After listening to Bjarte Ytre-Arne and Terje Berg, our guests for Session 5 , you will start dreaming with giant keyboards and WIFI on every public square. And the good news is you can ask for one!

As Belinda Tato (@belindatato) explains during the firsts minutes, all you have to do is to write us at dreamhamar@gmail.com with your onsite workshop of interest – Technology, Activities, Environment, People, and Seasonal – or, if you cannot go to Hamar, register in one of the online workshops. They are free for Hedmark residents!

But lets go back to Hamar Experience Session 5. Bjarte and Terje are both technology experts. Bjarte will be the community activator for TECHNOLOGY onsite workshop and has an impresive resume (read this and envy him). Terje is a technology generalist and he is so into nano technology that their friends nicknamed him Mr. Nano. Neither of them is from Hamar but they both moved here because they found Hamar to be a very beautiful and convenient city. Also, Terje shared a secret with us. It turns out Hamar has the best electronic infrastructure in Norway, like several GB/s, fiber optic lying under the streets!

For Bjarte, dreamhamar could be define as an “inviting and exciting” project. Terje pointed out that is also a visionary one because it gives people the power to decide.

They invited us to consider public space as an extension from our living room. To choose the characteristics of something and then try to create that something, instead of sitting back and using what we already know might work. To combine technologies to create physical experiences, something so tempting that we would rather be outside than watching tv at home.

Because at the end, we tend to prefer to be part of something than to be on our own.

Most important of all, Bjarte challenged Hamar residents to go for the impossible and then see what is possible. To look at public places as places for playing and interacting. He gave us a very cute example, a giant keyboard like the one in Big (1988).

The chat was as active too. We love ideas such as PC’s, who propose affordable and unique dining/cooking in Stortorget. Point taken, PC!

As a final note, we learned interesting facts such as:

+ There is no delivery system in Hamar for groceries, so you can’t do your shopping by bike.
+ There’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes.

Oh, if you thought you were hallucinating the story about two architects driving 3.500km to Hamar, wait until you read the post!

See you all next week, 18:00 (Madrid, Norway time) on Hamar Experience!!!