The Coronavirus Tech Handbook provides a space where technologists, specialists, civic organisations and public & private institutions can collaborate on a rapid and sophisticated response to the outbreak. It is a dynamic resource with many hundreds of contributors that is evolving very quickly. Its design is easy to read, intuitive to use, and allows for easy long term engagement. With your help, we can produce a comprehensive library of all known resources for mitigating every impact of the pandemic.

https://coronavirustechhandbook.com

On Thursday 9 April, local councils will release details of who is standing for the May elections. At this event, we’ll be collecting all that data together into one open database.

Stay for the whole session or just drop in whenever you can — every little helps!

We’ll provide drinks and snacks!

You’ll need a laptop, but no technical knowledge.

You might like to sign up for an account at candidates.democracyclub.org.uk before the event.

The Echo Chamber Club brings together various experts and specialists who want to improve information environments. You could be an academic, a journalist, a think-tanker, a technologist or a policy-maker who works on anything related to this field. This could be - disinformation, misinformation, information warfare, truth-making, conspiracy theories, data privacy, data politics, political advertising, microtargeting, transparency, mediatisation, normalisation, echo chambers, filter bubbles, herd thinking and more.

The purpose of this meet up is to meet people who are working in adjacent fields to enable collaboration. However, we will also have some exciting provocations lined up to help stimulate conversation.

The meet up will be hosted by Alice Thwaite, founder of the Echo Chamber Club. We will provide snacks and drinks. Please do give us a donation to help us fund the event and buy refreshements.

• Arrivals from 6.30 pm
• Provocations from 7pm (speakers tbc)
• The event ends when the last person exits

Every month we meet up to collaborate on projects, to discuss progress and to learn together. This is a meetup for engineers of all stripes (hackers, makers, designers and other technologists) who wish to contribute their spare time and talents to radical projects, or work on their own projects. The evening will kickoff with a short introduction round, after which you can proceed to work on your own project, join someone else’s or join one of ours.

What is a radical project? Here at Radical Engineers, we have been seeking and contacting organisations which aim to fundamentally change our economic, political and social systems to enhance human autonomy and social equality. We discuss their projects and clarify any technical challenges or needs they may have so that when they are presented to you, our community, you know that they are properly considered and genuinely useful. Our vetting process means that you will only be working on projects which will help not just to fix the symptoms of our economic systems, but aim to contribute to systemic change itself.

Not an engineer? That’s ok too! You would be surprised at the variety of skills needed for projects. Spreadsheet sprites, word wizards and pixel pirates are valued guests and we could always use a hand scoping out new projects!

See some projects Radical Engineers are working on at www.radicalengineers.com

The Metropolitan Police have begun deploying controversial facial recognition cameras across London. Future Advocacy, a think tank focused on artificial intelligence and emerging technologies, is currently exploring the potential implications this may have for people of colour and religious minorities. Studies have found that facial recognition technology can often result in discriminatory outcomes for individuals with darker skin.

As part of our research, we are looking to bring together young people of colour at a workshop in East London to discuss their views on the technology. It will be an informal event and refreshments will be provided (including pizza).

For any questions, please feel free to get in touch with Areeq Chowdhury at [email protected]

This project is being supported by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust.

A recently released FOIA request made to the National Security Agency brought their internal Python training course to light…

If you’d like to learn Python direct from NSA materials, join us on March 28th in London for our first NSA Python study group session!

Click here for more details!

An event to celebrate the launch of Good Services, a new book about how to design services that work for users.

Good service is a book about what makes a good service, and how to design services that work for users. It took a lot of work to make, so we’re having a party to celebrate!

Talks by Lou Downe and Sarah Richards about all things services - good, bad and ugly - followed by a conversation between both speakers on writing books about emergent disciplines.

And if that wasn’t enough, music, a special gin from The Electric Spirit Co and an opportunity to buy posters, stickers and (more!) books.

There will be live music after the talks and a promise of a party atmosphere.

Talk by Sarah Richards

Founder of the content design movement, Sarah pioneered the standards during her 10-year career with the UK government. As head of content design for the Government Digital Service (GDS), Sarah created and implemented the content strategy for the GOV.UK website.

Talk by Lou Downe

Director of Housing and Land transformation for the UK Government, based at Homes England and author of Good Services - a book about how to design services that work. They were previously Director of Design for the UK Government, where they established the cross-government standards for good services and founded the discipline of service design, building a community of over 3,000 designers, user researchers and content designers across government.

Gin by Electric Spirit Co.

Founded by James Porteous (ex EY Seren and Engine, now distiller extraordinaire). James has been a long term service design friend through the years, and gave it up to distill amazing gin that just so happens, matches the colour of the book!

Music from a live band, followed by Sarah Drummond (aka. DJ Drummondbass).

Party and Talks Schedule

• 18:00 - Arrivals
• 18.30 - Welcomes
• 18:40 - Talk by Sarah Richards
• 19:10 - Talk by Lou Downe
• 19:30 - In conversation with Sarah and Lou, with questions from the audience
• 20:00 - Shake a leg and celebrate!

Gen:Impact was set up to connect young professionals in London working to have social impact. Our goal is to provide a casual setting to exchange ideas, build relationships, and collaborate towards social change. Whether you’re a teacher, a civil servant, an impact investor or you work in the charitable sector, our work is aligned by the fact that we work to make the world a better place. Meet similar people and hear inspiring talks from peers!

• 7:00 - 7:30 PM - Arrivals - Arrive and meet.
• 7:30 - 8:30 PM - Speakers - Learn about exciting projects in the impact space from your peers
  • Beatrix Pitel, Fawcett Society - Fawcett Society is a charity campaigning for gender equality and women’s rights at work. They publish research and bring together politicians, academics and activists to tackle issues such as closing the gender pay gap and secure equal political representations.
  • Anna Fraser, Social Finance - After studying Human Computer Interaction Design, Anna worked in the Home Office in user research across immigration and law enforcement. She worked to understand and champion the needs of people using the services, researching with a wide range of users including vulnerable people, and people with access needs. Since then, she has moved to Social Finance, working to embed user research in projects across a range of complex social issues.
  • More tbc!
• 8:30 - 10 PM - Networking - Chat and share a drink with your peers in the impact community

Org/speaker bios:

Join us to hear about research into the use of highly intrusive monitoring technologies in children’s lives at school, after school, and beyond the school gates. Hear what you can do to help the campaign to make all school data safe, fair and transparent.

The creeping capability of commercial school safeguarding software now includes imposed surveillance at home. Companies that once offered only filtering and blocking now monitor individuals on screen content and searches. Typing words that match keywords libraries of thousands of terms can trigger a risk flag.

Advancing technology enables ever more one-sided opaque access to information about children, building profiles, even taking their photos via the webcam.

But there is no discussion of its growing risks or transparency to schools or families about how it works.

defenddigitalme has obtained statistics using Freedom of Information requests that suggest 70% of schools in England use web monitoring software, and a growing trend to monitor personal devices beyond the school playground.

Parents want to know how these flags and watchwords are being used about their children. Under a third of parents polled believe their school use these tools. None of the 400 school policies reviewed by defenddigitalme explain it.

Will the Online Harms agenda normalise or even seek to legalise this gross invasion of private and family life?

Speaker: Jen Persson @TheABB from defenddigitalme

Further reading: https://defenddigitalme.com/2018/12/response-to-school-pupils-being-spied-on-through-webcams-and-school-web-monitoring-software

The sell out corn-based snack event is back. It’s Wine and Wotsits time.

You say wot?

That’s right, there aren’t enough wotsits in campaigners lives, so a few times a year we co-ordinate people coming together to share some of their successes. It’s a pecha kucha format, which means approx 5 presentations of 20 slides, each lasting 20 seconds. It will be an opportunity to hear from cutting edge speakers doing exciting things. Previous speakers include those from Save the Children, Shelter, WWF, Unlock Democracy, Which?, Change.org, National Autistic Society, Care2, Let Toys be Toys, Transform Justice and many more. If you have something you’d love to talk about, please let us know!

Wot Wot Who?

We’ll be unveiling the full list of speakers over the next few weeks.

How many tickets are there?

About 125. We always sell out, so please grab a ticket early to avoid disappointment, and if you can’t make it let us know so someone else can grab your spot.

How does it work?

You show up with whatever you want to drink (wine, fizz, non-alcoholic, whatever takes your fancy), we provide the wotsits and some cups. Rebels sometimes bring onion rings or monster munch.

You have a great evening, make friends with strangers and learn a bunch.

This is an event for anyone with an interest in the labour movement.

Too often in our movement, technology has been touted as the answer to all our problems. Clearly, it’s not. But clearly, in 2020, we’ve got to wield it effectively to build power and coalitions across the movement. 120 years after labour unions founded the Labour Party on the basis of collective action, are we making the most of the tools of the 21st century?

