MJØLNER HANDLES TASKS ACROSS PLATFORMS, TECHNOLOGIES, & DISCIPLINES

Transcription

1 MJØLNER HANDLES TASKS ACROSS PLATFORMS, TECHNOLOGIES, & DISCIPLINES Benny Kristensen, Department Manager, Bankdata BANKDATA & MJØLNER TIE THE MOBILE KNOT HACKATHON: 3 PROTOTYPES IN JUST 4 DAYS CONTEXTUAL IT: BENEFIT & TECHNOLOGY MJØLNER IS EUROPE S 15 TH BEST SME WORKPLACE EXPERIENCE TouchGFX LIVE AT E-14 Mjølner Informatics A/S Finlandsgade 10, DK-8200 Aarhus N info@mjolner.dk 2 nd Quarter 2014

2 EDITORIAL PARTNERSHIP, INNOVATION & HAPPY EMPLOYEES We dedicate this Mjølner UPDATE to three main ingredients in our business: Partnership, innovation, and happy employees. A strong partnership enables us to help you in the best possible way. We strive to understand all aspects of your business to build the trust that allows us to move from an operational collaboration to a strategic collaboration. Innovation is a tool, not just a thought. With step-by-step actions, we ensure realizable and profitable innovation that leaves your competition desperate to catch up. Read what 14 to 19-year-olds need from their shared economy services, and how we facilitated innovation in a hackathon with ebay. For your tech fix, get up to speed with the benefits and technologies of Contextual IT. Furthermore, we disclose some of the reasons why we rank as Europe s 15 th best SME workplace. Finally, we invite you to stop by stand 3536 at the E-14 conference and experience a live demo of our TouchGFX technology. Best Regards, Once again, Mjølner is among Europe s best workplaces. Our employees are the core of our business, and our experience shows that happy employees make for a thriving business. On the following pages, you will learn why Bankdata and Mjølner have strengthened the partnership with a long-term mobile development contract. Brian Gottorp Jeppesen, CEO UPDATE Cover photo: Mikkel Kjær, Mjølner Informatics Benny Kristensen, Bandata

3 CASE BANKDATA & MJØLNER TIE THE MOBILE KNOT A long-term mobile development contract between Bankdata and Mjølner manifests a continuing partnership built on trust and skill, and enables strategic collaboration. Mjølner s academic diversity enables them to handle tasks across platforms, technologies, and disciplines. A lasting commitment is beneficial both operationally and strategically. - Benny Kristensen, Department Manager, Bankdata Bankdata is an IT organization with more than 600 employees. They deliver digital banking solutions to 13 Danish banks, e.g. Jyske Bank and Sydbank. Competence, Honesty, and Trust The development of Android and ios banking apps started Bankdata and Mjølner s partnership in This led to the development of Windows Phone apps for all member banks in 2012, and the mobile payment solution, Swipp, in Competence, honesty, and trust characterize the partnership. Just before Easter this year, we strengthened our strategic collaboration by tying the knot in a long-term mobile development contract. A team consisting of developers, graphic designers, and a project manager from Mjølner is currently working with Bankdata. A Lean Process Bankdata and Mjølner s partnership is a testament to the fact that familiarity with the organization you are working with creates a leaner process. We know Bankdata s organization and solutions quite well. This benefits the development process, as it lets us cut straight to the chase. - Mikkel Kjær, Mobile Service Manager, Mjølner Informatics Knowing and understanding the stakeholders in an organization is a huge benefit: We know whom to ask and when. Picture Bankdata-Mjølner text kick-off meeting Bankdata-Mjølner workshop to strengthen the joint development process Keeping up with Apple, Android, and Windows Mobile self-service solutions have become indispensable within the banking sector. As the smartphone market grows increasingly complex, it becomes more and more challenging to keep up with the technological and platform-specific requirements. It is extremely challenging to create and maintain bulletproof solutions when technological demands change at such a rapid pace. This is one of the challenges Mjølner will help us overcome. - Benny Kristensen, Department Manager, Bankdata Learn more about self-service solutions at mjolner.com Do you Need a Mobile Partner with Academic Diversity and Deep Technological Insight? Mikkel Kjær, Mobile Service Manager myk@mjolner.dk Mjølner s academic diversity enables them to handle tasks across platforms, technologies, and disciplines. Benny Kristensen, Department Manager, Bankdata

4 EVENT HACKATHON: 3 PROTOTYPES IN JUST 4 DAYS Young and creative contestants showed off their tech talents in a quest to create the next shared economy service with ebay & Mjølner. Our hackathon united IT professionals from ebay and Mjølner with enthusiastic students in a four-day race to invent the next big shared economy service. The event took place in Aarhus, from April 28 th to May 1 st as part of the first annual festival, Internet Week Denmark. Picture text The hackathon fostered three prototypes that all had the customer, user, and business model in mind. Facilitating Innovation We kicked off the event with an innovation workshop for 35 pupils from Hestlund Efterskole, representing the target group: 14 to 19-year-olds. The students formed five groups and with exercises such as Six Thinking Hats, Empathy Mapping, and Storyboarding, they came up with five strong concepts. We were quite impressed with the students. They brought new perspectives to the shared economy theme and produced great ideas for the developers. - Inge Mølgaard, Senior UX Consultant, Mjølner Informatics Students from varying IT related studies then took over the concepts and tuned them even further. Finally, three groups were formed and an intense three-day hack commenced. The Trust Issue The innovation workshop with Hestlund Efterskole showed that the main issue for target users was trust. The three hacking groups chose different paths to address the issue. Team 1: Andrei Git, Cristian Sarac, and Dragos Barbu built a locally anchored platform. Team 2: Anders Fauerholdt, Christoffer Bech, Theis Nickelsen, and Kristian Jørgensen developed a cross-site rating system. Team 3: Jørgen Heinsen, Khaled Saied, Jonas Pedersen, and Aleksandar Peev created a video chat extension to DBA.dk. The Winners After three productive days, the groups presented their prototypes for a jury of ebay and Mjølner experts. Rate28, the cross-site rating system created by Team 2 won the competition. Rate28 is a simple, but very effective solution with great potential. That s why they are the winners. The event has proven that a hackathon is a great way to tackle real life challenges and we strive to be back again next year. - Flemming Laugesen, CTO of Ebay Denmark The hackathon successfully encouraged innovative thinking and development from students that proved to be very productive. A hackathon is a great way to tackle real life challenges and we strive to be back again next year. Do you Need us to Hack Your Challenges? Your organization s ideas and challenges might benefit from a similar approach. We help you develop the idea, create the concept, and implement the prototype in a matter of days. Brian Gottorp Jeppesen, CEO of Mjølner Informatics brj@mjolner.dk Flemming Laugesen, CTO of Ebay Denmark Innovation The hackathon in the camp sun in Ridehuset Discussion and storyboarding

