Planning Committee

I am forming the planning committee for the TechWalk effort. If you are interested in volunteering for this event, please post a comment here. Identify what you want to be involved in… logistics, technology back-end development, marketing, soliciting teams, fund raising, etc. etc. etc.

We’ll probably meet in the 2nd week of August and lay out a plan of action to ‘announce’ the project toward the end of the month, so that teams have enough time to form during September.

Confirmed committee members include:

• Andre McFadden
• Cheryl Morgan
• Chris Conroy
• Sharron Mendel

Large scale urban games/activities

The following is a set of large scale urban games/activities under consideration for the TechWalk effort during SideWalk. We are leaning towards a combination of the Digital Street Game and Gridlockd! Teams that are eliminated from the game will be invited to participate in the Tagging effort of downtown Birmingham and/or may be invited to participate in a geocache hunt.

• Large Scale Urban Games
• Digital Street Game / aka Fiasco — involves video/still capture during game… can use wifi (pretty cool)
• The Go Game
• Gridlockd!
• Chalk-A-Block
• Conqwest – Big game + treasure hunt + phone cam + semacode + giant animal totems (yikes!)
• Urban Challenge
• Digital Tagging
• Yellow Arrow – placing physical yellow stickers with a unique # around our city where anyone can later SMS (aka “text message”) the # and receive information about the place the Yellow Arrow is pointing
• FoundCity – capturing digital images via camera phones and “tagging” the picture to an address available for review on the FoundCity website
• CitiTag
• Click! – The Urban Adventure Game
• MapHub
• Scavenger/Treasure Hunts
• Geocaching with the Alabama Geocachers Association – using GPS units to find hidden objects/treasure
• Close Encounters
• Benchmark Hunting – using GPS units to find USGS benchmarks
• Treasure Hunt
• San Francisco Treasure Hunts
• MobileHunt
• aZones Treasure Hunt
• Other – these are games that probably are not extensible enough for our effort
• Human Scale Chess Game
• Urban Pac-Manhatten
• ManHunt
• Urban Golf
• I like Frank
• Uncle Roy All Around You – funny name, cool game from the UK
• Can You See Me Now?
• Citysnapper game
• Node Runner – the original was in NYC, but this one is from London
• Navigate The Streets
• CityPong – still only a concept

Preference will be given to activities that involve technology (of course!) and can be tied in to the multimedia nature of the SideWalk festival itself.

Here’s a descriptive “Manifesto” about Big Games. Also, here’s a nice listing of other mobile-phone and pda-based outdoor games.

Know of any others we should consider? Have comments about what is on the list? Please post a comment!! Check back often… we’ll be adding more as we find them.

Technology and Tourism?

I just came across a research paper about using technology and “play” to drive city tourism. Although written in 2003, it discusses different concepts explored in Rome, Italy. After I better digest Anne Galloway’s article, I think it might be worthy to contact her about becoming an advisor in our effort. Hmm…

TechWalk @ Sidewalk Film Festival

TechBirmingham is evaluating becoming a partner in the Sidewalk Film Festival this September. This blog, accessible via www.TechWalk.org, is where we’ll share our ideas about engaging the technology crowd with the production folks and film buffs. Please feel free to suggest ideas and/or comment.