simon at the AAL Forum 2010: Again

The whole simon listens team attended this years AAL forum in Odense, Denmark.

The AAL Forum is a plattform for projects of the ambient assited living joint program of the European Union and related projects. After having attended the Akademy this year it was quite interesting to see the other side of software development with almost all the projects there being quite well funded :).

Despite the very steep attendance fee (€ 450) the exhibition was quite active. In just three days we collected more than 30 business cards of interested people - many of them looking for project partners for their next projects.

All in all it was very interesting so to see related projects, discovering similarities and potential synergies. Cooperations across projects - even in the same call - are still far too seldom in my opinion.

Quite some people were surprised to find out that simon is open source and completely free ("Where are the hidden costs?") so we also got to introduce some people to the concept of free software.

On Thursday we we then got to see Dj Ruth Flowers at the networking dinner. And it was just awesome seeing so many suits dance :P.

 

I really wouldn't have thought that such a formal event could be turned around into a wild party just with a good DJ. Suffices to say: The booths were quite empty the following day.

We then spent the last evening in Copenhagen before flying home which as it turns out is a great city - and they have great cocktail bars as well :)