My first on-site product build: a photo booth that ran all week

What a week. International Design Factory Week 2026 in Riga was one of the best experiences I've had so far. So many new faces from Design Factories around the world, and a lot of conversations I'm still thinking about.
New people, new perspectives. I love connecting with people, and IDFW was full of them. I met people from across the Design Factory network, shared my ideas and learned how others think, build and teach.
Demonstrating Twinital. Together with Prof. Elina Mikelsone, I presented Twinital. The response was amazing — honest feedback, great suggestions and even ideas for future projects.
My first on-site product build. This is the part I'm most proud of. I built a custom photo booth for the event, and it ran throughout the whole week.
- 800+ photos clicked
- Potato crowns, googly eyes and a lot of laughs
- Real users, real feedback, in real time
Deploying a product live is a completely different game. Things broke in ways I never saw during testing. I fixed issues on the spot, listened to what people asked for and shipped improvements while the event was still running.
Building a product based on live feedback, with users standing right in front of you, taught me more in a few days than months of building alone.
