In the beginning of April the annual trade event of the year within Media Technology took place. Almost 200 people from Linköping University, the business community and the municipality gathered in Flygeln, which is located in the old industrial area of Norrköping, to take part in the MT Awards ceremony arranged for the third consecutive year by Norrköping Science Park. This year a total of 26 student projects from the Media Technology Course at LIU Norrköping participated and competed within the three categories: Technical Achievement, Artistic Elements and the special prize awarded by the Interactive Institute.
“It is exciting to see how this competition develops from year to year, says Bosse Sundborg, Process Leader within the Profile Area Visualisation at Norrköping Science Park. In the first year we hardly received 10 contributions, last year the figure was 19 and now this year we are up in 26. This is a clear sign of the growing interest from the students who are challenging themselves as well as one another into developing new applications of a high standard, he continues. We hope this competition will continue to grow and become a major player in the coming years and contribute to laying the foundations for new and exciting business ideas and new companies”, he says.
Besides the honour a cash prize of SEK 15,000 is awarded to the winners. Amongst those presenting the prizes was Anders Ynnerman and Costa Econoumu from Linköping University. Norrköping Science Park also awarded a special prize in the form of “The People’s Choice” which involved asking the audience to vote for their favourite contribution. The winner of this category was Euroquiz by Erik Thorngren, Martin Szemler, Lukas Lundberg and Erik Jonsson.
The winner of the category Technical Achievement was Visibility Cuts by Mattias Unger and Oskar Åkerlund. The jury’s comments were: “The work describes a highly usable method which has the potential of taking realism in real-time graphics one step further, it also shows a deep understanding of applied mathematics and rendering algorithms. The prize is awarded to the project which has received international acclaim and maintains a very high technical standard.”
The winner of the category Artistic Elements was Linnaeus by Markus Jonsson, Jonatan Nyberg and Jakob Rogstadius. The jury’s comments were: “The winners of the MT Awards 2008 in the category “Artistic Elements” have, through an impressive and convincing project, created a well-functioning, innovative, fascinating, beautiful and addictive application. Behind the visually aesthetic and instructive application is a complex system comprising of advanced mathematical models and algorithms. This different and highly relevant project idea coupled with the attractive and instructive presentation combined with the high theoretical standard makes the Linnaeus Project the winner of the MT Awards 2008 in the category Artistic Elements.”
The winner of the category Interactive Institutes special prize was Äng by Mariadele Arcuri. The jury’s comments were: “Through a wonderful combination of content and technology Äng has succeeded in creating a simple but at the same time beautiful and exciting interactive environment. Focus is placed on the users’ experience which makes Äng a project unlike many others. This project also shows alternative uses of computer graphics and animation.”
Besides an exciting award ceremony in true gala style, the evening also included mingling with the Oscar Winners, exciting meetings, interesting conversation, food and drink as well as visuals courtesy of New Media Meeting.