There’s something about an event that gets people excited, from its infant planning phase to when it’s finally happening. Maybe it’s the fact that no one can accurately predict how the day will turn out, how the weather will be, or if it will be interesting or not. Or maybe it’s the fact that a whole day has been set aside just for one specific reason that people are looking forward to.
I recently attended a Get Inside Intel event that was on the 11th of June 2016 at Africa Nazarene University.
It was my second time but I was still excited because I’d get to interact with Intel technology again.
One of the things that made the day really cool was the fact that everyone present had the chance to build whatever they wanted using Intel IoT technology (which happened to be my favorite part of the day actually). Actually, it was more like as soon as I lay my hands on the Intel Edison kit, I suddenly got all these cool ideas and wanted to try them all out at once, and I was not the only one excited about it.
Working with Intel Edison and Galileo kits is not only fun, but it gives young minds the chance to become innovative, creative and come up with fun ways to try and bridge market gaps, or come up with solutions to some current problems around the world. So far, Intel has targeted learning institutions giving this opportunity to students and the fact that it’s fun and hands on makes it more captivating.
That wasn’t the only segment of the day. Also, we got the chance to learn about how Intel RealSense technology is used to build immersive and intuitive applications, that include hand and finger tracking, facial analysis, speech recognition, augmented reality and 3D scanning.
One of us gave a brief overview of how RealSense is used to create games. I’m not much of a gamer myself but the fact that some games could actually be played without having to use any sort of controller was really cool.
After the brief presentation there was an open session where guys came up with crazy and awesome ideas of the things they could do with RealSense. Imaginations were running wild.
And finally, there was the Intel XDK, which is a set of development tools that lets people create mobile and tablet applications using HTML 5 and JavaScript. Maybe when most people hear about creating functional applications the first thing that comes to mind is having lines and lines of code, what language one is supposed to use, making them shy away from even trying to build one in the first place. But with Intel XDK, it’s less tedious since it works with HTML 5 and JavaScript which are some of the least complicated coding languages. Any programmer, developer or even just any IT enthusiastic boy or girl would love seeing an app they’ve built being used and enjoyed by many people, and making it work among various Operating Systems. Actually, I don’t see why not make it something to do when you’re bored at home or in your room, when you don’t have a movie to watch, etc. or even a hobby.
All the things that we get to do with technology these days are just endless, from as little as coding a “Hello World” program to programming a 10 foot crane to be able to perform its tasks reliably and efficiently without having to be manually controlled. Several students use Intel technologies for their projects. As much as projects take up most of our time since everyone would want a good grade from something they have been working on all semester, why not make it fun since you’re literally building something. According to me, most people like hands on stuff, something that gives them the chance to come up or build almost anything, and make changes along the way. For instance, kids love Lego toys, I personally played with them almost everyday of my childhood since I got to explore my imagination and then put it down for people and myself to see. I was always proud of myself whenever I built something.
There were actually several Intel giveaways though it would have been cooler if it was Intel device giveaways instead.
Despite that I was very grateful I got to attend Get Inside Intel again and can’t wait for next time.
Nice article. It seemed to have been an awesome event and a good exposure to interesting tech. I’m heading over to look up more on Intel’s IoT boards, thanks for sharing.
Great article.
I was fortunate enough to attend the Get Inside Intel event and I must agree with Lulu. The event was a success. I learnt alot from that one session so I wonder how much more I’d learn in another session. Can’t wait for the next Intel event