Startups and Cyborg Anthropology at Oredev
The last of the vignette shows from Oredev, this one only has two parts, but they're oddly related. The first interview is with Aaron Parecki, who talks about taking a side project that was worked on only evenings and weekends into an actual funded startup. Then an amazing conversation with Amber Case, an actual cyborg anthropologist. It's not as weird as you think, as Amber points out, any time you extend your physical or mental abilities with a peice of technology - say, a cell phone, you're a cyborg.
Guests:
Aaron Parecki
Aaron Parecki has been a GPS enthusiast since the age of six, when he first discovered the art of programming. Today he is a Portland-based iPhone and PHP developer interested in solving practical problems with technology. In his free time, he enjoys geolocation, linguistics, and building home automation systems and IRC bots with a sense of humor. For the past 2½ years, he has been tracking and visualizing his location at 6 second intervals. He created Geoloqi.com with Amber Case in an effort to help people connect in the real world. He has 11 years experience in web app development, database design, and server administration.
Amber Case
Amber Case is a cyborg anthropologist and user experience designer from Portland, Oregon. She has been featured in Forbes, WIRED, Time and many other publications, both in the United States and around the world. Her main focus is mobile software, augmented reality and data visualization, and reducing the amount of time and space it takes for people to connect. Case founded Geoloqi.com, a private location sharing application, out of a frustration with existing social protocols around text messaging and wayfinding. Case has spoken at TED on technology and humans and was featured in Fast Company 2010 as one of the Most Influential Women in Technology. She’s worked with Fortune 500 companies at Wieden+Kennedy and on major applications at Vertigo Software. She is @caseorganic on Twitter.