We’ll hear from Brian Young, Executive Director of Action Network in the US, where trade unions and activists got together and decided to stop buying technology owned by hedgefunds. Instead they built a coalition first and then the movement decided what technology it wanted and then they created and owned it themselves. This technology has powered the Womens March, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Sunrise Movement, the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) and Stop School Cuts here in the UK.

Brian will share experiences of building that coalition culture in the states, how they’ve started to change the way they think about tech so that it serves organisers and activists rather than the other way round.

It’s not about one set of tools over another, we want to think about how we build and use technology more effectively to build the power of the labour movement.

Tea & pastries from 2.30pm with a talk and Q&A to start at 3pm.

At a time when successful startups are under growing scrutiny, when too many people are being left out of the value startups create, it’s clear: we need better options. One critical leverage point is the “exit”—the holy grail for most ambitious startups—the moment when the company is sold to another company or a new set of investors. These kinds of outcomes guide startups’ mission and purpose from the very beginning. What if there were another kind of goal to aspire toward?

Already, mission-oriented startups and funds are working on making “Exit to Community” or E2C possible, one experiment at a time. Meanwhile, the likes of Uber and Airbnb are seeking ways to share equity more broadly with their worker-users. Community ownership could be a new way forward for the future of work, data, and innovation. At this workshop, we’ll pool our knowledge and experience to identify pathways for making community ownership more available in the startup economy and its surrounding mythology.

Do you want to improve your digital security? Do you keep putting it off? We’re a collective of feminist cybersecurity researchers and activists, and we want to help you access free tools and resources to protect your data. Join us for a free, practical, hands-on workshop exploring how digital security affects your life.

Please consider bringing a laptop, smartphone, or any data-collecting device you own, as the workshop includes a hands-on tech support session. Snacks and drinks will be provided!

This project is a form of “action research”—a type of research which combines research with activism to understand a problem and find solutions. In other words, we want cybersecurity to be more open, fair, and inclusive, and we’re “learning by doing.” Results from the workshop will inform ongoing research, however participation in the research aspect of the workshop is entirely optional.

No prior experience or knowledge of cybersecurity required! As a feminist organisation, we want to reconfigure the assumption that digital security is for technical experts only. While the workshop is open to all, we particularly welcome women and other groups which are underrepresented in cybersecurity discussions.

This workshop is run in partnership with TIME’S UP UK. TIME’S UP came into being following the revelations about Harvey Weinstein and the widespread disclosures of abuse by powerful men via #MeToo across the entertainment industry. The global movement brought together filmmakers, actors, directors, producers and writers in Hollywood and the UK to campaign for systemic change and the ending of harassment and abuse across the sector. TIME’S UP looks forward to achieving zero tolerance of harassment, 50/50 pay parity and equal representation across the leadership of film, television and theatre sectors bringing about sustainable cultural change. https://www.timesupuk.org/

This workshop is organised by researchers at the Oxford Internet Institute, in collaboration with Darktrace, a cyber defence company. It is funded by a UK Research and Innovation “Citizen Science” research grant (BBSRC Grant reference number BB/T018593/1).

There’s a Climate Crisis raging around us and all that anyone seems to want to do is talk, now it’s time for action.

We’ve formed this group for everyone who is passionate about human and environmental problems and wants to collaborate to create impactful solutions.

We’ve adopted some simple techniques from the startup world and combined them with some theories on collaborative working to create a simple process for producing impactful solutions we can actually enact.

We hope from this group we’ll invent new products, start exciting projects, come up with interesting campaigns, launch innovative charities and have fun doing it.

Don’t worry! Taking part requires no specific knowledge of anything. Everything is tailored for simplicity to ensure a diverse group can come to the meeting with basically no training and leave with a Climate Crisis solution to collaborate on.

These monthly events will occur in various locations around London, please share this event with anyone else you think would like to attend. You should also sign up on our website for more information: https://cvcollective.mailchimpsites.com

Livingmaps Network was established in 2013 to develop a network of researchers, community activists, artists and others with a common interest in the use of mapping for social change, public engagement, critical debate, and creative forms of community campaigning. It now has nearly 2000 names on its subscription list, people who have attended one or more of our events over the past few years, and/or who follow our online journal. We are keen to involve more people in our activities, and to facilitate new projects and events proposed by members of our network.

Join Julie Futcher and other members of the Blue-Sky team to hear about their crowdsourcing project – generating a map of London’s Sky to document and share city-wide feelings of improved wellbeing, to better understand how a view of sky influences our lives and happiness.

Find out more about a planned exhibition and participatory mapping event at Tate Exchange (4th -5th April) where there will be opportunities to discuss your experiences with like-minded souls, put your happiness on the map and do some sky bathing. Together we will be exploring how a view of sky can generate momentary value, towards happiness, health and wellbeing. Take a photo of the sky on your phone, bring it along, and put it on the Tate Map!

The #BlueSkyHappiness project is a collaboration between London Citizens, Flourishing Lives, Inner London Ramblers, Living Maps, London National Park City, Urban Generation and Tranquil Cities.

Tickets are £5.00 to cover the cost of refreshments: Register

A gender-inclusive chat about women’s past & future in cultural & tech industries, for International Women’s Day.

We will all sit around an art table, to amuse ourselves and attending children.

The Technoprogressive New Deal (TND) builds on various ideas known as “Green New Deals” by additionally emphasising the possibility and desirability of greater liberation from the constraints of what is known as “human nature”. In this way, the TND draws on insights from the worldwide transhumanist and technoprogressive communities about the radical potential of emerging technologies.

The TND is a work in progress. This event, which is jointly organised by London Futurists and the Transhumanist Party (UK), is a chance to shape and improve this initiative, at a time when most political discussion is being blindsided by the accelerating pace of technological innovation.

In this event, David Wood, Chair of London Futurists, will review and raise questions about eight overlapping angles of the TND:

• A technoprogressive social contract: How should society be structured for a world in which many fewer people earn money by working? What preparations are needed as we move towards a “post work society”?
• A technoprogressive scorecard: What metrics should be put in place as a replacement for the GDP index as the guiding light for evaluating the success of the economy?
• The technoprogressive dividend: How will investments in measures to address inherited flaws in human nature (body, mind, spirit, and social relations) have strong and equitable economic benefits as well as strong and equitable humanitarian benefits?
• A technoprogressive regulatory framework: How should Big Tech be constrained and regulated? And what regulations should govern individual freedom of choice regarding new drugs, therapies, and treatments?
• Technoprogressive approaches to environmental crises: Green technologies offer considerable promise to address environmental risks. However, major questions remain.
• Technoprogressive approaches to international conflict: As technology raises worrying new possibilities for warfare and terrorism, how can technology be used in parallel to help establish greater peace and safety?
• Technoprogressive fundamentals: How should decisions be made, regarding which parts of human nature should be cherished and protected at all costs, which should be enhanced, and which should be overcome (transcended)?
• Building a technoprogressive alliance: Changing the world involves alliances as well as ideals. It involves compromises as well as principles. Which alliances and partnerships should the technoprogressive movement cultivate?

For each area, there will be opportunity for audience Q&A and group discussion.

David Wood is the author or lead editor of nine books, including, most recently, “RAFT 2035: Roadmap to Abundance, Flourishing, and Transcendence, by 2035”, from which many of the ideas in this talk have been developed. For more details, see https://deltawisdom.com/books

For information about London Futurists, see https://londonfuturists.com

For information about the Transhumanist Party (UK) see https://www.transhumanistparty.org.uk

Please arrive in time to be seated for the start of the presentation at 6.30pm.

The meeting is free to attend, but numbers will be restricted, so please register.

No refreshments will be provided, but attendees are welcome to bring their own.

Effective altruism is about answering one simple question: how can we use our resources to help others the most?

Rather than just doing what feels right, we use evidence and careful analysis to find the very best causes to work on.

Come along and discuss whatever you feel like. If you’re new to effective altruism, you are very welcome too.

Please bring some vegan food to share.

Svelte is a radical new approach to building user interfaces. Whereas traditional frameworks like React and Vue do the bulk of their work in the browser, Svelte shifts that work into a compile step that happens when you build your app. Instead of using techniques like virtual DOM diffing, Svelte writes code that surgically updates the DOM when the state of your app changes. Read the introductory blogpost to learn more.

Join fellow Svelte enthusiasts for an evening of lightning talks and chatter.

• Svelte at Bloomberg - Julian Burgess (@aubergene)
• The Svelte Context API - Antony (@antony)
• Using Svelte in React 🤷 - Kevin Wenner (@kevinwenner)
• Svelte-Utils, a quick intro - Joe Reeve (isnit0)
• Your project…

There are currently spots available for lightning talks: if you have a project, or have seen a tool/library/project you want to tell the community about, message or comment to give a <5min talk (need not be your own thing).

