The Update on Digital Urban

Firstly apologies, the blog has been sat on the sidelines waiting for a post while i have been in a whirlwind of a three weeks. The good news is the blog is back, in short, we have been in the process recently of securing grants, launching a new Masters of Research course here at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis at University College London and presenting current research to the British Science Festival and the associated press conference.

Press Conferences are everything you imagined with the various leading newspapers gathering round and shouting questions. Packing a dress worn by Annie Lennox at Nelson Mandela's Birthday Party, RFID tags and a short presentation based around the Tales of Things work we announced the concept of the Internet of Second Hand Things. 

It was a fun event and we had some excellent coverage with the Financial Times, Sunday Times, Russia Channel One, BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 5 amongst the highlights. Mixed into this were two grant bids, one with NESTA and the other for a UCL Enterprise Award. I'm please to say we won them both, opening the doors to work with the Imperial War Museum and Digital Humanities in UCL and continuing the work with the wider TOTeM group to set up TOTeM Labs.

While juggling press requests, conference presentations, grant short listings and interview boards we have welcomed 9 members to our new MRes in Advanced Spatial Analysis and Visualisation - a Masters of Research differs from a traditional MSc as its less jumping through hoops to learn and more focused in becoming part of the research world. We purposely constructed the MRes to be the course we would like to take and as such it is an exciting mix of visualisation, coding, mapping, crowd sourcing, modelling and research methods. If you are thinking of taking a Masters, i would strongly suggest a MRes, it offers something different to everyone else with a MSc and of course sets you up for a PhD.