one of a two part post, identifying ways that the city can be improved. Here are numbers one to five (not in any order)

Sort out the traffic congestion
Is traffic congestion in Sheffield really that bad? According to this report Sheffield traffic is in the top 10 slowest-moving in the UK. If South Yorkshire is looking to further develop its economy by attracting business investment on an international level and also ensuring that its potential as a tourist destination is fulfilled, the road infrastructure must improve. As part of this, the problem of car access around the station must also be addressed, as the good impression visitors get from Sheaf square is soon forgotten once you are embroiled in the gridlock on the way out.

Focus on the city’s digital strategy
City leaders are recognising the importance of developing Sheffield’s digital and creative industries with the development of the Digital Campus, but the strategy needs to be more wide-ranging than this. We need to work further to encourage residents, businesses and community groups to embrace the technologies on offer in order to create a digitally-literate population. In Birmingham, a Get into digital festival took place in June as part of the Digital Birmingham initiative, aiming to “help make the transition from an industrial city to a digital one by driving forward the use of these technologies in order to increase prosperity, knowledge and quality of life of its citizens.” This is definitely something to Sheffield to consider…can we afford not to?

Grow the city centre as an after-work destination
The council has been working hard at promoting Wednesday night live in the city centre. It has recognised a need for the city centre to become a viable option for post-work and evening recreation. For too long, Sheffield has become a ghost town after the shoppers and workers have gone home, with people not feeling compelled to stay in the city centre. There is potential for expanding the after-work economy, but it needs the support of Sheffield citizens, not just the local authority and businesses.

Attract more quality restaurants to the city centre
Every week in the Sheffield Telegraph I enjoy seeing what the interviewee in the Food For Thought Q&A column says in answer to the ‘What do you think of Sheffield as a place to eat out?’ question. The most positive answer seems to be that Sheffield’s restaurant scene is improving but few people have much to shout about. There are good restaurants across the region but many of these in the suburbs or out in Derbyshire, and for every highly-rated one that opens, another closes. A limited number of chain restaurants is acceptable, but Sheffield also needs more high quality restaurants in the city centre, particularly ones that stay open late to cater, for example, for the post-theatre/gig/concert crowds. Which brings me onto…

Introduce a night bus services on key routes
If the evening/night economy were to expand then would it be worth trialling a night bus service? Currently, many routes finish around 11pm, and with town pubs now generally open later than this, I think there would be a demand for buses every half hour on key services out of the city throughout the night. The impact on Sheffield taxi drivers would need to be carefully assessed, but it would certainly help the queues and scramble for cabs in the early hours of the morning when demand outstrips supply.

Parts 6-10