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Every month we meet up to collaborate on projects, to discuss progress and to learn together. This is a meetup for engineers of all stripes (hackers, makers, designers and other technologists) who wish to contribute their spare time and talents to radical projects, or work on their own projects. The evening will kickoff with a short introduction round, after which you can proceed to work on your own project, join someone else’s or join one of ours.

What is a radical project? Here at Radical Engineers, we have been seeking and contacting organisations which aim to fundamentally change our economic, political and social systems to enhance human autonomy and social equality. We discuss their projects and clarify any technical challenges or needs they may have so that when they are presented to you, our community, you know that they are properly considered and genuinely useful. Our vetting process means that you will only be working on projects which will help not just to fix the symptoms of our economic systems, but aim to contribute to systemic change itself.

Not an engineer? That’s ok too! You would be surprised at the variety of skills needed for projects. Spreadsheet sprites, word wizards and pixel pirates are valued guests and we could always use a hand scoping out new projects!

See some projects Radical Engineers are working on at www.radicalengineers.com

This will be the first of a series of activist meetups/chats around the country. They’ll be opportunities for a relaxed, open and activist-led discussion (as opposed to a panel event) on where LPV and Labour pro-Europeanism more generally could go next.

Please note - you will need to bring a laptop to this event

It has only been two months since the election defeat and the upcoming local elections are more important than ever if we want to prevent the consolidation of that Conservative victory across the country.

We made astonishing headway in the 2019 General Election, building and thoroughly testing the GOTV Dashboard, our Twitter tool and the powerful insight viewer.

With only 9 weeks to go from the hack day to the election we need to work fast, build on our existing toolsets and tackle the problems presented to us by the campaigners at our Campaigner Confession event on February 12.

All technologists, activists, organisers and campaigners, are welcome!

Including new people who are interested in evidence based campaign innovation and want to work out what happened and why.

What is Campaign Lab?

Campaign Lab is a community of politically-minded progressive data scientists, researchers and activists who are working together to build new election tools and change the way we analyse and understand political election campaigning.

You will need to bring a laptop to this event

Everyone welcome!

The London meetup for civic and political technology.

Speakers this month are along the theme of political parties and coalitions, and the tools that parties organise on.

• James Clarke, Deputy Leader of Renew UK a new political party
• Tabitha Morton, CEO of MoreUnited a coalition of MPs across the spectrum brought together by shared aims
• Flore Blondel-Goupil, Business Development Director EMEA at Nationbuilder, these are a suite of tools that have helped revolutionise campaigning.
• James Smith, Leader of Something New, a new startup political party.

Schedule

• 7.00pm – Doors Open
• 7.30pm – Welcome and intro
• 7.40pm – Speakers
• 9.00pm – Drinks

Join us in celebrating the launch of Means TV, the world’s first worker-owned, post-capitalist streaming service in London on 2.27.2020!

We’re kicking off the world premiere of Means TV with an evening of entertainment for the 99% with comrades, drinks, and a screening of one of our flagship films, Gaza Fights For Freedom.

Tickets are £15. All proceeds go back into making worker-owned entertainment.

Together, we can build media that empowers and reflects the working class!

About Gaza Fights For Freedom

A riveting documentary on Gaza’s Great March of Return by Abby Martin and a heroic team of Palestinian videographers.

This collaboration shows you Gaza’s protest movement like you’ve never seen before. Filmed during the height of the Great March Of Return protests, it features exclusive footage of demonstrations where 200 unarmed civilians have been killed by Israeli snipers since March 30, 2018.

Watch the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fru3tsO6dzE

About Means TV

Launching on 2.26.2020, Means TV will have a library of documentaries, movies, and shows with new programming added all the time. We’ll also have live weekly shows covering news, culture, gaming and sports.

All of this will be available to subscribers for $10/month across desktop, mobile and smart TV devices like Roku, Fire TV and Apple TV.

No advertisements or product placements. No corporate backers or VC cash ever.

We’re entirely funded by people like you.

Together, let’s build a long-standing, worker-owned media infrastructure that reflects and empowers the 99%.

Means TV is for all of us: https://means.tv

Our next data science ethics bookclub is on recommender systems. You are welcome to pick from this reading list, depending on your interest and the time you have:

Articles

• “How Recommendation Algorithms Run the World” is a Wired article giving an overview of recommender systems and associated risks by Zeynep Tufekci.
• “YouTube’s algorithms might radicalise people – but the real problem is we’ve no idea how they work” is an article from The Conversation, by Chico Q. Camargo
• Business Insider article: Former Google data scientist: Don’t blame the internet for dividing the country

Academic journal articles

• “Recommender Systems and their Ethical Challenges” is an academic review paper by Milano, Taddeo & Floridi
• “Regulating Recommending: Motivations, Considerations, and Principles” is an academic paper by Cobbe and Singh

Quick reads

• Five risks of news personalization - particularly good for the non-technical reader

Tutorial

• “Experimentation with fairness-aware recommendation using librec-auto” is material for a hands-on tutorial from FAT* Conference 2020, by Burke and Mansoury

FAQs

Why are we doing this?

There’s a lot of good writing out there and one of the most important principles (even in our own ethical principles) is to discuss and debate the ethical questions.

We hope this will help people gain the tools they need to think about this in their jobs or in DataKind projects, or in encountering algorithmic tools in their everyday life. But if all you get out of it is some friendly discussion over a coffee or beer, that works too :-)

Do I need to be a data scientist to participate?

Nope. We’ll have a mix of technical and non-technical reading material. The aim is to think about data science in a context of ethical impacts and consequences - and that affects everybody!

Is there an online option?

We will be hosting an online group alongisde the in-person event - if you’d like to join remotely, please select the ‘remote bookclub’ option from the ticket options. We’ll also be live tweeting using the hashtag #DKbookclub and taking comments/questions.

I have a brilliant idea for reading material/a theme! Who do I tell?

We love suggestions! Tell us at [email protected]

We welcome you to the very first community dinner at Newspeak House specifically for female-identifying and non-binary people.

A casual dinner to meet new friends and bring people together in the politics and technology sectors. No matter your job title or your experience in these industries, we welcome all diversities of thought.

Vegan food will be provided. Donations are welcome. For specific dietary requirements, email [email protected]

What if I identify as male but I want to come and support?

You can support by sharing this event link with your female-identifying and non-binary friends, encouraging them to come along. But you are not welcome to attend this event.

What if I don’t identify with any gender identity labels?

If you feel you need a safe space to connect with others and express yourself, and currently feel you can’t do that in other social spaces, then this event is a good place to start. You are welcome to join us.

Data privacy is an important and often an overlooked subject in technology. With the rise of devices such as Amazon Ring, the Cambridge Analytica scandal and facial recognition software being rolled out by the Metropolitan police, it is more relevant than ever.

There will be lightning talks (speakers TBC) and then plenty of time to discuss the topics raised and meet fellow attendees. If you would like to give a lightning talk, please get in touch.

Optional Reading:

• Olu’s thread for Data Privacy Day
• CW: domestic abuse Engadget “For victims of smart home abuse, there’s no easy out”
• The Recompiler “But It Doesn’t Have Gifs! Moving privacy, anonymity, and anti-surveillance tools into the mainstream”

Brought to you by Subversion.

PaperJam Game Jam is like a book club, but instead of a book we play a videogame, and as well as discussing it, we make paper prototypes inspired by it!

This time, we’re looking at Factorio, an extraordinary game about escaping an alien planet by building a rocket from scratch.

All are welcome, but some basic familiarity with boardgames or game design will be helpful. It generally goes like this:

• Arrive at the event having played Factorio. There’s a free demo available, but I encourage you to buy it! If you don’t find time to play, don’t let that stop you from coming.
• We discuss the game: Why is it fun? What are the systems in it and how do they work? etc
• We eat dinner together: there are a dozen places on the street that do takeaway of various cuisines.
• We try and make paper prototypes inspired by the game. A selection of materials are provided, but feel free to bring your own.
• We play and discuss each others’ prototypes.

The Conservative party has won a huge majority. ToryTechs want to use technology to help make the most of this.

How can we…

• help new MPs get their offices setup?
• engage people in what the government is doing?
• help the party and MPs be more effective?

Join other Tory Technologists and designers at the first ever ToryTechs Hackathon!

We’ll be spending Saturday and Sunday the 15 & 16th building, testing, and launching tech to improve democracy, and the effectiveness of government.

A hackathon is a weekend event for technologists, designers, and domain experts to come together and solve problems in an intensive and collaborative way. Read more here: https://hackathon.guide

Anyone can come (even if you’re not a member of the Conservative Party), we welcome your interest and would appreciate different perspectives. Everyone is welcome, as long as they follow our code-of-conduct.

Beginners are welcome too! Attendees have a huge range of skill-sets, so you’ll have no problem finding someone to learn from.

Join Campaign Lab to see how we can help out in the upcoming local elections! The fightback begins now!

