Sugata Mitra, Daniel Dubno, Chuck Hoberman, Greg Harper, Pablos Holman

Most Inspiring was Sugata Mitra’s “Hole in the wall,” in which he attempted to teach sometimes illiterate, non-English speaking, non-computer literate kids by just putting a touch screen computer in a public space in a town. He talked about the power of games to create desire – an addictive desire to learn and understand through their system, the same way that a desirable feedback loop provides compelling incentive to repeat and close the loop in the system. His current project is creating a facility where children have the tools to teach themselves.

The Gadgetoff guys rolled in with their crazy array of projects. Most interesting to me were: Josh Klein’s Crow Project , the Pleo, Sony Egg – weird, Clocky, e-ink reader watch, in-person video conferencing system, ohmibod – teledildonics ipod extender, eyefi, solar battery charger, hd camcorder with sd card and add eyefi to broadcast live, wise led flashlight, audio recorder, portable broadcast tv, talking prescription bottle among others.

Chuck Hoberman’s adaptive buildings and reactive facades are great and remind me of L’Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris which consists of one wall made up of aperatures which respond to sunlight.

Pablos is the master hacker extrodinaire, here’s he’s grabbing Dan Dubno’s credit card info from within Dan’s wallet.

» Conferences, Events, Panels , Chuck Hoberman, Daniel Dubno, Greg Harper, Pablos Holman, Sugata Mitra