Final conference of Cross Motion project “Cross innovation: Audiovisual and gaming industries innovating with other sectors” took place from 21- 22 February 2019, in Tallinn. Cross Motion is an EU flagship project (2016-2019) whose objective was to study and facilitate cooperation of screen industries (audiovisual and video-games industries) with other sectors such as education, tourism or healthcare.
The two days of the conference were packed with interesting speakers, keynotes as well as different networking possibilities. More than 20 prototypes for the education, tourism and healthcare sectors’ needs were showcased during the conference. These prototypes were created during the project time by around 30 AV- and gaming sectors’ small and medium-sized enterprises from partnering countries in the Baltic Sea Region.
The venue of the conference was Telliskivi VabaLava theatre center located in a hub of creative industries – Creative City, or in Estonian language “Loomelinnak”. The first day of the conference was full of interesting presentations and prototypes presentations. Next, we will present some of them.
Dr. Tia Kansara interpreted how cross-innovation can provide excitement whilst exploring the unknown. She presented case studies showing the benefits of positive externalities, and made a connection between convergence and sustainability. Simon Wilkinson (CiRCA69) in his presentation “Culture Clash”, showed how artists and organisations can work seamlessly together. An artist is an individual who performs a very specific role, being an independent and critical voice in society. To do this effectively an artist must operate outside of hierarchy, to remain independent from both organisational structure and predetermined narratives and outcomes. Simon Wilkinson is an artist whose work has featured at London’s Tate Modern and, in the past three years, toured to 25 countries across six continents.
A Finnish team from Ticca Oy presented Hamstering Game prototype preventing children’s hospital anxiety. Hamstering is a mobile game for preschool-aged children, where the patient can explore the hospital environment, before and during the hospitalisation period or as a preparation for a special treatment or operation. The game features a cartoon tree house hospital populated by hamsters. The patient is introduced to different hospital procedures in the different rooms of the hospital, with fun minigames, hamster staff explaining the procedure and interactive objects with information about their purpose.
The prototype application My Malmö was created by Ustwo. The tourist of today is aware, interested in local culture and engaged, often with a special interest and a will of experience things. Malmö, with its rich culture, has a lot to offer tourists and the challenge is to present it in a nice way. Typical themes are for example the big city festival in Malmö, Nordic Noir, comics or something else that Malmö is famous for. Themes are grouped around points of interests in the city, and can include content with interactive challenges, or interactions with the world around.
After the conference presentations, the participants had the opportunity to try hands on Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality solutions developed within Cross Motion.
The second day was structured as the first day, involving both keynotes and prototype presentations.
Prof. Indrek Ibrus presented the extensive research work that was done in the Cross Motion project and studied the realities of cross-innovation processes between the four sectors – audiovisual media (film, television, videogames, etc.) and healthcare, education or tourism. The empirical research consisted altogether of 144 interviews with stakeholders (policy makers, entrepreneurs, managers, professionals) from all four sectors. The findings tell of complex stories how, for instance, global platformisation of tourism undermines the emergence of related cross-innovation systems in small countries; how fragmentation of local education and healthcare markets does not enable the scalability of innovations, but protects local innovation systems for being overtaken by global platform giants. The open access book “Emergence of Cross-Innovation Systems”, presenting the research results will be published by Emerald in April.
The presentation by Accenture’s Olesja Hännikäinen was – as one of the participants described – mind-blowing. The presentation included demos and cases that Accenture Liquid Studio has been innovating as well as focused on user-centred perspective for cross-innovation.
One of the outcomes of Cross Motion project is the Start North network and community (https://startnorth.com/), continuing the work of the project in supporting the demand and supply for events, programs and projects that utilize techniques of audiovisual, interactive, participatory and multiplatform storytelling and forms of gamification in service of education, healthcare and tourism.
Cross Motion is an Interreg BSR EU-funded project focusing on cross-innovation solutions for health, tourism and education sectors to foster innovative business. There are partners from eight countries: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, and Norway. The lead partner is Tallinn University. Cross Motion is one of the Interreg’s Flagship Projects in the EUSBSR Policy Area Culture. The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment is responsible for the project’s national co-financing in Finland.
Text: Mervi Rajahonka (researcher) and Natalia Narits (project manager)
Pictures: Natalia Narits and Mervi Rajahonka
South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences, Small Business Center
https://www.xamk.fi/en/rdi/small-business-center/
www.crossmotion.org