Prototyping the future

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Gästbloggare: Joe Coppard

I’m Joe Coppard, co-founder of Protothon.

For the last 8 years I have been working between the fields of art, design, technology and communication forging a path guided by ideas and people, brands and universities. A fascinating route that has led me to work with bold, humbling and incredibly talented individuals and institutions. Throughout this time my obsession has been with collaboration and the opportunities, insights and innovations interdisciplinary work can birth.

In the last year and a half I have moved to Sweden, allowing myself to frame my experiences in a new light and reconstruct my philosophy. The thing left after the dust settled: Prototyping. For me Prototyping is about being free from restrictions in order to learn from failures. To invent. Prototyping suits the technology of the times. It suits the recession. The speed of life. It suits interconnected culture, dynamic communication, life as play, international community.

In October last year I had two profound meetings in Stockholm. The first – a lecture I gave at Berghs School of Communication, the second – a talk to a group of competent developers. At both events I presented pieces of work pushing the limits of technology and design and the potential of the collaboration between the fields. Both groups of highly skilled individuals were interested in the intersection of communication and technology, and both lacked what the other possessed in order to make it. The Berghs students could conceptualise but not program. The developers could build but not design. They were a match made in heaven but with no common network or place to meet.

And so, together with the incredible team of Peter Svensson, Clara Terne and Johan Nilsson, we built Protothon. Space for the place between code and creativity.

By bringing the best developers together with the best designers we curate highly skilled teams who, within a 12 hour event, prototype new digital experiences. Together we have worked with launching an app platform for a Swedish music streaming service with 15 million users world wide. We have also been experimenting with WebRTC for one of the worlds largest online corporations. Now we embark on a remarkable project with IBM. A bigger, bolder collaborative stage than I have seen before, one where by bringing the business leaders into the mix of developers and designers we can forge smarter ways to communicate, work and play.

It is a unique situation as will allow the next generation of bright brains to collaborate with chief officers of the greatest businesses around. A ground where they will push each other, share knowledge and come up with ideas. An invaluable situation for real innovation.

IBM have long been committed to collaboration – from putting the first man on the moon to the decade long collaboration with Charles & Ray Eames, IBM have invested greatly in creative collaborations that have helped humanity invent and evolve. I am very proud to be working with such a legendary company and together breaking new ground.

For Protothon and IBM, Prototyping the Future is a bold step in this legacy – forging a new path for innovation.

– Joe Coppard, Co-founder of Protothon