What happens when you are in a dark room and someone hands you a torch? How does one find their way out of a dense forest after dark?
One of our most recent experiments at Kepler was taken out of the lab and showcased first in April 2017. An experience called the Torch, uses an IR light source as a metaphor for uncovering stories and putting a larger picture together. This experience first saw daylight at GIDS 2017 – Asia’s largest Developer Summit. For an IT professional wanting to learn and gather technology know-how, understand best practices and case studies, and absorb the innovation excellence of experts worldwide, in focused settings, GIDS is the place to be. With over a 100 sessions, keynotes and tutorials in Java, .NET, Mobile, DevOps (to name a few), the GIDS experience is packed with everything that a software developer, technical team lead, architects or project manager needs to determine the future. A great look into the technologies that will make the biggest impact in the coming year, both for their career as well as their business. Cross pollination, competition and collaboration are key to a thriving ecosystem and this is where vendor-neutral platforms such as GIDS play a vital role. This year, the summit was organised an umbrella of ‘Innovation for Good’.
Coming to Kepler’s showcase at GIDS – we used the Torch as a metaphor to highlight a few inspiring stories from across the globe. Pairing up an IR camera with an IR Torch and using computer vision, the team created an experience for selective covering-uncovering of data to paint a picture for the user. In real life, the spotlight from the Torch is waved around in the darkness, trying to pick up small pieces of information and eventually paint a picture by bringing together all those bits. The order in which information is revealed is almost irrelevant and inconsequential. This essentially means that the Torch helps us create a story of what is around us, or in other words, a Torch can be used as a ‘non linear storytelling tool’.
There were four different stories projected on the wall – all about how individuals have dedicated their knowledge and capabilities for the better of society in the most simple and innovative ways. Using the torch beam as a pointer, we proceed to the next screen by diving into any one of the hotspots. Here, multiple hotspots revealed an audio visual to the viewer and after exploring all of them, a beautiful story comes to the fore. We had amazing response from the audience as well and they were able to figure out and interact with the installation on their own without any guidance, a great validation for an intuitive interface.
Along with the Torch installation, we also showcased our own ‘Good’ initiative – Touche. The award winning Refreshable Braille Display, as always, caught the eye of many aspiring technologists, as much as it impressed some of the big names from the industry.
Kepler’s presence at GIDS was a great exposure for the entire team as it gave us an opportunity to interact with individuals who turned into entrepreneurs and garage start-ups that grew into full-fledged global operations. All this and an unending array of Q&As with the thousands of curious techies at the event made our participation at GIDS2017 a worthwhile experience.