The Elixel team at Future Sync

Just two weeks ago members of the Elixel squad attended Future Sync - an awesome tech conference held right on our doorstep at Plymouth University. With three separate tracks, the conference offers the chance to experience talks covering software development, creative design, and business innovation.

It’s so exciting to see digital conferences like this in the South West and we can’t help but want to shout about it! We loved the opportunity to come together with our fellow techies and creatives. The exceptional speakers made for a really memorable conference. Allow us to take you through the day with a selection of highlights and key takeaways from members of our team.

Creative Design Track

Tom French opened the creative track with a talk on Changing our relationship with tech - do we have a responsibility as designers? Tom noted that the commercial drive for growth and money that has seen companies such as Facebook and Google dominate has also resulted in design that prompts addictive behaviours and harmful beliefs in technology.

He identified three key measures: to Educate, Promote and Empower that can enforce more responsible design putting our minds and values first. His final thought, should we begin to sacrifice growth for a better society?

- Becky Veater, Financial Director

The highlight of the day for me was Ruth John's presentation on How to Be a Web A/V Artist. Ruth showed us how to create audio-visual effects with JavaScript. The effects were rendering on already existing audio, as well as via microphone input.

Audio Visual effect can be achieved with the use of D3 library as well as vanilla JS, however, a lot of processing power is required to power such effects and browsers can't handle them very well yet therefore there is a possibility of browser crashing while rendering the visuals.

- Natalia Waniczek, Javascript Developer

Business Innovation Track

Zuby (independent rapper) advised in his talk on “Finding Your Voice : Social Media for Creatives, Brands and Business”, that rather than trying to learn how to use all the possible social media channels, focus on one or two and get good with them first. He ended his talk with a freestyle rap… about his talk. Incredible.  

Next up, Dr Rupa Chilvers, in her talk “Digital Tech: the People and Potential” invited everyone with an interest in contributing to NHS digital services to “come into a room with us” - hinting at the lucrative opportunities available, if you take the time to understand the way the system works and commit.

- Rob Breeds, Head of User Experience

One of the highlights for me was the talk by TinyGiant. They explored how creative uses of Artificial Intelligence could "fight mediocrity" in marketing - creating marketing that stands out, is more memorable, and gets people talking.

Their examples used machine learning to understand large sets of data, such as recipes for cakes or cocktails, and output some interesting, crazy, new cupcake or cocktail ideas that you never would have expected to work.

- Gavin Jones, Managing Director

Software Development Track

Towards the end of the day, Dylan Schiemann took us on a journey in his “hot tub time machine”, taking us through the history of the web and how it has lead us to where we are today. He gave us his predictions on the future of the web platform, indicating that we will soon be at a point of controlling computers using our minds - reducing the need for input through voice, keyboard and other traditional input methods.

There were some fantastic comparisons of how we are already living in our foreseen future by comparing it to technology within Sci-Fi programmes like the Borg in Star Trek are the combination of the web, the cloud and wearable technology.

- Christian Cook, Technical Director

We hope you’ve enjoyed these snippets. If you weren’t there to experience the talks first hand then keep an eye on their website as they will soon be releasing videos of the event. Fingers crossed we’ve inspired you to join us at the next Future Sync in 2020! In the meantime, check out our other blogs for more insights or subscribe to our newsletter for monthly updates.