Leeds Digital Festival is a celebration of digital technology and platforms. The digital industry spans business, art, culture, education and lifestyle; and the festival features a range of events, shows, lectures, and social events to bring the entire community together.
Officially taking place in November, the current programme spans six weeks, showing the breadth and depth of what 'digital' means to Leeds.
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Whether you want to learn something, meet people or just have fun, there's an event for you.
13th October 2011, 9:00AM Engine House Cafe
Join us for a breakfast event with Love Arts Leeds to explore the digital approach to health and networking.
19th October 2011, 12:15PM The Adelphi
The Leeds digital lunches aim to inform, educate, or entertain by gathering together a panel of the brightest brains from Leeds that can discuss the chosen topic. Today's topic: design in digital.
19th October 2011, 6:00PM Round Foundry
Chaired by Peter Cowley, Founder and CEO of Spirit Digital Media, and organised by Teesside University, this free event explores the rapidly expanding area of second screen content designed around TV programming.
20th October 2011, 10:00AM Midnight Bell
The last meet up before the Festival proper starts.
Come along for updates, last minute tweaks and a few drinks to celebrate or to steady your nerves.
27th October 2011, 12:00PM The Faversham
A "Student Showcase" event, aimed at retaining raw creative talent in Leeds and providing Students and Freelancers the opportunity to showcase their abilities to the media, digital and creative sector. Not only will it give local students and freelancers the chance to showcase their digital work to the thriving creative sector we have here in Leeds, but there are also two fantastic prizes for the winners. Brass Agency is offering a paid placement with in their business and Logistik are donating a brand new Mac plus a highly experienced mentor as the other prize.
29th October - 30th November 2011 Corn Exchange
For the past year Yorkshire artist Stuart Wroe has produced a series of digital images. This exhibition, as part of Leeds Digital Festival, includes wall based gallery projected/screen based digital images and a selection of 2D wall mounted digital images, highlighting the wealth of innovative and experimental digital work created by the artist during the past year in Leeds.
There will be a private viewing on 28th October between 5:30PM and 8:30PM.
1st November 2011, 10:00AM Round Foundry
In case you hadn't noticed, the web has changed everything.
In this one day workshop we will explore exactly what has changed because of the web and how. This will not be a day for technologists and web geeks, but for communications professionals, service managers, business developers, strategists and others who are wondering how to manage perceptions on the web and use them to build a better business.
1st November 2011, 10:00AM Old Broadcasting House
If you're working or playing in tech, media, creative & digital…, come and hang out, chat, demo or just network - usually around 30-40 people come along each month. To coincide with Leeds Digital Festival, LSxCafé (formerly OpenCoffee) is inviting you to find out more about coworking. You can meet the coworkers and find out how being a member of the Old Broadcasting House community works for them.
1st November 2011, 5:30PM Munro House
It's here!
Leeds Digital Festival 2011 will launch on Tuesday 1st November kicking off a month of events, seminars, workshops, socialising and the odd tipple or two at more than 40 events covering everything from games, apps, search, photography, music, social media, marketing and more.
Here's your chance to find out about the events, their organisers, the quirky campaigns and ways for you to be involved throughout the digital festival.
2nd November 2011, 12:15PM The Adelphi
The Leeds digital lunches aim to inform, educate, or entertain by gathering together a panel of the brightest brains from Leeds that can discuss the chosen topic. Today's topic: using digital to buy and sell.
2nd November 2011, 6:30PM Mint Hotel
Leeds Girl Geeks Dinners are informal evenings where we get together to network, have some drinks and some food, and hear some great speakers. It’s a chance to meet with the city's brightest creatives, technologists, developers, entrepreneurs, marketeers, PR professionals and creative & digital women. We do get some guys coming along too, but women are guaranteed to be in the majority!
3rd November 2011, 6:00PM Dock Street Market
Today’s children are ‘net natives’ who have grown up knowing nothing other than an always on connection to the internet. How should you design digital content differently for them?
This session brings together Leeds’ leading companies in this area: Dubit, Made by Pi and Numiko together with Giana Cassidy, a leading Psychologist and lecturer in Interactive Entertainment Design at Glasgow Caledonian University.
3rd - 20th November 2011 Various locations
This year the Leeds International Film Festival celebrates its 25th Anniversary edition from 3rd – 20th November with screenings of breathtaking British cinema, outstanding world cinema, cult archive presentations, spine-tingling live music events, thought provoking documentaries, experimental cinema and a selection of special events from Paul Merton’s Silent Clowns to the sell out horror marathon Night of the Dead.
7th - 8th November 2011 3 Albion Place
Econsultancy present an intensive two-day course, giving marketers a complete overview of all the essential digital marketing disciplines, how they can work together in your marketing strategy and helps to highlight areas for further in-depth learning. It will look at the key considerations for digital marketers, how to build the dream online strategy and assess what the future has in store.
8th November 2011, 6:00PM Leeds Central Library
Newspapers and radio used to rule the day and form opinion.
