Storyhub

A collective intelligence prototype

Storyhub is an experience inviting participants to a conference to engage with what is discussed on stage.

For the 2023 edition of its signature conference, C2 Montréal was eager to experiment with alternative ways to foster audience engagement with the content.

Over the course of the 3-day event, a massive amount of ideas and insights is shared. Facts, data, opinions and wisdom bounce around frenetically in an overwhelming dance of information.

But how might people respond to the topics at hand, given the opportunity?
What might they walk away with?
Can technology assist us in making sense of all that data?

Credits
A project by Pierre Thirion

Curation: Nicolas Fonseca

Original Commission: C2 Montréal 2023

A system transcribes in real-time the voices of the speakers on stage into text.

This text then goes through an analysis pipeline to extract the keywords and topics discussed.

The most poignant quotes are captured by human journalists, who listen to the talks and have access to the system's back-end.

After a talk, participants are invited to a 45-min role-playing exercise. As they pretend being journalists for an imaginary news outlet, they review, discuss, challenge and (sometimes) digress about the topics brought up on stage and how they feel about them.

By doing so, they contribute in their own way to the pool of knowledge initiated on stage by experts. They bring perspectives that can be aligned, complimentary or in opposition to what has been discussed.

After having debated, the ad-hoc team of journalists has to write a pitch for the article they would like to see published. They are assisted in their endeavour by a chatbot they can prompt with the topics they deem the most important.