A month back I got the news that I had been nominated for The Presidential Award for Innovation for my project “Creativity in Artificially Intelligent Agents“. The project was a software platform I created for researching creativity through artificial intelligence, built around a theory I’ve been working on for the past years on the nature and origin of creativity in natural animals. On february the 28th I made my way to Bessastadir to meet with Mr. Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, the President of Iceland, to attend the award ceremony. For keepsakes and in case someone is interested in knowing what it’s like to meet a President, I thought I’d document that day here on inkblot earth.

The day started, of course, with getting properly dressed and groomed. It’s not everyday I get to meet the President … and my regular activities in front of the computer seldomly require a specific dresscode, so it was fun to invest time and care in getting ready.

It’s about a half an hour drive from where I live to the Presidential Residence, Bessastadir, where the ceremony was to take place. We were the first ones to arrive (Me, my female counterpart and my brother), although somebody had been waiting in their car — seemingly afraid to go in first? Very strange. In any case, I’d never been there before and the view is fantastic from there. You can see over a large part of Reykjavik.

Walking in we met what must have been the Japanese embassador leaving from a meeting, his chauffeur waiting in the car. The doorman was a nice (albeit a bit muscular) fellow, which mysteriously I never saw again that day.

Upon walking in, I immediately noticed the architecture, which isn’t exactly modern (see an outside picture below). Bessastadir have of course been renovated, but the house and its foundation is really old, from Wikipedia:

The main building at Bessastaðir was built in 1761-1766.

They also mention:

Archeological excavations have shown that the first inhabitants of Bessastaðir settled there before AD 1000, and ever since the site has been inhabited. In the 13th century the great writer Snorri Sturluson had one of his farms there.

A picture on the wall showing farmers doing Icelandic farmer’s wrestling in the hallway also added to the feeling of being in the 13th century, and not in the home of Iceland’s President. Now I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit nervous, I really didn’t know what to expect, but I was able to take my mind off things while we waited by looking at some of the pictures they had in the ‘reception area’. These included pictures of the President with G. W. Bush (with a gigantic US style christmas tree in the background), Nelson Mandela, Vladimir Putin, Junichiro Koizumi and Bill Clinton (you can see some of these here).

About 10 minutes in it was starting to get a bit crowded. The other nominated projects were done in groups (I did mine alone), so there was a crowd there — journalists and news reporters were also anxiously running around. Finally they opened a door and asked everyone to please come in. I can’t remember exactly why, but I couldn’t get a view of where we were being led exactly. There were a couple of steps there down onto a lower floor-level and I was trying to keep an eye on my footing so I wouldn’t trip going down (people were moving along pretty close to each other, with the occasional bump). When I looked up again, to my surprise, the President and the First Lady stood only a meter away with their hands extended. Thankfully I’ve had some experience in meeting important people under pressure, so I was able to quickly shift into “Greeting Mode” and greet them properly despite my surprise. I wanted to say more, but this wasn’t the the time nor place for chit chat, the line of people pressured me into moving forward into the next room.

[Read Part II: Hrafn Almighty]