The internet changed things. It gave a platform for anyone with some basic skills. Now just about anyone can use a digital device to write, to publish, to read.
Write-Publish-Read looks at the leaders and the innovators from the city who embrace digital to spread their (and others’) words. Join us in Leeds Central Library for an evening of talk, debate, and workshops.
9th November 2011, 12:15PM The Adelphi
The Leeds digital lunches aim to inform, educate, or entertain by gathering together a panel of the brightest brains from Leeds that can discuss the chosen topic. Today's topic: in preparation for World Usability Day 2011, user experience.
9th November 2011 Round Foundry
Set to be a busy hour's seminar, online video expert Steffan Aquarone lays out the truth about video on the web in this Econsultancy breakfast briefing.
10th November 2011, 7:00PM Park Plaza
The Cream Yorkshire Awards are all about celebrating and rewarding creativity in Yorkshire.
11th November 2011, 7:00PM Saviles (Royal Armouries)
The DADIs (The Drum awards for the digital industries) recognise and reward digital excellence. These awards are open to any business, including agencies and clients, who are producing effective digital strategies. Bringing together individuals and companies at the forefront of digital and providing the opportunity for those entering to prove how good they are.
11th November 2011, 8:00AM Shine
Joining Lord Allan will be a panel of digital entrepreneurs and industry experts including David Bentley, managing director, Net Construct; Gary Lockton, development director, Fuse 8; Dave Eccles, director/founder, Numiko.
12th November 2011, 1:00PM The Cross Keys
117 people worked for Sense between 1995 and 2010, and this is their chance to get back together in one room, for some for the first time in years: the first Sense reunion, but hopefully not the last.
12th - 13th November 2011 Old Broadcasting House
Culture Hack is an opportunity for cultural organisations to make digital prototypes and develop new networks within the technology and creative industries. The cultural and arts organisations will provide datasets and 'problems' for the digital people to play with and respond to.
14th November 2011, 6:00PM The Lazy Lounge
We all know what it's like. You deliver the pitch, win the job and then your usual camera operator, sound recordist or producer isn't free for your dates. Arghhhh! What do you do? Who do you call? Where do you go? Would Like to Meet... has the answers.
14th November 2011, 6:30PM Old Broadcasting House
OpenGL is a low-level, language agnostic, OS and hardware independent API for rendering 3D graphics using GPU acceleration. This talk will introduce how OpenGL renders a 3D model to the screen, how to use it, and how it's evolved to make use of the capabilities of modern shader-based hardware.
16th November 2011, 12:15PM The Adelphi
The Leeds digital lunches aim to inform, educate, or entertain by gathering together a panel of the brightest brains from Leeds that can discuss the chosen topic. Today's topic: the creation of the Art in Yorkshire app.
16th November 2011, 6:00PM Round Foundry
Leeds Social Media Surgery is a free advice session for community and voluntary groups, clubs, societies and small arts organisations. Come along to find out how you can use free web sites and services to organise activities, promote events, raise funds, collect feedback from your participants and more.
18th November 2011, 10:00AMLeeds College of Art and Design
An exhibition of ‘in progress’ 3D outcomes from the workshop in Analogue / Digital Processing: Material Surfaces. Led by visiting designers Prof. Steffi Hußlein and Rob Laux (Magdeberg/Berlin) with Dan Robinson and Cheryl Huntbach (BA (hons) Art & Design Interdisciplinary, LCA), workshop participants are using new technologies to explore generative drawing on a range of material surfaces and to expand their grasp of generative design.
20th November 2011, 12:00PM Corn Exchange
Combining digital trickery with lesser-known parts of Leeds, CheckIn CheckOff is an ambitious project that wants people to see the potential in both the under-appreciated parts of the world of technology, as well as of the city itself.
21st November 2011, 12:00PM Round Foundry
With Leeds powering forward in the Race Online 2012 stakes, Digital Inclusion in Practice will focus on a real world case study on the subject from the LS14 Trust in Seacroft Leeds.
21st - 28th November 2011 Corn Exchange
Designed as a way to show people how ‘digital’ touches our everyday lives, Snap Shot Leeds is a photography project that doesn’t require a camera! The idea is simply to take a ‘snap shot’ of the city, whether that’s a building that you’ve always admired, a concert you’ve been to, a beautiful sunset over the city skyline, a football match or people going about their business on a busy Saturday and upload it to the site.
The project culminates in a week long exhibition of the submitted photos at the Corn Exchange, starting 21st November.
21st November 2011, 7:00PM The Wellington
Have you struggled to find a great PHP framework, look no further! Lithium is flexible, powerful, light framework which uses many of PHP 5.3 features to enable you to create a smarter web application.
22nd November 2011, 5:00PM The Loft
The importance of CSR and ethical buying has increased considerably in the past few years, indeed many believe a new era has dawned in the business world. Sustainable business models have taken the leading position in recent times of recession. At Future Arts, we would like to show you how simple it can be for your business to be on the cutting edge of these developments by proving to your customers that you are a brand they can trust.