Local elections and mayoral elections will be happening this May across the UK. Some of these elections will be taking place in areas where Labour has lost MPs so the fightback locally begins now!

Join Campaign Lab for our event where we’ll be inviting campaign organisers and activists from across the country to share their local campaign challenges and what technical help they may need. We’re just confirming on our three fantastic speakers for our event - more details to follow!

During the panel and breakout session we’ll explore how the speakers are currently running their campaigns, their current practices in an effort to identify where there is space for innovation and improvement - asking our candidates and activists: how can the Campaign Lab community help their campaigns on the ground?

Campaign Lab is a community of activists, researchers and technologists working towards a more evidence-based approach to campaigning - outside of this event series we run monthly hackdays and meetups, come join us.

From facial recognition to social media monitoring, from remote hacking to the use of mobile surveillance equipment called ‘IMSI catchers’, UK police forces are using an ever-expanding array of surveillance tools to spy on us as we go about our everyday lives. Too often, these new and intrusive spying technologies are rolled out without the say, or even the knowledge, of the public or their locally elected representatives.

The use of police surveillance technologies can threaten our privacy and may cause us to change who we associate with and what we feel we can do and say. These technologies can also be used to target, profile and discriminate against certain communities - including minority, low-income and politically active communities.

Join us in London to hear about Privacy International & Liberty’s campaign for the public to have a greater say as to whether their local police force should be allowed to use such highly intrusive technologies.

Speaker: Privacy International Legal Officer Camilla Graham Wood @milliegw

Further reading: https://privacyinternational.org/campaigns/neighbourhood-watched

We are organizing an event for Wikimedians and researchers to exchange! Come along and learn more about research happening around Wikimedia and what Wikimedians can teach you about the different Wikimedia projects!

A large part of the computer science research community is exploring Wikipedia, Wikidata and their sister projects. In the fields of natural language processing (NLP) as well as semantic web, Wikipedia and Wikidata are often used as a fundamental part of the research world. At the same time, the community of Wikidata and Wikipedia could make use of a variety of tools developed by researchers. However, currently, the gap between things explored in research and actual applications in Wikidata and Wikipedia needs bridging. Therefore, we want to build a community of Wikidata community members and research to exchange needs, existing tools, open challenges and research question to foster an environment, where both communities can benefit from the exchange.

The ideal is to have all the different approaches and commonalities under one umbrella to foster exchange and support of different research communities and their approaches.

OpenSym and the WikiWorkshop are already doing that for the people submitting to and attending computer science research conferences. But without the exchange with the community, there is a lack of communication, creating silos of missing exchange.

The Goal is to connect the researcher and the Wikimedia community to enable an exchange that could ultimately lead to the research projects being implemented as tools for Wikipedia. And vice-versa: More research projects build on community needs.

We invite researchers, Wikimedians, anyone who does or is planning to do research on or around Wikimedia projects, such as Wikipedia, Wikidata and others, anyone in the community, who is interested in improving the research happening around Wikimedia - you don’t need any experience in research. Wikipedia editor, Wikidata data magician, whatever you do in Wikimedia projects, your feedback will be highly valuable.

We would ask all researchers to bring an A2/A3 poster about what they are doing in Wikimedia that we can put up so that we can create an easy way to exchange on different projects. If you don’t have a project yet, don’t worry- just bring a poster with topics you find interesting, and you might be able to meet other researchers already working in your field of interest. (If you struggle with printing the poster beforehand, please reach out to us a few days in advance.)

We will spend a day exchanging on recent challenges around Wikimedia. Besides the posters, we aim to form working groups for the afternoon to work on topics of shared interest and possibly propose a project of common interest.

In our commitment to identifying the gaps in how we think about and work with data in the department, we have agreed to focus on four main problem spaces;

• Silos exist between data analysts, policy teams and digital product teams
• We lack a set of organisation-wide data standards
• Our data is often hard to find and difficult to share
• We give little or no thought to the potential uses of data outside each service

I am holding a cross-functional, (directed) unconference [I realise this is an oxymoron but stick with me] to explore these problem spaces and come up with desirable, feasible and viable actions we can take away and present to our Deputy Directors (Helen, Martyn, Jon and Danielle) particularly around the emergent themes of stakeholders mapping, central knowledge management and education, and access to data.

This session will be very much about actually doing stuff; agreeing positive, tangible actions we can take to improve the use of data, to demystify it for our colleagues and to work across the Policy, Data, Product and Tech Arc communities to drive a collaborative, user centred approach to how we work. We would welcome attendance and input from anyone in the MoJ who has an interest in contributing to this, and who wants to share and learn.

More information about the DCWG here. Please read our draft Terms of Reference and draft Justice Services Data Principles as they will inform the discussion. I’d also welcome people’s opinions on the Digital Ethics Charter.

Every month we meet up to collaborate on projects, to discuss progress and to learn together. This is a meetup for engineers of all stripes (hackers, makers, designers and other technologists) who wish to contribute their spare time and talents to radical projects, or work on their own projects. The evening will kickoff with a short introduction round, after which you can proceed to work on your own project, join someone else’s or join one of ours.

What is a radical project? Here at Radical Engineers, we have been seeking and contacting organisations which aim to fundamentally change our economic, political and social systems to enhance human autonomy and social equality. We discuss their projects and clarify any technical challenges or needs they may have so that when they are presented to you, our community, you know that they are properly considered and genuinely useful. Our vetting process means that you will only be working on projects which will help not just to fix the symptoms of our economic systems, but aim to contribute to systemic change itself.

Not an engineer? That’s ok too! You would be surprised at the variety of skills needed for projects. Spreadsheet sprites, word wizards and pixel pirates are valued guests and we could always use a hand scoping out new projects!

See some projects Radical Engineers are working on at www.radicalengineers.com

Intelligence Rising is a role playing game about the future of AI and its consequences for society. You will be playing as heads of states and leaders of big tech companies, and your decisions will determine the future of the world.

The goal of this game is to:

1. Train AI developers and AI policy professionals to reflect on and prepare for future social and ethical challenges related to AI.
2. Explore possible futures involving AI technology development, deployment, social impacts, and governance.

More info: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1912.08964.pdf

Intelligence Rising is still under development. This event is one of several play test events we expect to perform this year.

As a play tester, you are expected to:

1. Select your character ahead of the game and read up a bit on the person you are playing
2. Participate in a game and debriefing
3. Fill out a feedback form

The game is also lots of fun and you will be given lunch.

If you want to participate in this game, please contact me directly via email: [email protected]

If you want to participate in future games, fill in this interest form https://sites.google.com/view/intelligence-rising/ and/or join our player google group https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/intelligence-rising-players, to stay informed.

A reading group focusing on systems management, where an organisation or group is considered as one or more living systems and this perspective is used to assess how such a system could be structured to function at the highest level possible. This could consider multiple facets of the system, including the individuals working in the system, physical environment, virtual spaces used, tools available, media used for communication, how teams are structured and how information travels, is processed and stored (and more)!

The general intention is that by developing our ability to understand systems we’ll be better equipped to improve (or at least assess) the organisations or groups we work in or with, whether not-for-profit, corporate, or government.

We meet roughly monthly on a weekday evening to eat and discuss that month’s book, including its ideas and any practical applications (the day of the week varies). There is no set reading list - the next book is generally chosen at the meeting. Past books include Thinking in Systems (Meadows) and Doing the Impossible (Slotkin).

This month we are reading Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction by Philip E. Tetlock and Dan Gardner.

Last decade will be condemned as a total failure of humanity to work together. Next decade and climate change crisis brings challenges that can only be solved by working together.

Join us on a journey of discovery of games that can skill up our ability to collaborate, from passing weapons, providing covering fire in a firefight, healing or boosting a teammate over obstacles.

Speakers

• Eva Pascoe (Cybersalon.org) – a peak into history of collaborative video gaming
• Ben Greenway – emotional exploration on how to cooperate with total strangers and without language in Journey and Sky: Children of the Light (by ThatGameCompany).
• Karo Janicka – how to leverage community to improve village life in Stardew Valley (by Concerned Ape)
• Simon Sarginson – surviving galactic wars by teaming up with aliens in Startopia (by Mucky Foot)
• Douglas Rushkoff – author of Cyberia book (1994) and lead of Team Human podcast on collaboration for survival of the species

The Echo Chamber Club brings together various experts and specialists who want to improve information environments. You could be an academic, a journalist, a think-tanker, a technologist or a policy-maker who works on anything related to this field. This could be - disinformation, misinformation, information warfare, truth-making, conspiracy theories, data privacy, data politics, political advertising, microtargeting, transparency, mediatisation, normalisation, echo chambers, filter bubbles, herd thinking and more.

The purpose of this meet up is to meet people who are working in adjacent fields to enable collaboration. However, we also have some exciting provocations lined up to help stimulate conversation.

