Involving Leeds Met

Leeds Metropolitan University has already ongoing links with India, for example through its sponsorship of the IFA "Bollywood Oscars". I would be on personal holiday from 26.July - 10.August, and the group planned to book their flight tickets on 11.August. This meant that I only had 3 days to submit my travel forms to Leeds Met and to alert the senior managers of our faculty about this great opportunity. This project is very much in line with many of the Leeds Met vision and character attributes: worldwide horizons, cultural partnerships, environmental engagement, and interdisciplinary research and development.

I identify my role in this project as linking geo-centric web interfaces with the project output and conduct. Specific would still have to be defined, but such a collaborative project across the world would provide a lot of opportunity for utilising multimedia and communication technology, allowing to tell the story / narration in a novel way, through the medium of the internet.

The management of our faculty is very positive towards this project, and I have been given an informal "ok". So I can peacefully have a vacation now, and upon my return can begin to organise the travel.

Initial Contact of Participants

Today a meeting was held in the Leeds Met Old Broadcasting House. It was here that I met Brian Lewis from Pontefract Publishing. I had given a presentation about my work and the general interest of the Centre for Creative Technology, for an ongoing discussion about a project bid. Ruth Dass from InterCulture knew Brian from earlier collaborations, and so I was introduced to him.

He was planning a new project: "Gujarati Rivers Speak to Yorkshire Rivers", in which writers would express their interpretation of the climate change and its consequences, across two different local regions in the world. As in my presentation I had pointed out our recent work on geo-centric interfaces, Brian asked me if I would be interested in participating in this project. This would involve a travel to India, to Ahmedabad in Gujarat, in November 2008. Since I always am keen on traveling in this world, I hardly could say "no", but I could not yet commit to this, as Leeds Met would need to approve such a travel.

This project provides an excellent opportunity for showcasing geo-centric web interfaces, linking events and narrative to geographic locations.