WELCOME TO THE UN-UNIVERSITY
Once again this June we are inviting non-student, working professionals, to come to ITP on weekends and evenings to make stuff, hear speakers on the cutting edge, collaborate with people from diverse disciplines.
ITP was founded and is grounded in the belief that making is fundamental to thinking. Like any summer camp, the atmosphere is playful, cooperative and collaborative but there’s a serious purpose. We’re looking for people who are seriously motivated… to save the world, their industry, their career or just their sanity by being creative; who are dying to make something or just make sense out of what they are doing.
The creative charge of ITP Camp comes from the community of participants sharing their ideas, skills, criticisms and passions with each other in small, informal groups. We’re creating a flexible structure, an Un-University, that is responsive and supportive to the group we select. The structure is based on “unconferences” such as foocamp or barcamp, where presentations and discussions form in response to participants’ interests and projects.
SESSIONS
The sessions reflect the interests of the members of the camp. You can see the ideas for sessions starting to form on the schedule. Once you’ve registered, you can suggest ideas for sessions you’d like to see included (for ITP staff to organize, if possible) and schedule a session or two you’d like to lead.
Because ITP camp is for busy, working professionals, you don’t have to come to every session– come to as many or as few as you like. You are required to sign up for the sessions that you want to attend in advance, though, because sessions will be added or dropped based on enrollment. Workshop sessions will be limited in size, first come first served.
Because of its experimental structure, the content of camp changes every year.We don’t know what 2012 will bring but here are some examples of sessions from last year:
- “Entrepreneurship for Creatives” with Tarikh Korula
- “Communications for Insurgents” with Clay Shirky
- “Interactive Video for Artists” with Gabe Barcia-Colombo
- “Build Your Own Gel Electrophoresis Box” with Amanda Parkes
- “Meet the Makerbots” with Caroline Brown
- “Arduino + Android” with Shawn Van Every & Tom Igoe
- “Subway as a Musical Instrument” with Alexander Chen
- “Making Electricity” with Jeff Feddersen
- “Demystifying Digital Fabrication” with Corrie Van Sice
- “Gestural Interfaces” with Greg Borenstein
- “Prototyping for Wearables” with Kate Hartman
- “Hacking the Dinner Party: Sous Vide & Meat Glue” with Mike Lee
- “Mobile UX” with Dan Lawaski
PROJECTS
Some may develop a fully functioning prototype. Others will come up with new ideas and start to identify tasks and acquire skills for longer term projects. Your idea might come from your job: for example, your media publishing company is looking to develop ideas to survive technological change. You might already be in the thick of managing new technological possibilities for corporate clients and want a summer camp to apply some of this new thinking to other projects of more artistic or social benefit. In all cases the project is owned by you, we only ask that you be completely open about your work with fellow campers while participating.
