It was 9:15am and I was waiting outside the Atrium building to go in for the networking event. To be honest, I actually had no need to wait, as I managed to persuade a member of the Estates team that was going around performing his routine inspections to let me into the building.
I was taken around to the FSB room, where the room was deceptively quiet as it was countless times before when going to University events 30 minutes before it was set to start. Guess what, I was already starting to have fun before the event could even start - whilst I was standing around to take a picture of the introduction slide to the event to use as a thumbnail for this post, the screen had decided to go off for no reason at all. I tried fiddling around with the settings of the audiovisual unit, trying to get that to work, but then I thought better of the situation and stopped playing around with it before I could get myself caught by Malcolm Beer, one of the University's Business Development Managers.
In fact, the photo that I originally took to use as the introduction photo was no bueno for blog use - two of the screens had misaligned text, as seen here:
Then, at about 9:45am, the first of the FSB networking participants came along to the session, along with computing lecturer Dr Kakia Chatsiou - who happens to be the University's AI and data science geek.
Being a cyber-security graduate of the University, I was instantly recognised by her and we began sharing stories of how we came to know while I was still a student here. Then I started finding out about academics that are close to my field of graduation that could help me dive into the highly technical side of fantasy mapping. Perhaps I should do some posts on making a map using GIS programs, or some other unorthodox means at some point in the future if you want me to? Let me know in the comments or by email if so.
By 10:00am, the networking room started rapidly filling up with a couple of dozen business owners, mentors, as well as employees from a wide range of economical sectors, and the teas, coffees and breakfast rolls started coming off the tables at the speed of light.
Eventually, Malcolm used his fancy horn to call time on the meet and greet, and everyone was called to the exercise room to sit down and begin the session in earnest, where after going through some introductions into Malcolm's usual talk about his role, alongside your typical Innovation Labs gobbledygook, the floor was handed over to representatives of the FSB, where we were briefed on the usual information about being a member (one things for certain - there is no information about the Co-operative Bank this time!). The preliminary talks eventually finished with the reveal of the most fun enterprise activity ever imaginable - the FSB are running a one-day business bootcamp in the University's Waterfront Building in April to commemorate their 50th birthday, and representatives from Google will be taking over the floor for part of the session. How exciting!
And with that, it wasn't long before it was time to begin the first networking session, answering the question on whether AI is a friend or a foe. While there were many positives discussed in relation to AI, such as its use to simplify and automate marketing tasks, I also answered the question from a "foe" perspective, in that using AI for map making can sometimes raise questions on whether you are actually putting in the effort in terms of defining places and terrains, especially from a business perspective. Look, I could go into more detail about using AI for creative purposes, but that is probably something that is best left for another day.
Eventually, the clown horn was blown to call time and Dr Kakia took the stage to present her opinions on AI - which started off with a story of how 15 years ago, it was perceived that there was no chance that AI would develop into the monstrosity that is now. Then, she went on to explain the benefits of AI, firstly starting off with how it can be used to help achieve business and employment goals in Suffolk, followed by more general benefits - to name a few, these included improving public transport connectivity, telemedical appointments as well as improving employee efficiency at work. It was an opportunity to put whatever negative feelings I had about AI and my business idea behind me for a moment, and trust me... I was just amazed by the wide range of benefits that AI could offer from a business perspective.
With the mouthful of AI benefits covered, it was then time to get to the subject of how to create an AI-based computer system - where everything revolves around the magic that happens in the middle of it all... processes! Not to mention the amount of data that you need to throw at the system, the deep learning, and more importantly, the time you need on your hands.
Having explained the basics of creating an AI system, Dr Kakia then decided to do a series of Teachable Machine AI experiments that made everyone in the room laugh out loud - firstly, starting off by putting multiple colours of sweets on the screen and having 40 samples of each colour taken, followed by an additional class for the lecturer to differentiate the two objects, and eventually training the model.
The AI demonstration swiftly gave way to explanations of the different AI bots that exist out there - firstly getting to the obvious that is ChatGPT, followed by a fellow AI bot program - CoPilot, which happens to be Microsoft's competitor, and lastly Bard, described as a "hallucinative" AI bot. It was also fascinating to see how CoPilot can sometimes detect unethical and Academic Misconduct-inducing uses of the bot - for instance, the AI bot refused to respond when asked to write a 2,000 word essay on how AI is good for business.