Every meet up has provocations designed to get the attendees to think about the problems they are facing in different ways. This meet up with have three provocateurs:

Alain de Botton is a writer of essayistic books that have been described as a ‘philosophy of everyday life.’ He’s written on love, travel, architecture and literature. His books have been bestsellers in 30 countries. Alain also started and helps to run a school in London called The School of Life, dedicated to a new vision of education. His latest book, published in September 2019, is a collection of essays written for The School of Life, titled The School of Life: An Emotional Education.

Frederike Kaltheuner is a writer and technology critic and a 2019-2020 Mozilla Tech Policy Fellow. Before joining Mozilla, Frederike was a director at Privacy International in London, where she led the organisation’s strategic work on corporate surveillance and emerging technology. Frederike has given expert evidence in the European Parliament, the Belgium Parliament, and the UK House of Lords. She holds an MSc in Internet Science the University of Oxford and a BA in Philosophy and Politics from Maastricht University.

Areeq Chowdhury is the founder of the think tank WebRoots Democracy which explores the intersection of technology and democratic participation. He’s also Head of Think Tank at Future Advocacy focusing on the social, economic, and political impact of artificial intelligence and emerging technologies.

The meet up will be hosted by Alice Thwaite, founder of the Echo Chamber Club. We will provide snacks and drinks. Please do give us a donation to help us buy the goods.

• Arrivals from 6.30 pm
• Provocations from 7pm
• The event ends when the last person exits

Join us to talk all things political and civic technology - anything from promise trackers, to new ways of campaigning or government. We’re here for it.

We’re starting off the year with 3 brilliant speakers:

• Dan Barrett, Head of Data Science, Citizens Advice
• Alex Parsons, Research Associate, mySociety
• Tabitha Morton, CEO, MoreUnited [TBC]

• We’ll also be joined by some of the Newspeak House fellows who will share some of the new tools they’re developing for future civic tech endeavours.

• 7.00pm – Doors Open
• 7.30pm – Welcome and intro
• 7.40pm – Speakers
• 8.30pm – Drinks

A all-day event bringing public servants together with experts to teach, connect and inspire action on the climate emergency

OneGreenGov is the next global event in One Team Gov’s calendar, focused on the environment, sustainability and climate change.

The global environmental problems we are facing are becoming ever more apparent, and are higher in the public consciousness than ever before. As public servants, our work will be touched by climate change and environmental sustainability whether it is part of our day jobs or not.

The OneTeamGov community wants to bring people together to talk, learn and be inspired to take action - to live and work in more sustainable ways, to share their knowledge, and to develop policies, systems and practices which contribute to tackling the climate crisis, resource sustainability and environmental degradation.

To help contribute to this agenda, we are organising events in the UK and convening events worldwide to do this on 22nd January 2020. The events will have different flavours depending on where in the world they’re organised.

The event in London will be held at Newspeak House, hosted by the London College of Political Technologists. Our ambition is for this event is for participants to:

• Learn something new to help you contribute to the fight against climate change;
• Meet people interested in taking action for the environment, sustainability, and climate change;
• Be inspired to take action.

The event will be part-unconference, and part-scheduled speakers and pre-arranged sessions. If you would like to run a session, please submit this form.

Our lives are dominated by an economic system that fuels inequality, makes our jobs and homes more insecure, and hastens environmental breakdown. Support for this system is crumbling, which places us at a moment of both great danger and opportunity. Disaffection with political and economic institutions has unleashed the forces of the populist right, but also created a once-in-a-generation chance to define and build a new economy.

Some people are building this new economy right now in the places they live and work. From workers’ cooperatives to community-owned energy they are shifting wealth and power to people and their communities. But while our zombie economic system stumbles on, all that energy will continue to be blocked by an outdated set of economic rules and institutions.

For more than three decades, the New Economics Foundation’s mission has been to transform the economy so it works for people and the planet. We celebrate – and help to enable – the new economy springing up from below, but we also know that it needs support from above, including a state that prioritises people’s wellbeing and a healthy planet over a misplaced faith in free markets and competition. Therefore we work with people igniting change from below and we combine this with rigorous research to fight for change at the top.

Join us to hear from an exciting panel of speakers to discuss what next for the new economy movement:

• Gary Younge - Journalist and professor of sociology, Manchester University
• Maya Goodfellow - Author and journalist
• Miatta Fahnbulleh - CEO New Economics Foundation
• Dave Ward - General Secretary, CWU
• More speakers TBC

December saw the election of a government without a plan to tackle climate breakdown or fix an economy that has failed so many. Exciting and transformative ideas were put forward during this election but failed to cut through. This agenda remains our best chance to tackle the seismic issues we face, yet people have lost the will to believe change is possible. How can we learn from mistakes, and build on the strength of our ideas to continue making the case for a better future?

After discussion there will be drinks and a social.

It may not make the headlines, but Brexit’s impact on UK life online will be a gamechanger. Join us for a night with Open Rights Group to discuss how leaving the European Union will affect how UK residents experience the Internet.

• Open Rights Group Policy Director Javier Ruiz: Javier will explain how post-Brexit international trade deals with the United States and other countries could impact UK rights online. Trade agreements increasingly include clauses to promote digital trade, which unfortunately tend to translate into weakening the protection of the personal data of ordinary people and increasing the protections on the algorithms and trade secrets of businesses. Entering these agreements will put the UK in a difficult position as it strives to maintain the current arrangements for data flows with the EU.
• Open Rights Group Campaigns Manager Mike Morel: Mike will provide an overview of EU laws and institutions that currently influence UK rights to free speech online and digital privacy. Find out which protections will disappear, which will remain, and what could happen in a no-deal scenario.

News is broken.

The current system of monetisation (advertising) dis-incentivises good quality journalism in favour of clickbait and sensationalism.

News organisations have historically existed to solve distribution (printing presses) and monetisation/marketing (town criers) problems, these are problems the internet has solved in a much more scalable way.

It’s time Journalism, and by extension society, got a new model - one that uses technology to make high quality journalism sustainable again.

The first HackThePress Hackathon in September 2019 was a huge success, you can read more about it here: https://hackthepress.org/write-up-hackthepress-hackathon/

For the second HTP Hackathon we’ll be back at Newspeak House on Jan 18-19th. The core themes we’ll be exploring are:

• Monetisation - How can news organisations monetise differently?
• Public Advice - How can news orgs help people make better decisions?
• Follow-through - How can news pieces inspire real change?

We will have a judging panel of 4 people from the tech and news industry who will select a winner in each of the three themes above.

For more information, see https://hackthepress.org/2020-hackathon-jan/

Slack workspace: https://bit.ly/HTPSlack

This event is for charity campaigners to discuss best practice and challenges in campaigning for change. We meet quarterly for discussions and to hear from expert speakers. New members are always welcome.

Speakers:

• Steve Pound, Labour MP for Ealing North from 1997-2019, will be answering a Q&A on what it is really like being an MP and how charities can be better at working with them.
• Mary Milne, Head of Comms and Campaigns from Traidcraft Exchange will be speaking about their Injustice Advent Calendar which brought together actions from a number of organisations throughout December.

This event is designed for everyone in and around London who is interested in building and growing great businesses through platform strategy and platform design.

70% of value created by tech companies in the past 30 years has come through businesses with network effects, based on market cap data. Network effects are the ultimate growth hack! On the other hand, launching or managing a platform business is extremely difficult and it can have dangerous side effects.

• How do we improve our success ratio for launching new platforms in the London tech ecosystem?
• How do we build, manage and create platforms that truly deliver value to all players involved?
• What role do platforms play in today strategy making? How does it differ in start-ups vs enterprises?
• How do pipeline products gain Network Effects?
• How do platform businesses evolve?

These and more are the theme we can discuss together. To start our first session there will be two short (15 min) presentations:

• Manfredi Sassoli introducing the group and providing context for the relevance of the field.
• Simone Cicero, ideator of the PDT (Platform Design Toolkit) and worldwide renowned thought leader on platform design and strategy.

Food will be provided.

Please note - you will need to bring a laptop to this event

We really hoped we’d be holding this under happier circumstances but right now a genuinely neutral evidence-based analysis of the election results is urgently needed. In many ways this speaks to the heart of why Campaign Lab was set up.

So join us for our election campaign retrospective to look at what innovations worked, what maybe didn’t and try to understand some of the factors that contributed to the result.

This event will also be an chance for us to take stock, evaluate what we’ve achieved and think about where we should be heading next.

Finally it will also be a chance to thank our community for all their hard work over the past few months and year.

All technologists, activists, organisers and campaigners, are welcome!

Including new people who are interested in evidence based campaign innovation and want to work out what happened and why.

What is Campaign Lab?

Campaign Lab is a community of politically-minded progressive data scientists, researchers and activists who are working together to build new election tools and change the way we analyse and understand political election campaigning.

Check out the Campaign Lab volunteer teams and project guide

You will need to bring a laptop to this event

Everyone welcome!

