I am Irene Lapuente. I obtained a degree in Physics from the University of Barcelona (2002). She completed postgraduate studies in Science Communication, Divulgation and Pedagogy at Pompeu Fabra University (2003 and 2008) and at the Technical University of Catalonia, UPC (2003). She also trained and practiced in museography both at the University of Barcelona and at CosmoCaixa, Barcelona’s Science Museum, a Center that is an Excite Excellence Award Winner.
Since 2003 she has been working in Science and Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Communication and Divulgation. She actively experiments and combines with different formats ranging from games, theatre and familiy activities to the creation and dynamization of online plaforms and communities.
She has worked in or for scientific and technological centers and companies such as CosmoCaixa Barcelona, Citilab or Invenio. At Cosmocaixa she was in charge of science activities design and implementaton. At Citilab she has been developing activities for kids and defining the exhibtion programme. For Invenio she developed a set of science and technology divulgation workshops for kids and primary teachers that has been successfully run in more than 200 Catalan schools.
She took the responsibility of Science Communicator at the Software Department LSI from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) and implemented the first communication strategy for that deparment as well as its first online strategy. It was recognized as an outstanding initiative by the Catalan Agency for Research and Innovation. She got the the position of Head of Science Communication and Divulgation at the Catalan Institute of Paleontology (ICP) in 2009.
She has published articles in +LSI, Informacions and DossierTecnològic and participated in several Web2.0 initiatives ranging from podcasts (Mossega La Poma) to fora. She also runs a popular blog in science divulgation: La Mandarina de Newton.
On the other hand, she has significant experience as a secondary teacher in areas such as mathematics, science and technology. She has experience as teacher and monitor for summer schools. Previously she also worked for one year as a Physics Technician in the Rahtmore Grammar School, Belfast, Northern Ireland.
She is accomplished contemporary dancer, having participated in several performances in both Catalonia and Northern Ireland in the last ten years. She developed several coreographies while at Cosmocaixa around Physics concepts and she keeps a keen interest in devising new formats for science communication and divulgation at the intersection between art, dance and science.
My name is Ramon Sangüesa and, together with Artur Serra and Vicenç Badenes, I am one of the three initial founders of Citilab, an institution that interconnects citizens with research, innovation, and communication and tries to let them be active players in each of these areas. I am interested in design as a concept and a practice since I came across the work of Herbert Simon in “The Sciences of the Artificial ” or Alexander’s. Citilab was created to explore new organizational designs and new processes to generate social innovation from and for citizens using the design practices of the digital culture as a general framerwork. These practices promote collaboration and participation and propose new ways to create, validate, and share knowledge. For me, technological culture is a design culture and I want to take this identity to its logical consequences. I promoted the creation of design research workshops and I coordinate all the innovation activities across Citilab … including the design of new methods of innovation.
Citilab also is for me a very personal project that seeks to facilitate the appropriation of technology by citizens and, thus, to directly communicate through practice the values, attitudes, thought processes and design methods that the digital culture has developed and that only because of the recent popularity of the Internet have become evident to a wider audience. Years ago, along with founders believe that all this was promoted by the practice and relevant to citizens from their needs and interests or to the systematic outreach and communication that has n settled in other fields such as science or art have also developed their own institutions for these purposes. Citilab is intitucional a design project to solve what seemed at the time may be absent within the landscape of research institutions, innovation and dissemination.
When I see that, when Citilab doors are opened to the public every afternoon, the kids run to their robots and their programming classes and seniors get together to film their own documentary videos I like to think that we begin to have some effect on citizens. When I see that the Citilab staff with their effort and their projects are appropriating themselves and our initial design I feel that we are on to something. I am glad to think that there is a different and more active future for all.
About my background: Ph.D. in Computer Science (Artificial Intelligence) Universidad Politecnica de Catalunya (1997). Postgraduate in Science Communication (Universidad Pompeu Fabra. also in 1997). Professor of Languages and Systems, Barcelona School of Informatics, of which I was Vicedean of innovation for six years. Affiliate researcher at the Center on Organizational Innovation at Columbia University (New York) and Senior Fellow at the Strategic Innovation Lab, Ontario College of Art and Design (Toronto, Canada). Currently I am director of innovation in Citilab Cornellà.
Collaborate:
A little about my past: In 2006 I graduated at the Technological University of Delft, Netherlands. During my Master’s in industrial engineering design I got more and more enthusiastic with research techniques with users. I find it fascinating to discover the everyday patterns of users and to understandwhy and how the people use products and services. The ideas that I got from this “research design” allows me to develop products and services that people really love to use.
During my work at the Waag Society, a Media Laboratory with headquarters in Amsterdam, I have been involved in many projects linking users and the design team. In my work, I concentrate especially in the beginning of the design procedure, when achieving a deep understanding of those people can have the biggest impact on the design.
Soy Héctor Zapata y mi gran pasión es la Realidad Virtual: llevo más de diez años creando mundos virtuales que la gente puede visitar, donde pueden interactuar, aprender y comunicarse.
Me gradué en Arquitectura por la Universidad Politécnica de Catalunya en 2003. Soy profesor de Geometría Descriptiva en la misma Universidad, así como en los Máster Simulación Visual en la Arquitectura y Diseño y Creación de Videojuegos.
Ya desde muy joven, siempre me ha interesado el Modelado 3D, la Representación y la Interactividad. Al finalizar mis estudios, combiné estos conocimientos con la práctica de la arquitectura, creando y mostrando proyectos en todo el mundo, entre ellos la sede de la Societat Coral “La Unió” en Cornellá, la remodelación del casco antiguo de Porec en Croacia, el Aeropuerto de Ajman en Emiratos Árabes Unidos o la ciudad deportiva Universia Baixio en Brasil.
Desde mi vinculación con Citilab he desarrollado aplicaciones de Realidad Virtual para dar a conocer el centro y sus actividades. En el proyecto Expolab, seré el experto en creación de objetos virtuales, concretamente en Second Life.
