The Get digital conference was the last conference of the DICE module held in The Helix on the 16th of April. This conference took place shortly after our dice posters were presented and judged.
At around 2.00pm our DICE group set up our poster which was created from scratch about a mobile app which could be used around the college and had some aspect of cloud computing. Our app was called the Pizza Drop Box. It was a simple but effective idea as DCU students contribute to 25% of Dominos sales. You had to set up an account on the app, when a Domino’s pizza is ordered you just scan the QR code and drop the box back to one of dominos recycling stacks. We will then re-scan all of the recycled box and when you reach 20 recycled pizzas you receive free vouchers.
After the poster presentation we made our way to the Mahony hall for the mini conference. Theo Lynn talked to us about DCU being the national centre for cloud computing and commerce and was very informative about it.
The first speaker of the day was Professor Martin Curley, the Vice President of Intel labs. He told us that it was only the early days of cloud computing and said “when the winds of change come you can either build a windmill or a wall”, for me meaning that we can learn to use cloud computing and give it a chance or we can just shut it down. He referred to Moore’s law as being the 5th version of computer revolution and also made comparisions between the aviation sector and cloud computing and that if aeroplanes had advances at the same speed as cloud computing you would be able to fly from Dublin to New York in only a few seconds. This statement really caught my attention as I feel cloud computing will become quite popular in the future if I continues its rapid growth and development.
The second speaker of the day was Dr Constantin Gurdgiev, a Russian economist who gave us an in depth talk about the economic opportunity of cloud computing for Ireland today. He told us that Ireland could have a good relationship with cloud computing but there was two big challenges for the cloud to truly succeed. He said that Ireland cannot rely on the Irish government as they do not understand entrepreneurship and that we must become more tolerant of success. Overall I enjoyed the detailed talk by Dr Gurdgiev and agreed with many of his points about the steps and challenges we face to make cloud computing successful.
Next up to speak was Clare Dillon from Microsoft. Her presentation was very full of life and talked about how cloud computing can adapt to assist and be combined with other technologies. She showed us an amazing video that was made by Microsoft office called “Productivity Future Vision” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6cNdhOKwi0. It made me realise how technology can help and assist us in so many ways which I never even thought of. Clare then asked us to put our hands on how many things we had in our house that were in some way connected to cloud computing and I was very surprised when I realised that I had thirteen things ! Clare’s talk was very enjoyable and she was probably my favourite speaker of the conference.
Last but not least was Fergus Gloster, the Managing Director of Marketo International. He talked mainly about digital marketing In particular and how customer buying habits have changed as previously we had information scarcity but now we have information in abundance and this is largely down to the internet. He told us in other words that marketing and sales people must work more in tune in the futre to build successful campaigns. The last few points Fergus left us with was that – don’t fall into the marketing flaw that everything is now digital, traditional sources of marketing should aslo be used.
So this is the end of the DICE module! I really enjoyed all the conference’s we had (some more than others) but It was a change to the everyday lectures that I have. This talk was particularly interesting for me as the course I am studying is all to do with computers and enterprise. I have learned a couple of new skills over the course of the year through DICE and look forward to putting them to use.
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