22nd November 2011, 6:00PM Opta Leeds
Data has never been more important in professional Rugby. From coaches, analysts and commentators – statistics are now fully embedded in the fabric of the game. Opta’s Leeds office is the heartland of Rugby data and statistics.
Come along to Opta and we’ll show you how we collect the data. We’ll show you how professional coaches and analysts use this data – what they look for and why. We’ll show you how the data gets from our systems to the fans via broadcasts, websites and mobile apps.
23rd November 2011, 12:15PM The Adelphi
The Leeds digital lunches aim to inform, educate, or entertain by gathering together a panel of the brightest brains from Leeds that can discuss the chosen topic. Today's topic: Geolocation.
23rd November 2011, 6:30PM The Adelphi
Sean and Si love video games. Si likes the “good old days when the images were blocky and the games took ages to load”. Sean’s not so fussy - he just likes them all.
Expect talks, presentations, quick goes on games, and gaming competitions, themed on Co-Op!, the games when people have had to work together not fight against. Featuring Tristan Donovan, author of the awesome history of video games Replay, and Jamie Sefton, MD of Game Republic and a man who has many tales from his years at Future Publishing
23rd November 2011, 2:00PM Broadcasting Place
How do you get the edge when half of this year's graduates are predicted to to remain unemployed for the foreseeable future?
This session will discuss finding a job in the 'digital space', including getting best use of the digital tools at your disposal.
24th November 2011, 6:00PM Leeds College of Art and Design
Co-Founder of Future Artists, Mark Ashmore, shares his thoughts on the digital revolution and why hundreds of thousands of future artists around the world are part of it.
24th November 2011, 6:00PM Leeds Art Gallery
Now in towns and cities across the north, an economic and cultural renaissance is transforming attitudes and confounding old stereotypes. Visual art has played a crucial role in that transformation and continues to be a significant part of our communities. Developments like the Baltic Centre For Contemporary Art, The Liverpool Biennial, The Yorkshire Sculpture Park and The Henry Moore Institute have consolidated artistic activity and continue to feed a growing appetite for contemporary visual arts.
24th November 2011, 6:00PM The Adelphi
Bored of emailing people and never talking to anyone unless they're on Facebook? snZero is about re-energising people towards speaking to each other around tables with beer on. It may take off. People may end up back on Facebook in dark rooms.
24th November 2011, 6:00PM Mr Foley's Cask Ale House
Leeds Ruby Thing is a fun and informal social event for anyone interested in the Ruby programming language. You don't have to be an expert in Ruby - we're just a friendly bunch who enjoy beer and geeky chat.
26th November 2011, 12:00PM St Matthews Community Centre
If you love south Leeds or have a passion for street photography this one’s for you. The idea is simply to tell your story as you go, taking pictures of the local surroundings and sharing the faces and stories of a local community as it goes about its daily business.
28th November 2011, 6:00PM The Rose Bowl
An evening of conversation with ace technology journalist and technologist Ben Hammersley.
28th November 2011, 6:30PM Round Foundry
November ’s Northern User Experience event, part of the Leeds Digital Festival, is tying in with World Usability Day. This year’s subject is Education: Designing for Social Change and Derek Foster, part time lecturer at the University of Lincoln, will present his current research on social networking usage to reduce domestic energy use.
29th - 30th November 2011 Round Foundry
Over the last few months, Seb Lee-Delisle has been inspiring a new audience in the art of creative coding with JavaScript and HTML5. And after selling out the last NYC courses in a matter of hours, his workshop is now coming to Leeds!
29th November 2011 Millenium Square
The full details of this event will be coming soon - we'll have them up here as soon as possible.
29th November 2011, 8:30AM Mint Hotel
Distance learning has come a long way since the days of correspondence courses, with electronic delivery via the internet you can save you time and money. E-learning can also complement your existing training provision with a good Learning Management System (LMS) that allows you to monitor staff progress without the need for masses of paperwork; easily providing evidence of course completion.
Virtual College will be presenting demos of their existing courses and a chance to try industry leading learning management tools. They’ve also invited some of their existing partners and customers to share their real experiences.
29th November 2011
The full details of this event will be coming soon - we'll have them up here as soon as possible.
30th November 2011, 12:15PM The Adelphi
The Leeds digital lunches aim to inform, educate, or entertain by gathering together a panel of the brightest brains from Leeds that can discuss the chosen topic. Today's topic: Awesome Yorkshire.
30th November 2011, 6:00PM Alea Casino
The Digitally Leeds Awards have been designed as an alternative to large corporate industry awards, celebrating all facets of the digital industry. The categories include freelancer of the year, small team of the year, large team of the year, best blog and best selfless act, celebrating not only digital work for charities and community organisation but contributions made to Open Source innovations, sharing digital knowledge.
The awards ceremony will be held on the 30th November to mark the end of this year’s month long Leeds Digital Festival.