5 EVENT

6 TECH CONTEXTUAL IT: BENEFIT & TECHNOLOGY Contextual IT is a rising trend, but what exactly is it and should you be interested? Contextual IT involves a series of new technologies, forms of interaction, and consumer movements that all lead our use of IT in a more holistic and contextual direction. Benefit: Personalized Real-Time User Experiences The overall benefit of contextual IT is that it enables businesses and organizations across all industries to give their users highly personalized user experiences. As IT becomes real-time intelligent, it mediates communication between us and the things in our digital and physical context right here and now. Six Contextual Technologies to Keep an Eye on The internet is our main tool in achieving these highly personalized user experiences, but the process is extremely complex. Luckily, there are several technologies and trends dedicated to help the development: Cloud Computing ensures easy access to data and is vital when we want to share data across devices and situations. Big Data, when analyzed well, enables us to predict and present data in a way that creates the right experience in a specific context. Wearables, e.g. Google Glass and smart watches, make it easy to collect and extract data continuously. The Internet of Things unlocks the functionality of IT with a minimum of interaction. No-Touch Interfaces allow us to communicate with IT by various gestures such as voice, eye movement, etc. Finally, Augmented Reality supports the Contextual IT trend by enriching our physical world. The Human Perspective Leaving aside the debate of whether the symbiotic blend of man and machine is desirable, it seems clear that such symbiosis will not be achieved through technological advances alone: Good design is critical. Contextual IT products must understand which information to present, when, and how. These tasks need clever human attention. - Kasper Svendsen, UX Consultant, Mjølner Informatics As with any technology in its infancy, Contextual IT is undergoing a rapid evolution. We are excited to take part in this evolution and look forward to seeing it unfold. Interested to Learn More? Kasper Svendsen, UX Consultant kms@mjolner.dk

7 AWARD MJØLNER IS EUROPE S 15 TH BEST SME WORKPLACE For the sixth time, Mjølner is among Europe s top 100 workplaces. Employees say that our focus on skill development plays a vital role in our high ranking. The global research and consulting firm, Great Place to Work, conducts a comprehensive review of Europe s best workplaces every year. The 2013/14 edition had employees from 2,330 companies in 19 countries assess their workplace and the lists were announces June 5 th in Rome. Employees at Mjølner especially commend our willingness to devote time to the development of personal and shared competences. One of our initiatives to prioritize skill development is weekly meetings in skill-related groups across projects: Our architect and test manager communities provide a unique opportunity for knowledge sharing and education within topics that are current and matter on a daily basis. - Anonymous response from the report Respect the Individual CEO, Brian Gottorp Jeppesen is more than satisfied with the rating. He believes that happy employees are critical in the software and design industry. We re proud to announce that Mjølner ranks as the 15 th best SME workplace in Europe! Competence in Focus Great Place to Work conduct their survey based on three core values: trust, pride, and community. In an industry driven by knowledge and innovative thinking, people are the foundation of our business. This makes it essential that we respect the individual as a whole - both technically, organizationally, and socially. Happy employees create the best products. -Brian Gottorp Jeppesen, CEO of Mjølner Informatics Visit mjolner.com/blog to learn about some of the activities that make Mjølner such a great place to work. TouchGFX team meeting an interested crowd at NXP Semiconductors stand

8 EVENT EXPERIENCE TouchGFX LIVE AT E-14 Visit stand 3536 at Denmark s largest electronics trade fair, E-14 from September 2 nd to 4 th, and experience TouchGFX first hand. Live Development & Graphic Design The interest for TouchGFX is steadily growing and we want to give you an even better understanding of the possibilities TouchGFX offers. Can t Wait? Go to touchgfx.com and request a fully functional evaluation license, free of charge, and get started right away! Coming Soon! TouchGFX will soon enter the mass market with an updated software version. TouchGFX 3.3 will be available from September 1 st. The Update Includes: E-14 is Denmark s largest electronics event, held in the midpoint of Denmark: Odense. The trade fair visitors include professionals from all levels of the Danish electronics sector. Visit elektronikmesse.dk to learn more To do so, we invite companies to challenge us with their next embedded GUI project. In a live development and graphic design session, we provide an instant proof of concept on your target hardware. a license model tailored to fit the needs of businesses with low production volumes. an open HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) enabling clients to port independently. More information will follow on touchgfx.com ports to standard MCUs ready for your customization. Feel Free to Contact: Jørgen Mygind Business Development Manager, TouchGFX jmy@mjolner.dk