From CeBIT 2013

Recently I was provided with the unique opportunity of attending the famous CeBIT in Hanover. Indeed it was an interesting chance for me given that I was provided with both a ticket for trade visitors and a part of my travel fees. In order to qualify for a subvention I had to write an article containing at least 6000 characters. At first I was a bit intimidated, given that I had a minimum amount of characters and an assigned topic instead of my usual free writing style. Another thing that made me doubt for a few moments before agreeing to the conditions was the requirement for the article to be German. While German is my mother tongue I prefer to jot down notes, thoughts and pretty much everything else in English. For some reason my thoughts seem to flow easier when I stick to English.

Well, turns out that 6000 characters isn’t much when you have a lot to talk about. I already wrote more than said limit when talking about the main topic I had volunteered for - the lab area. By the time I had finished writing a short part about the interesting presentations I attended the article was well fleshed out and I was forced to sum up some smaller presentations into a single subtopic in order to try to make the deadline. I am terribly sorry that I missed the deadline for handing it in by about 10 minutes but was quickly assured that it wouldn’t matter and everything was fine. The reason for the short delay was my unwillingness to send an article I hadn’t sufficiently proofread yet to a client.

You can read said article at the homepage of the Basisgruppe Informatik & Softwareentwicklung (student council of Computer Science and Software Development) or at the homepage of the Basisgruppe Telematik (student council of Telematics).

I had considered writing an English article for this blog, but I don’t think I’ll get around to do that in the near future if ever.

What got my attention most were the lectures. I think I’d enjoy giving such a presentation to an attentive, interested audience myself. The keynote for the day I was at the convention center - Friday - was by Aaron Levie, Co-Founder and CEO of Box and particularly interesting because he tried to look at the future of work in this Post-PC era. I want to bring attention to Levie’s outfit sporting a suit and blazing red sneakers. You don’t have to adhere to the strictest rules in order to be respected and successful. Dress code isn’t everything.

Also I thought I was going to test iOS’s Passbook for the first time, but given that I would’ve had to change lines and get in line after about 10 more people although I had already waited but was in the wrong line for digital tickets I gave up that particular endeavor.