Archive notice: This article was originally published on October 1, 2007. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Today we will whisk you away into the world of digital images and present our new professional event digital creation days to you in the coming hour. KMK is conducting the networking event in cooperation with the renowned trade magazine DIGITAL PRODUCTION. Let me introduce today’s speakers to you at this point: From DIGITAL PRODUCTION, Jürgen Pfister supervises and organizes the event. He will explain the starting situation in the market and the concept of the event to you in more detail. Mr. Pfister will also introduce the animago AWARD to you, which will be presented in Karlsruhe for the first time this year. Afterwards, Thomas Gronert from Software Solutions GmbH will examine the topics and contents of the workshop program. Mr. Michael Dalock-Schmidt from the main sponsor of the digital creation days (dcdays), Avid Technology GmbH, will also give you an assessment of the market. If you still have questions about DIGITAL PRODUCTION itself, you can direct them to editor-in-chief Matthias Lange, who is also present today.
The dc days – a completely coherent event package!
We have all long since become accustomed to super-realistic special effects in cinema and television. Whether they are flying apprentice sorcerers or perfectly animated tornadoes in a science program, the computer graphics and animation departments make the boundaries between filmed and digital reality blur. But the new technical possibilities are not only changing production workflows in film, television, advertising and computer game development – completely new fields of work are also emerging in industry, science and above all architecture due to improved computer performance and new software tools. The dc days reflect this development around the industry of computer-generated image worlds. From November 8 to 9, we are offering the creative and growing industry an all-round coherent networking event with a high-caliber workshop program and an accompanying trade exhibition. At this first event, we expect a total of 800 visitors and 30 highly specialized exhibitors. Mr. Gronert will inform you in detail about the approximately 50 planned workshops.
A strong partner from the industry!
What therefore speaks for the dc days as a new platform around digital media productions is the fact that a lot is happening in the market at present – and who could judge that better than a strong partner from the industry? In order to address the creative and complex target group of content developers and also bring them to Karlsruhe, KMK has joined forces with the industry’s leading trade magazine: For years, DIGITAL PRODUCTION has mapped the developments in the areas of computer graphics, Visual Effects, video, film and other related fields like no other magazine.
We are also very pleased that DIGITAL PRODUCTION will present its animago AWARD, the most important prize for computer graphic artists and animation artists, as part of the dc days at an evening event in the congress center. Thus, at the dc days we supplement DIGITAL PRODUCTION’s specialist knowledge and contacts with KMK’s professional event and trade-fair know-how. An optimal team for the placement of a new event!
As a trade fair organizer, I would also like at this point to refer to our other new, but also established professional events, with which we react to current, changed market situations. The triumphal march of the Internet, the merging of television and Internet and the immense progress in the IT sector are changing business areas and creating new ones. The first TV Komm. Karlsruhe, for example, deals with the digitization of television from December 4 to 5. KMK shows intelligent IT solutions for public passenger transport at IT-Trans. And innovations in the field of information and educational technologies have been successfully presented at LEARNTEC for 15 years.
Now having almost reached the end of my lecture, I would like to take another look at Karlsruhe as a location. KMK is based in the TechnologyRegion at a strong and dynamic business location. Scientific excellence and entrepreneurship come together here. Research projects and products from Karlsruhe’s universities – and this does not only mean the excellent University of Karlsruhe – enjoy an excellent reputation worldwide. Information technology naturally also plays a major role here. In addition to the excellent range of courses in the IT sector, which attracts thousands of young people to Karlsruhe every year, companies such as 1&1 of United Internet AG have settled at the Karlsruhe location. Around 20,000 specialists are currently working in more than 2,500 companies in the IT and media industry in the Karlsruhe TechnologyRegion. In Baden-Württemberg there are a total of more than 12,000 companies that are active in the software industry or data processing.
Karlsruhe makes it easy especially for young business founders in the IT sector – here there is the Cyberforum, a network for around 600 young entrepreneurs and everyone who wants to become one. We were able to enthuse the Cyberforum about our first event and win it as a partner for the dc days. A female speaker from the Cyberforum will introduce the concept of the “Business Angels” to visitors to the event.
Karlsruhe a media location? The ZKM, in which we are presenting ourselves today, with its importance in the media art scene and its uniqueness for Karlsruhe, is an important milestone for being perceived as a media location. Karlsruhe benefits from this – but the neighboring University of Design also fits optimally into this creative and innovative environment of the ZKM. The students of the HfG are trained as specialists in the areas of communication design, product design, film, 3-D visualization and new media. These creative minds thus correspond exactly to the target Group of the dc days. And in the spirit of “Connecting Ideas”, KMK offers the female and male students the opportunity to distinguish themselves as moderators in the workshop program. They have the chance to make unique contacts with the speakers – their potential employers – and at the same time attend the event free of charge.
