The Royals and Deakin University launch research and prototyping lab named Y2
Independent Australian advertising agency The Royals has partnered up with Deakin University to launch a new research and prototyping lab, Y2.
The lab’s program will explore the fields of creative and communication technology that are driving contemporary interfaces and experiences.
Inspired by the commercial and critical success of MIT’s Media Lab, The Y2 lab will offer a series of programs for clients and researchers to explore their thinking with rapid prototyping in the fields of creative and communication technology. Initial research areas of focus include artificial intelligence, conversational experiences, mixed reality, and the future of journalism, narrative and storytelling.
A ‘prototype or die’ philosophy guides the Y2 approach, as researchers from a range of fields are given space for creative invention that brings their traditional disciplines to contemporary problems and opportunities. This cross-disciplinary, prototype-driven approach has produced large numbers of technologies overseas that have become products and services over the past 30 years.
Says Dave King (left), director of Y2: “Through our many years of experience we have seen the power of a prototype to apply pure research and enliven hypotheses about the near future. Creating this dedicated space and program where expert teams can collaboratively design, build and test their ideas is something we believe is crucial to developing and exporting world-leading product development from Melbourne.”
As the founding research and development partner, Deakin University will have the opportunity to put forward potential candidates for the lab as well as research resources for Y2 projects.
Matthew Allen, Deakin’s professor of internet studies, is very positive about Y2 and the partnership with the Royals: “Y2 is a place where we can invent the future and bring the positive benefits of well designed, human-centred technologies more quickly into being. Collaborating with a partner like the Royals, with its track record in successful creativity,
communications and technology, allows Deakin to be more agile, more disruptive, and prototype the inventive solutions we need for everyday problems.”
Applications for the first Y2 Research Residency are now open, click here for more information.
Y2’s first quarterly review publication, ‘Talking to the Machine’, is also now available from the website.
2 Comments
Is this a joke?
The website is horrific, utterly terrible design, not to mention the fact its live with broken links.
Someone best get back to school… I hear Deakin have some good courses.
@does not compute. hehe, that’s good. ‘back to school/Deakin/courses’. I like it. I think we might have fixed the ‘broken link’. I think your computer is too old to run WebGL so we’ve hidden that stuff on older computers. Can you check it?
Speaking of web design, do you like this one?
http://futureofair.com/.:.:…:::::.:.:.:.::..::::.:….:::::.:.
I do.
Dave