March 16 Unsworn Industries hosted the Innovation Day Skåne event at Stpln in Malmö. Approximately 100 participants involved with the development of an international innovation strategy for Skåne was gathered to discuss:  What kind of innovation challenges should we focus on? And who needs to do what to make it happen? The meeting was a joint event by Region Skåne, FIRS, Sounding board, and the Swedish government with representatives from the ministry of enterprise, energy and communications since one of the aims of the day was to produce input to the national innovation strategy which is currently under development.

Unsworn Industries guided the participants through their quest of:

1. Finding important innovation challenges.
2. Producing project proposals answering to these challenges.
3. Committing oneself to take action to make it happen.
4. Articulate concrete proposals (in Swedish: inspel) on paper for the national innovation strategy that was handed over to the government representatives.

All this was done with the help of blowing our horns, pink envelope guidance, letters from the future, speech bubbles as a parallel communication channel as well as placards and some additional conversation props for enhancing the discussions. We were supported by Jonas Klevhag, Teknolpol (moderating) as well as Varelsen (moviemaking)

Så tänker jag - Hur tänker du? from Varelsen on Vimeo.

The movie was produced by Varelsen

Stpln provided roof over our heads and Herrgårdens kvinnoförening served us delicious food. Thank you!

A great day for a better Skåne we hope!

Bike path between Möllevången and Rosengård
Commissioned by the City of Malmö Unsworn Industries is running a project aiming at contributing to the development of Rosengårdsstråket – a bike path that stretches between Möllevången and Rosengård in Malmö. Expected outcome of the project is a number of interaction design concepts which in the next phase can be implemented, and set up along the pathway. The overall project aim is to stimulate movements, and increase the connection between the inner city and the suburbs to create a more sustainable city.

The concepts are developed in a prototype-oriented, interative design process. Besides City of Malmö and Unsworn Industries other partners involved in the project are Urban Art Solutions, Medea, Malmö University, and Do-Fi.

Workshops and prototypes
Up to now two workshops have been organised, and a number of prototypes designed and tested.

Prototyping sessions

Workshop # 1 on April 28, 2011

Workshop # 2 on May 12, 2011

For the past three months we’ve had the pleasure of having Lisa Wallin as our intern here at Unsworn HQ.

After miraculously managing to combine the everyday Unsworn chores with studies in Physical Computing, Virtual Reality, and Cognitive Science it is now time for Lisa to focus on her studies full time. We warmly thank Lisa for diligently assisting us with everything from Parascope prototyping to designing the web interface for the Telemegaphone backend.

We had Unsworn muckrakers brush off their Sawatsky-skills to get the intern emeritus to reveal the dirty details of everyday industry life:

UI: How come you chose Unsworn? Is it becuse of the great camraderie, international flair and amazing leadership? The exquisite lunch catering? The clean, well-organised and healthy office environment?

Lisa: Besides all those great things I like the way you explore public space, both in cities and in nature, through communication, curiosity, and playfulness.

What’s a typical day like at UI HQ?

Oh, there is no typical day. As an intern I have been to meetings at the bank, doing cable-sloyd in Kivik and looking for prototype material in the streets. One thing that’s typical though are the morning meetings and the lunches with all kinds of people interested in Unsworn’s work.

On your first day you mentioned that Unsworn personnel are not as hip as the website suggest. Could you take a couple of minutes not to elaborate on that?

Of course it depends of how you define hip. My definition in this situation hip was cool and tough. So I got a little surprised at my first meeting when I meet these nice and caring persons that was Unsworn. Their generosity and kindness is something that has been present throughout the whole internship.

Do you have any advice for future Unsworn interns?

Yes, to do a full time internship for a short I think is ultimate because you then can focus all your energy on the intern work. But also I think it depends on which level you are at and what your goal with the internship is. Think about that first.

Any advice for future Unsworn endeavours?

Keep on going!

You’re doing your second year of the Interaction Design bachelor program at K3, Malmö University and you said you wanted to get a better understanding for what an interaction design practice could be like. So, after three months here, do you still want to do this? Where do you want to go from this?

It has been great doing the internship at Unsworn. I learned a lot about how you can work as an interaction designer and yes, this is really something I want to do in the future. My next goal from here is to find out more about what my role is going to be and what other ways of working there are in this area. And to have fun while I’m doing this.

How much taller than Erik is Magnus?

Hmmm, that’s a tricky one. If I would estimate roughly I would guess about 2 or 3 metres depending on which shoes Magnus has.