Andy McDonald of the Northern Ireland Science Park, prepares for RetroTech:FutureTech, which will turn the newly opened Fort George Innovation Centre into one of Derry’s coolest nightspots tomorrow night as part CultureTech.
Derry’s new North West Regional Science Park building will tomorrow evening host its first event, RetroTech:FutureTech, as part of Culture Night and CultureTech.
The new £12 million building. officially opened on Tuesday last at the former Fort George site in Pennyburn, will be turned into a buzzing nightspot with DJs, music, retro game favourites like Pacman and Sonic the Hedgehog and a host of new technology and gadgets including robots, virtual reality and a “celebrity face matching” demo for all guests.
Outside, the building will be lit in colour-changing lights, searchlights on the roof will sweep across the city and a fine mist wall at the entrance will produce a giant projection screen – plenty to see.
Andy McDonald, Business Development Manager at the Science Park and event organiser, said, “Think: Sonic the Hedgehog and Pacman meets Robots and Virtual Reality. We’ll have music from Reset Industries who are some of Ireland and the UK’s hottest DJ’s, a bar and a host of interactive games and gadgets.
“The new Science Park will soon be the main meeting hub spot for tech companies and new start-ups in Derry and we wanted to throw open the doors and welcome the people of our new host city in from the word go.
“For the retro gamers, we’ll have old-skool Sega Megadrive games and Pacman to play on a bank of monitors in our event space and for the future tech-followers, we are very excited to showcase some of the work being carried out by Intelligence Systems Research at Magee.
“They’ll be bringing robots, interactive tools and games controlled purely by the power of thought. Throughout the evening we’ll also be running an interactive driving challenge on the HCI Robot, with a prize for the fastest virtual laptime – things are going to get competitive!
“If you haven’t seen the Science Park already, you’ll have no problem spotting it on Friday night. The whole building will be lit up with colour-changing lights and enormous searchlights on the roof will sweep across the city’s skies, drawing visitors in.”
Tickets for the event are available via https://getinvited.to/nisp/retrotech-futuretech-at-the-science-park-/ and it is a strictly over 18’s event, starting at 8.00pm.
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