Interaction 12 to be hosted in Dublin

On August 31st 2010, an announcement was made that will change the face of Interaction Design in Dublin and Ireland forever. Dublin and the Institute of Art, Design & Technology (IADT) were announced as the co-hosts for Interaction 12, the annual conference of the Interaction Design Association (IxDA). Dublin was one of five submissions alongside Berlin, Delft, Helsinki and Paris.
 
In the announcement on IxDA.org, Steve Baty, the Interaction 12 Conference Chair said the IxDA Board “unanimously endorsed this choice, based on the strength of Dublin's coordinated, city-wide support for the conference, the strength of the local interaction design community, and the quality of the conference facilities on offer.”
 
This is a major achievement for IxDA Dublin. The IxDA Dublin organisers and community are honoured and overjoyed to be the host city for the first IxDA conference in Europe. We look forward to working with IxDA, IADT and the Dublin Convention Bureau to make Interaction 12 a resounding success.  

Please keep the evening of Monday, October 11th free. We hope you can join us and some very special guests to celebrate the good news at IxDA Dublin's 2nd Anniversary Party – full event details to be posted very soon.

A collaborative effort

The success of our bid would not have been possible were it not for the hard work and effort put in by a collaborative group of individuals and organisations who dedicated their time to a busy Summer of putting together a rich and detailed proposal.
 
It was a pleasure to work with the dream team of IADT and the Dublin Convention Bureau.

I would especially like to thank Bernard Mullarkey, Secretary/Financial Controller at IADT, for seeing the potential of such an event, responding to my initial enquiry, and for his vision, drive and leadership during the bidding process.

I would also like to thank Donna Brogan and her colleagues at The Dublin Convention Bureau, a business tourism unit of Dublin Tourism for their support. When it comes to knowledge of Dublin, and putting on a conference here, their world-class experience and expertise is second-to-none.

Thanks to Barry Sheehan for sharing his wide knowledge of the Irish design world and his fantastic dissertation "What is the Optimal Structure for Organisations Representing Design and Designers on the Island of Ireland?"

• Ben Arent, TRIL Centre & co-founder and co-coordinator of IxDA-Dublin
• Julian Becerra, Graphic Mint
• Dr. Adam Drazin, Department of Sociology, Trinity College Dublin
• Ali Grehan, Dublin City Architect
• Frank Long, Frontend.com
• Matthew Ovington, Open Interface
• Simon Roberts, Innovation Interface
  
• Barry Sheehan, Chairperson Designweek
• John Wood, iQ Content

Thanks also to Frank Long, Celine O’Neill, Martha Rotter and Dr. Grainne Kirwan for putting me in touch with IADT.

Huge thanks to Ben Arent, co-founder and co-coordinator of IxDA-Dublin for keeping the group running smoothly and for his insatiable appetite for organising stellar local IxDA events.

Finally, thanks to Graphic Mint, for providing me the agency and freedom to take vast amounts of time off over the Summer to work on this bid. I promise I will be back at my desk presently.