Wikimedia UK is the national chapter for the global Wikimedia movement which supports Wikipedia and its sister projects. In January 2020, we are hosting a training workshop for Turkish speakers in basic Wikipedia editing. Currently, all language versions of Wikipedia are blocked in Turkey, and although it is still possible to access the website, it is much harder to edit Wikipedia from Turkey. That is why we are encouraging Turkish speakers in the UK to learn to edit Wikipedia so that we can help to improve content on Wikipedia in Turkish.

The workshop will give a general introduction to the basic skills needed to edit Wikipedia, and we will help you to start creating and updating content on the Turkish Wikipedia in the areas of culture, history and the arts. Whatever your interests, Wikipedia has articles about them and we need your help in improving those articles.

Please bring a laptop to the event which you can use to edit Wikipedia. A laptop with a keyboard is much easier to work on than a tablet. If you do not have one of your own, please let us know and we will provide one for you. Snacks and refreshments will also be provided.

For any other questions, please contact Communications Coordinator John at [email protected] or ask us on Twitter @wikimediauk

Görüşürüz!

Julio Alejandro asks “If politicians, diplomats and bureaucrats are perennially stupid and illiterate in technology, economics, and globalisation, why should they concentrate the monopoly on creation of human-civilization services?”

He will explain his map of the systems, technologies, and startups fighting to provide competition, markets, and choice in centralised, monopolised government industries to build better, cheaper, more affordable, transparent, inclusive, and market regulated services in social welfare; immigration; money creation; legality, criminality, enforcement; nation building; environmentalism; gender-racial-religious equality; and private property protection; Bitnation, Social Evolution, Seasteading, (3D Printed) Distributed Defense, Alcor Cryonics, Aragon DAO, Special Governance Zones, AI Pandora Boxchain, privacy Monero, Ulex OS Legal System, Free Private Cities, Kleros (crowdsourced jury), the Paralelni Polis ecosystem, and more.

Julio Alejandro is a VC investor, former CEO of three Blockchain and Disruptive Technologies consultancies, and has lectured in +70 universities and think tanks worldwide, including Oxford, Cambridge, United Nations, Google, EU Parliament, MIT, LSE, WeWork Headquarters, Amnesty International, and the Bahrain EDB.

The sell out corn-based snack event is back. It’s Wine and Wotsits time.

You say wot?

That’s right, there aren’t enough wotsits in campaigners lives, so a few times a year we co-ordinate people coming together to share some of their successes. It’s a pecha kucha format, which means approx 5 presentations of 20 slides, each lasting 20 seconds. It will be an opportunity to hear from cutting edge speakers doing exciting things. Previous speakers include those from Save the Children, Shelter, WWF, Unlock Democracy, Which?, Change.org, National Autistic Society, Care2, Let Toys be Toys, Transform Justice and many more. If you have something you’d love to talk about, please let us know!

Wot Wot Who?

We’ll be unveiling the full list of speakers over the next few weeks.

How many tickets are there?

About 125. We always sell out, so please grab a ticket early to avoid disappointment, and if you can’t make it let us know so someone else can grab your spot.

How does it work?

You show up with whatever you want to drink (wine, fizz, non-alcoholic, whatever takes your fancy), we provide the wotsits and some cups. Rebels sometimes bring onion rings or monster munch.

You have a great evening, make friends with strangers and learn a bunch.

Livingmaps Network was established in 2013 to develop a network of researchers, community activists, artists and others with a common interest in the use of mapping for social change, public engagement, critical debate, and creative forms of community campaigning. It now has nearly 2000 names on its subscription list, people who have attended one or more of our events over the past few years, and/or who follow our online journal. We are keen to involve more people in our activities, and to facilitate new projects and events proposed by members of our network.

For this purpose we are organising an event in the New Year which will give you an opportunity to meet the directors and advisory group, and to find out more about our plans for the future. Readers of the journal will be able to meet the editors and some of the contributors, and discuss the possibility of writing something for us. It will also be an opportunity to share your own plans with us, to exchange experiences and ideas with other people in the network, all over pizza and drinks.

Programme

• Welcome and Introduction
• Screening of The Citizens Atlas of London
• Living Maps Review Panel Discussion
• Putting ourselves on the Map: social networking

Tickets are £5.00 to cover the cost of refreshments and room hire: Register

Yes it’s cold and dark and January. But remember when it was cold and dark and there was a general election?

Let’s not forget everything we learned: good or bad. What worked? What absolutely bombed?

Let’s celebrate efforts to register voters, get out the vote and all the other good stuff.

If you liked the ElectionTechHandbook, you’ll love the Election Tech Debrief!

A reading group focusing on systems management, where an organisation or group is considered as one or more living systems and this perspective is used to assess how such a system could be structured to function at the highest level possible. This could consider multiple facets of the system, including the individuals working in the system, physical environment, virtual spaces used, tools available, media used for communication, how teams are structured and how information travels, is processed and stored (and more)!

The general intention is that by developing our ability to understand systems we’ll be better equipped to improve (or at least assess) the organisations or groups we work in or with, whether not-for-profit, corporate, or government.

We meet roughly monthly on a weekday evening to eat and discuss that month’s book, including its ideas and any practical applications (the day of the week varies). There is no set reading list - the next book is generally chosen at the meeting. Past books include Thinking in Systems (Meadows) and Doing the Impossible (Slotkin).

This month we are reading Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction by Philip E. Tetlock and Dan Gardner.

Every other Tuesday we will be meeting up to collaborate on projects, to discuss progress and to learn together. This is a meetup for engineers of all stripes (hackers, makers, designers and other technologists) who wish to contribute their spare time and talents to radical projects, or work on their own projects. The evening will kickoff with a short introduction round, after which you can proceed to work on your own project, join someone else’s or join one of ours.

What is a radical project? Here at Radical Engineers, we have been seeking and contacting organisations which aim to fundamentally change our economic, political and social systems to enhance human autonomy and social equality. We discuss their projects and clarify any technical challenges or needs they may have so that when they are presented to you, our community, you know that they are properly considered and genuinely useful. Our vetting process means that you will only be working on projects which will help not just to fix the symptoms of our economic systems, but aim to contribute to systemic change itself.

Not an engineer? That’s ok too! You would be surprised at the variety of skills needed for projects. Spreadsheet sprites, word wizards and pixel pirates are valued guests and we could always use a hand scoping out new projects!

See some projects Radical Engineers are working on.

Just like in 2017, we will be at Newspeak House to experience the election excitement of adding new MPs to Wikipedia and updating pages related to UK politics subjects.

This is not a training event, so we would expect those who come to be reasonably proficient Wikipedia editors already. There will be lots of updates to do, so come and join us and help improve Wikipedia’s coverage of UK politics.

Dinner, wifi, sofas, desks, drinks & chats: if you’re a fan of electiontechhandbook.uk then this is the place for you!

Every Wednesday night from now until the election, 7:30 till late, show up any time and ring the bell!

Dinner, wifi, sofas, desks, drinks & chats: if you’re a fan of electiontechhandbook.uk then this is the place for you!

Every Wednesday night from now until the election, 7:30 till late, show up any time and ring the bell!

Every other Tuesday we will be meeting up to collaborate on projects, to discuss progress and to learn together. This is a meetup for engineers of all stripes (hackers, makers, designers and other technologists) who wish to contribute their spare time and talents to radical projects, or work on their own projects. The evening will kickoff with a short introduction round, after which you can proceed to work on your own project, join someone else’s or join one of ours.

What is a radical project? Here at Radical Engineers, we have been seeking and contacting organisations which aim to fundamentally change our economic, political and social systems to enhance human autonomy and social equality. We discuss their projects and clarify any technical challenges or needs they may have so that when they are presented to you, our community, you know that they are properly considered and genuinely useful. Our vetting process means that you will only be working on projects which will help not just to fix the symptoms of our economic systems, but aim to contribute to systemic change itself.

Not an engineer? That’s ok too! You would be surprised at the variety of skills needed for projects. Spreadsheet sprites, word wizards and pixel pirates are valued guests and we could always use a hand scoping out new projects!

See some projects Radical Engineers are working on.

Dinner, wifi, sofas, desks, drinks & chats: if you’re a fan of electiontechhandbook.uk then this is the place for you!

Every Wednesday night from now until the election, 7:30 till late, show up any time and ring the bell!

Building technology for the Liberal Democrats. You’ll need a laptop to participate.

Join your fellow HackThePress members at Newspeak House to hang out and continue hacking on news-tech 👩‍💻.

We’ll provide power, WiFi, and somewhere warm, you bring the code! (and beer)

There are a few projects for you to join, or you can come with your own idea to work on.

Dinner, wifi, sofas, desks, drinks & chats: if you’re a fan of electiontechhandbook.uk then this is the place for you!

