Mindtrek 2007 (2)

Up to Finland

Yesterday was full of suspense. Would the delegates to Mindtrek be in time on the plane to Helsinki and would the bus be in time to bring us to Tampere. In Helsinki it turned out that all the delegates were present. Some delegates had left the day before and spent a day in Helsinki. The bus was late; the driver looked in the wrong arrival hall. But by six o’clock we were on our way to Tampere; a trip of two hours.

During the trip the delegates presented themselves to each other. We have an interesting group of people. There is one entrepreneur and the rest comes from various levels in education.

Mindtrek is being held in hotel Scandic Rosendahl. This hotel is outside Tampere on a ridge near a lake. To the other side you can climb a stairway to a panorama tower; an exercise regularly done by the ice hockey club of Tampere. It is a hotel dating back to the seventies, patterns which still can be seen in the carpet on the floor. The hotel looks like a budget hotel with sauna and a swimming pool.

In the afternoon I had received an SMS from the cook of the hotel with the two menus:
M1: Lightly smoked salmon and creamed mushroom;
M2: Very fresh elk stake (hunting season started in the weekend) with dark mushroom sauce and chateau potatoes.
Drinks: 2 beer or wine.
After dinner: coffee and tea.
By 20:30h we had checked in and were ready for dinner. Cai (see picture below; Cai left)) spoke a word of welcome, also on behalf of his colleague Sohvi Sirkesalo (see photograph; in the middle). After dinner the delegates were welcomed to the afterparty of the Open Mind conference.
The first day of the trip went well with a little glitch of the bus driver.

Tomorrow morning the conference will start. A trainload of people will come from Helsinki and bebussd from th railway station to the hotel. At ten o'clock the conference will be openend by Jarmo Vitelli, the director of the Hypermedia Lab. We will start with three key-note speakers: Mark Ollila (Nokia), Jyri Engeström (Jaiku), Zak Greant (FOO associates) will speak on ”The age of literate machines – a visionary look at open source”

Blog Posting Number 883

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