And finally, after listening to some more talks about why AI can have negative effects for people in the creative industry, and the need to regulate AI products, Dr Kakia's AI lecture ended, and it was time to move on to the second networking session, discussing ways on how AI could be used in participants' business ideas - one of the participants that I was sat with was thinking of using the paid version of ChatGPT to automate the upload process for large amounts of documents relating to creative marketing proposals.
Once Malcolm used his fancy horn again to call time on the second networking session, it was time to move on to the third and final networking session, where I was paired up with a freelance marketer who wanted to use AI as their virtual assistant, and a criminologist-turned estate agent. It was also at this point that I was finally nudged from the opinions that I held on using AI for fantasy mapping... a little bit - it's called "Look at AI in other ways - but use your own skills to create input!". It basically means that you need to put the effort in yourself to generate the inputs, and then use AI to play around with the rest.
And with that, it was time to move on to the most insane Valentines' quiz that you will find lying around anywhere - the questions were all generated using GPT! But before the questions could be revealed, the fun had already started with an intergalactical range of team names - one of the teams was called TeamGPT, another team called themselves "3", after the table number, and another randomly called themselves "Autumn Sprouts".
Then it was time to move on to the questions themselves, where still following the galaxy theme, we were thrown into the world of Whitney Houston, the Beatles and Ed Sheeran in the first round of classic songs, followed by Rector Butler's "I'll perfect" and "Belle, I love you" in the famous movie quotes round, and ultimately, your typical run of the mill questions on love. And to add to the fun, we were all awarded at least one point in the final round on love and relationships.
And with that, the uplifting nature of the event finally started to tail off, as we were asked to complete a feedback for the networking session that we have just been through. Once that was done, and after having a couple more chats with Dr Kakia on how the Computing team at the University (and elsewhere) could still support my idea, as well as getting myself connected to a few other participants in the networking session, I decided to ask Malcolm if I could go into the Innovation Labs, and he agreed.
So I was led through to the hotdesking space across the corridor, where I would be sitting down to the backdrop of Alumni Relations staff and wannabe entrepreneurs talking about flights to America. I was originally hoping to use this time in the Labs to finish off a black-and-white fantasy map, but with my troubles connecting to the internet persisting, I was only able to get names for a few places and eventually left the building to go home. Oh well, the plot to do some fantasy mapping was partially foiled.
But I wasn't able to go home without a few more random surprises along the way - as I was wandering around the Sainsbury's to get some supplies, I randomly came across Enterprise Officer Hannah Page - it was first time I had met anyone in the Enterprise Team in 2024, so it came as a big surprise to me to see a familiar face again. I hope that one day, the Volkert will be back on my radar too...
To finish off the fantasy map story from earlier - if you want to know how things went, I eventually reached the end result a couple of days later:
Conclusions from the FSB Networking Redux
I have to say that the February FSB experience can only be described in two words - Just. Spectacular. Not only was the fun factor still there from when I first went to the FSB session in the summer, some elements, such as Dr Kakia's AI demo, as well as the Valentines' quiz that Malcolm put on at the end, made this edition even more fun than when I first came to the FSB networking session in July!
The three networking sessions for me have certainly given food for thought when it comes to how AI can be used in a positive and negative way when it comes to making fantasy maps - so when it comes to replicating the format of the post on the importance of cartography wellness that I made in March last year, I am intending to make a post on this blog that goes into further details about my opinions on AI and fantasy map making, with my explanations backed up by academic research on the subject.
When it comes to the Innovation Labs, I actually found it quite fascinating to see that University staff and prospective entrepreneurs could mix together and even help one another in providing access to resources that could support them in their business idea journeys. I hope to come back to the Labs in the future, although I would probably come back better prepared with actual hardware (like a PC or a laptop) rather than just a phone - that way, I can work on some actual fantasy maps digitally like there is no tomorrow.
Anyways, I hope you have enjoyed this comeback post about the FSB networking event, and I hope to see you in the next blogpost, where I will showcase the Ternia Ptolemy project. As with last time, I would like to wish everyone who took part in the FSB event the best of luck in their ventures.
Signing off now,
Jakub
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