Every Wednesday night from now until the election, 7:30 till late, show up any time and ring the bell!

Every other Tuesday we will be meeting up to collaborate on projects, to discuss progress and to learn together. This is a meetup for engineers of all stripes (hackers, makers, designers and other technologists) who wish to contribute their spare time and talents to radical projects, or work on their own projects. The evening will kickoff with a short introduction round, after which you can proceed to work on your own project, join someone else’s or join one of ours.

What is a radical project? Here at Radical Engineers, we have been seeking and contacting organisations which aim to fundamentally change our economic, political and social systems to enhance human autonomy and social equality. We discuss their projects and clarify any technical challenges or needs they may have so that when they are presented to you, our community, you know that they are properly considered and genuinely useful. Our vetting process means that you will only be working on projects which will help not just to fix the symptoms of our economic systems, but aim to contribute to systemic change itself.

Not an engineer? That’s ok too! You would be surprised at the variety of skills needed for projects. Spreadsheet sprites, word wizards and pixel pirates are valued guests and we could always use a hand scoping out new projects!

See some projects Radical Engineers are working on.

Building technology for the Liberal Democrats. You’ll need a laptop to participate.

On the 14th of November, local councils will release details of who is standing for the upcoming election. At this event, we’ll be collecting all that data together into one database.

Stay for the whole session or just drop in whenever you can — every little helps! We’ll provide drinks and snacks! You’ll need a laptop, but no technical knowledge.

You might like to sign up for an account at candidates.democracyclub.org.uk before the event.

A reading group focusing on systems management, where an organisation or group is considered as one or more living systems and this perspective is used to assess how such a system could be structured to function at the highest level possible. This could consider multiple facets of the system, including the individuals working in the system, physical environment, virtual spaces used, tools available, media used for communication, how teams are structured and how information travels, is processed and stored (and more)!

The general intention is that by developing our ability to understand systems we’ll be better equipped to improve (or at least assess) the organisations or groups we work in or with, whether not-for-profit, corporate, or government.

We meet roughly monthly on a weekday evening to eat and discuss that month’s book, including its ideas and any practical applications (the day of the week varies). There is no set reading list - the next book is generally chosen at the meeting. Past books include Thinking in Systems (Meadows) and Doing the Impossible (Slotkin).

No text this month - volunteers will give lightning talks, and then we will have a discussion.

Dinner, wifi, sofas, desks, drinks & chats: if you’re a fan of electiontechhandbook.uk then this is the place for you!

Every Wednesday night from now until the election, 7:30 till late, show up any time and ring the bell!

Building technology for the Liberal Democrats. You’ll need a laptop to participate.

Join your fellow HackThePress members at Newspeak House to hang out and continue hacking on news-tech 👩‍💻.

We’ll provide power, WiFi, and somewhere warm, you bring the code! (and beer)

There are a few projects for you to join, or you can come with your own idea to work on.

Dinner, wifi, sofas, desks, drinks & chats: if you’re a fan of electiontechhandbook.uk then this is the place for you!

Every Wednesday night from now until the election, 7:30 till late, show up any time and ring the bell!

Every other Tuesday we will be meeting up to collaborate on projects, to discuss progress and to learn together. This is a meetup for engineers of all stripes (hackers, makers, designers and other technologists) who wish to contribute their spare time and talents to radical projects, or work on their own projects. The evening will kickoff with a short introduction round, after which you can proceed to work on your own project, join someone else’s or join one of ours.

What is a radical project? Here at Radical Engineers, we have been seeking and contacting organisations which aim to fundamentally change our economic, political and social systems to enhance human autonomy and social equality. We discuss their projects and clarify any technical challenges or needs they may have so that when they are presented to you, our community, you know that they are properly considered and genuinely useful. Our vetting process means that you will only be working on projects which will help not just to fix the symptoms of our economic systems, but aim to contribute to systemic change itself.

Not an engineer? That’s ok too! You would be surprised at the variety of skills needed for projects. Spreadsheet sprites, word wizards and pixel pirates are valued guests and we could always use a hand scoping out new projects!

See some projects Radical Engineers are working on.

Digital technology has transformed the way that humans are able to relate to each other. In spite of being able to connect over vast differences, we are more atomised, alienated and culturally estranged than ever. What does this mean for building working-class power? How can we create the cultural infrastructure that we need to be able to organise together and change the World for the better.

Douglas Lain of Zero Books hosts a conversation with some of the most important voices on the British left.

• Sasha Josette, The World Transformed festival and Momentum organiser.
• Chris Nineham, Counterfire and Stop the War founder, Zero Books author
• Tom O’ Brien, Alpha to Omega podcast host
• Angie Speaks, Youtuber and Left wing commentator
• Cian Prendiville, Socialist organiser, Bottom Dog podcast host
• David Swift, Historian and Zero Books Author

It’s Wikidata’s 7th birthday at the end of October. Come and celebrate with drinks at this informal meetup organised by Wikimedia UK.

Meet other Wikidata users and talk about your projects, get help with questions and hang out with other people who share your love of data science!

Come and get the conversation started ahead of the main event. Hosted by Mozilla Fellow Anouk Ruhaak.

Join your fellow HackThePress members at Newspeak House to hang out and continue hacking on news-tech 👩‍💻.

We’ll provide power, WiFi, and somewhere warm, you bring the code! (and beer)

There are a few projects for you to join, or you can come with your own idea to work on.

Every other Tuesday we will be meeting up to collaborate on projects, to discuss progress and to learn together. This is a meetup for engineers of all stripes (hackers, makers, designers and other technologists) who wish to contribute their spare time and talents to radical projects, or work on their own projects. The evening will kickoff with a short introduction round, after which you can proceed to work on your own project, join someone else’s or join one of ours.

What is a radical project? Here at Radical Engineers, we have been seeking and contacting organisations which aim to fundamentally change our economic, political and social systems to enhance human autonomy and social equality. We discuss their projects and clarify any technical challenges or needs they may have so that when they are presented to you, our community, you know that they are properly considered and genuinely useful. Our vetting process means that you will only be working on projects which will help not just to fix the symptoms of our economic systems, but aim to contribute to systemic change itself.

Not an engineer? That’s ok too! You would be surprised at the variety of skills needed for projects. Spreadsheet sprites, word wizards and pixel pirates are valued guests and we could always use a hand scoping out new projects!

See some projects Radical Engineers are working on.

A reading group focusing on systems management, where an organisation or group is considered as one or more living systems and this perspective is used to assess how such a system could be structured to function at the highest level possible. This could consider multiple facets of the system, including the individuals working in the system, physical environment, virtual spaces used, tools available, media used for communication, how teams are structured and how information travels, is processed and stored (and more)!

The general intention is that by developing our ability to understand systems we’ll be better equipped to improve (or at least assess) the organisations or groups we work in or with, whether not-for-profit, corporate, or government.

This month we are reading two papers:

Useful Theory of Change Models: Although frequently discussed in the evaluation literature and general agreement on what a theory of change is conceptually, there is actually little agreement beyond the big picture of just what a theory of change comprises, what does it show, how it can be represented and how it can be used. This article outlines models for theories of change and their development that have proven quite useful for both straightforward and more complex interventions. The models are intuitive, flexible, well-defined in terms of their components and link directly to rigorous models of causality. The models provide a structured framework for developing a theory of change and analysing the intervention it represents.

The COM-B Theory of Change Model (V3): Discussion of the COM-B (‘capability’, ‘opportunity’, ‘motivation’ and ‘behaviour’) model for making interventions to cause behaviour change.

We meet roughly monthly on a weekday evening to eat and discuss that month’s book, including its ideas and any practical applications (the day of the week varies). There is no set reading list - the next book is generally chosen at the meeting. Past books include Thinking in Systems (Meadows) and Doing the Impossible (Slotkin).

Join your fellow HackThePress members at Newspeak House to hang out and continue hacking on news-tech 👩‍💻.

We’ll provide power, WiFi, and somewhere warm, you bring the code! (and beer)

There are a few projects for you to join, or you can come with your own idea to work on.

The sell out corn-based snack event is back. It’s Wine and Wotsits time.

You say wot?

That’s right, there aren’t enough wotsits in campaigners lives, so a few times a year we co-ordinate people coming together to share some of their successes. It’s a pecha kucha format, which means approx 5 presentations of 20 slides, each lasting 20 seconds. It will be an opportunity to hear from cutting edge speakers doing exciting things. Previous speakers include those from Save the Children, Shelter, WWF, Unlock Democracy, Which?, Change.org, National Autistic Society, Care2, Let Toys be Toys, Transform Justice and many more. If you have something you’d love to talk about, please let us know!

Wot Wot Who?

Top notch speakers. Wot else?

• Tamsin Omond on Extinction Rebellion and how they are shaking up campaigning
• Pete Moorey on what campaigners can learn from the Marvel Comic Universe
• Joe Mitchell on Democracy Club’s fantastic election tools

.. more to come

How many tickets are there?

