Wars and natural disasters are just a few of the reasons why people, for generations, have had to relocate from their homes all over the globe. In the Northern part of Sweden the mining industry has continued to expand and an unfortunate side effect has presented itself in several cities, the ground is crumbling. The beautiful town of Gellivare is one of those cities.

City Move Interdesign is a unique global event designed to tackle this pressing issue. The project is a partnership between ICSID, the Swedish Industrial Design Foundation (SVID) and the community of Gellivare and it will begin to tackle the enormous challenges that moving an entire population entails for both the inhabitants and for the city itself.

Phorecast founder Tomas Seo has been handpicked to join forty international experts and innovators for this multi-disciplinary project. During a two week think tank, innovators from a vast spread of competencies, will work together towards solving issues such as how to address the needs of people when relocating from their homes, physical conditions when planning a new society, sustainable factors for a new society and much more.

The findings from the City Move Interdesign project will become part of a knowledge bank that can be used in Sweden but also serve as groundwork internationally, for example when relocating populations ravished by political unrest and natural disasters.

International architects, psychologists, artists, engineers are just some of the disciplines joining together in this effort. Designer Tomas Seo has through much of his career worked in multi-disciplinary projects and is a strong believer in this method of collaboration. He is looking forward to contributing to this knowledge bank that will hopefully be of service to both Gellivare, other cites in Sweden and the international community.

Tomas Seo and Christina Jeurling of Phorecast are heading to Berlin on August 13th to speak at and lead The 5th screen think tank at the IDZ International Design Center. The think tank is organized by the Hamburg based trend research company Trendone and will be exploring the future evolution of the screen and the innovations of the future. First there was Cinema-TV-PC/Web-Mobile-  what is the screen of tomorrow? What is the 5th screen?

The list of keynote speakers is an impressive list of international innovators presenting their new technology and business models. On the topic of Augmented Reality we will hear from Arun Chhabra of Texas Instruments. Reinhard Rubow, the Director of Retina Implant AG Reutlingen will introduce his eye chip and talk about artificial vision. Other presentations will include Philips Gerrit Willem Prins on wearable technology and talks on the Enduring Community.

Phorecast will hold a presentation entitled The Screen Savers where we will talk about the benefits of multidisciplinary teams and conclusions on how to succeed when introducing the next generation of screen technology to the mainstream public. Phorecast’s Tomas Seo will then lead the think tank portion of the event where all the speakers and attendants will take part.

We are looking forward to this interesting event!

The two teams spent Wednesday and Thursday locked up in their rooms with the JCDecaux challenge, their minds racing and great ideas formulating. The competition is definitely on!

Today, Friday, you can literally feel the excitement in the air as the two teams put the finishing touches to their presentations that start at 2 p.m..
Stay tuned and see you on the runway!

Today, Wednesday March 5th 08, we kick off our very first Phorecast session. We are thrilled to be working with our first client, the Swedish branch of the innovative French company JCDecaux. JCDecaux specializes in out of home media such as billboards, advertising faces at major airports and train stations, outdoor furniture, bus stops and the very successful city bus schemes in Paris, for example. JCDecaux has always been forward thinking, bold and eager to work with new technology, ideas and interesting opportunities. For this company, looking into the future by using a Phorecast session is a perfect fit!Phorecast has put together two multi-disciplinary teams of great innovators for the JCDecaux challenge.

The two competing teams consist of:

• Mikael Nyström, Design Strategist at Transformator
• Lena Silberman, former VP Communications at Investor AB, now business and marketing consultant, Silbermanagment
• Hannes Skirgård, Industrial engineer and owner of Rago
• Jonas Söderström, Account Planner at the advertising agency Familjen
• Gitta Wilén, Scriptwriter for interactive media at Houdini.se
• André Wognum, Creative Director at Wognum Art

The innovators are working with the challenge that JCDecaux has drafted for the Phorecast Session; what is out of home media 2028, and what did JCDecaux do in 2009 to impact this development? The innovators start work today and in three days they will have their ideas and implementation plans ready for presentation. Check back soon to see which team walks away with the first ever Phorecast challenge prize!