Max-Planck-Society – Globaldata

SESSION DESK as a mobile exhibit

On 24 April 2009, the ‘Exhibition Future’ exhibition train, which is over 300 metres long, will be setting out on its tour on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Federal Republic of Germany. Twelve railcars devoted to specific topics will provide easy-to-understand information concerning the innovative trends in the very different areas. The fields presented range from nanotechnology to the energy supply of the future and personalised medicine. This new type of mobile exhibition will demonstrate how science and research will change our lives in the coming ten to fifteen years, thus promoting more curiosity and openness with respect to new technologies and innovations in Germany.

Exhibit railcar 08: healthy + productive
How will we feed nine billion people?

What hardware was used?
The version of SESSION DESK used in exhibit railcar 08 is the standard version (version 2.0). The outer panelling of SESSION DESK was designed to match the interior design of the railcar and integrated crosswise in the wall at the opposite side.

What application is running on SESSION DESK?
The application GLOBALDATA is based on four different overlapping maps between which the visitor can simply switch back and forth. It presents the development of the world from 1950 to 2030 in relation to the issues of overfishing, food production, nutrition and population. Together with the scientific magazine National Geographic and other experts from the field of geoinformatics Archimedes Solutions compiled and prepared the information for this application.
The special challenge of this application lay in the visualisation of the enormous density of information in the underlying data, combined with the task of designing an exhibit that is fun and that awakens the curiosity of visitors.