A limited number, we generally have a waitlist, so sign up early. We try and fit in as many people as we can.

How does it work?

You show up with whatever you want to drink (wine, fizz, non-alcoholic, whatever takes your fancy), we provide the wotsits and some cups. You have a great evening. It’s deliberately timed to allow people to come straight from work.

Wot you waiting for? (as Gwen Stefani would say) #wineandwotsits

The Echo Chamber Club invites you to a meet up and discussion on: “what makes a healthy information environment?”

There are many subjects being examined by academics, journalists, think-tanks, technologists and policy makers when it comes to digital’s impact on democracy. Disinformation, misinformation, information warfare, truth-making, conspiracy theories, data privacy, data politics, political advertising, microtargeting, transparency, mediatisation, normalisation, echo chambers, filter bubbles, herd thinking and more.

Democracy is a contested term. We agree that it means: “rule by the people”. But we also acknowledge that in a modern nation state the people need to elect representatives to govern them. Information then must circulate between citizens and the government in order to ensure that ‘the people have the power’. But what are the best mechanisms for this? What are the institutions that we absolutely need? Are there any red lines?

We often talk about various digital structures ‘undermining democracy’. But if we cannot agree what democracy is, then how do we agree that it is being undermined? How can we then look to how to use digital to promote democratic ideals?

The purpose of this meetup is to meet people who are working in adjacent fields to enable collaboration. However, we also have some exciting provocations lined up to help stimulate conversation:

• Matthew d’Ancona - partner at Tortoise Media and columnist for GQ, the Evening Standard and the Guardian. Matt has decades of experience commentating on politics and has written many books including: “Post-Truth: The New War on Truth and How to Fight Back”.
• Nafisa Bakkar - founder and CEO of Amaliah and CEO of Halal Gems. Amaliah is dedicated to representing Muslim women. It has a reach of 3.2 million across all editorial channels and publishes on topics from lifestyle to relationships to fashion and politics.
• Gemma Milne - tech and science journalist and co-founder of Science: Disrupt. Gemma has written for many publications including Forbes, the Guardian and the BBC. Her latest book focusses on hype and is called: “Smoke and Mirrors”. It is out next year and helps form a realistic understanding of what is going on in tech and science today.

Please register to ensure your place.

Every other Tuesday we will be meeting up to collaborate on projects, to discuss progress and to learn together. This is a meetup for engineers of all stripes (hackers, makers, designers and other technologists) who wish to contribute their spare time and talents to radical projects, or work on their own projects. The evening will kickoff with a short introduction round, after which you can proceed to work on your own project, join someone else’s or join one of ours.

What is a radical project? Here at Radical Engineers, we have been seeking and contacting organisations which aim to fundamentally change our economic, political and social systems to enhance human autonomy and social equality. We discuss their projects and clarify any technical challenges or needs they may have so that when they are presented to you, our community, you know that they are properly considered and genuinely useful. Our vetting process means that you will only be working on projects which will help not just to fix the symptoms of our economic systems, but aim to contribute to systemic change itself.

Not an engineer? That’s ok too! You would be surprised at the variety of skills needed for projects. Spreadsheet sprites, word wizards and pixel pirates are valued guests and we could always use a hand scoping out new projects!

See some projects Radical Engineers are working on.

For those who can’t choose sides between Greta Thunberg and the Suffragettes… or between ecology and feminism…

We are a bit lost… somewhere between the #metoo movement and the rise of Extinction Rebellion. Feeling stretched between fighting for women’s rights and the earth… so we want to create a space to connect with, explore the tensions between and raise questions about ecology and feminism. Are they compatible? How can feminist action be mindful of climate change activism and the other way around? How can we join forces to make a difference?

Using dialogue, drama and dance, we will explore your own lived experiences and questions around the climate crisis and the feminist cause. Through this creative process, we will together define the themes that are most alive in us as Londoners, and be the key points in coming meetings.

Please note - you will need to bring a laptop to this event

It’s General Election Time! Join Campaign Lab for a Hack Day working on political data science challenges and designing, developing and testing election tech and campaigning innovations.

From data analysis to improve targeting and working out the factors that could swing an election to developing new election tools for activists on the ground, we’ll be working out how together we can make the biggest impact on this election.

What is Campaign Lab?

Campaign Lab is a community of politically-minded progressive data scientists, researchers and activists who are working together to build new election tools and change the way we analyse and understand political election campaigning.

Check out the Campaign Lab volunteer teams and project guide

You will need to bring a laptop to this event

Everyone welcome!

We are a group of philosophy researchers and students from the University of Bristol. We acknowledge that in our increasingly busy lives, the time people spend to inform themselves is extremely narrow. On top of that, behind all media – newspapers, advertising, even entertainment – lies incentives that are no longer driven by truth but by financial or political interests. This means that information is designed to exploit our ignorance and our vulnerability to sentimental persuasion. Information is no longer primarily truth-guiding.

In this talk, we will describe how our Validity Code, a 13-step system that incorporates both logical analysis and fact-checking, will help people to check the validity of the information that every media delivers.

Our mission is to create a citizen who is not only better informed but has a broader outlook on the world, and, ultimately, is better placed to reconcile.

For the third round in our Trajectory Talks series of free debates we consider this: how important is the presentation of a human body to our experience of virtual realities?

Direct evidence suggests that embodiment is a key factor in immersion and presence within XR. It is important to recognise however that existing design principles around this embodiment betray implicit ableist and heteronormative bias. In cases where creators attempt to move past this, their efforts are often made in the questionable pursuit of empathy and the inhabiting of another’s experience. So whether extended, cross or augmented the virtual space is as problematic as the traditional performance space when it comes to perspective and representation.

Starting with the lived expertise of makers with different or changing experiences of their own bodies or identities, this Trajectory Talk will examine and debate current and future uses of embodiment in XR. We will ask what insights can be inferred when decontextualizing narrative and design elements from LGBTQ+ makers and makers with disabilities, and to what extent these forms of embodiment effect meaningful representation.

SPEAKERS

• Rob Eagle (Chair), PhD researcher at UWE Bristol, uses methods from audio documentary storytelling, immersive theatre and interactive digital art to present nonbinary and genderqueer narratives in mixed reality.
• Jane Gauntlett, whose work explores the impact of storytelling, shared experience and human connection. She works as a writer, director, producer and lecturer (interactive audio, interactive theatre, game, 360 film, VR, MR). In 2009 she founded the In My Shoes project, each piece combines multi-sensory theatre, technology and first-person documentary to recreate extraordinary real-life events.
• Michelle Baharier, whose artistic practice is influenced by her heritage and life experience, brings new context to a space and gives a voice to people whose stories are hidden and unheard. Since 2006 she has worked collaboratively developing The Largactyl Shuffle. This project is named after Chlorpromazine, one of the first anti-psychotic drugs, whose side effects included a deterioration of motor functions that often manifest in a slow shuffling walk. In 2011, she was commissioned by Southwark Council’s Public Realm Department to create a sculpture on Camberwell Green – representing CoolTan Arts. Using a two part process, we created a live sculpture - a Ginkgo tree to mark the Largactyl Shuffle and to symbolise positive mental health, resilience and memory. She then worked with artist Rossen Daskalov to produce a bench that celebrated all that Largactyl Shuffle represents for the local community – a place of safety, contemplation, friendship and destigmatisation.

RUNNING ORDER

• 6.30-7pm: Arrivals, drinks, nibbles and networking.
• 7-8pm: Debate and ‘fishbowl’ discussion.
• 8-9pm: Drinks and networking.

Steering session for London Tech Workers Coalition, a coalition of workers in and around the tech industry. London chapter of @TechWorkersCo

Open to all tech workers, students and those seeking work in the industry. Bring a friend.

if you’ve any questions or requirements email us at techworkersldn {at} protonmail {dot} com

Join us at our first ever HackThePress social!

We’ll spend some time talking about what we all want to get out of the group - learning, networking, or something else entirely. Then there will be plenty of time to get to know your fellow tech and news nerds over booze and food.

We’re looking forward to meeting you there!

Help us to beta test two workshops in applied mathematics:

Workshop 1: Intro to Bayesian Statistics (50 mins)

The first half of this session will focus on the base rate fallacy, building intuitions of how it affects probabilities. In the second half we’ll compare Bayesian and frequentist methods of inference and consider the advantages/disadvantages of each.

Workshop 2: Can Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) stop the AIDs epidemic? (50 mins)

We’ll read a paper that makes some exciting claims about the possibility of ending the global AIDs epidemic. With a small amount of contextual knowledge, we’ll look at the paper with a critical reviewer’s eye to see what we make of its methods and claims.

Hear a digital marketing expert blow the whistle on deceitful tactics used by digital advertisers and show us how we can “opt out” of the corporate surveillance economy.

We’ll also receive an update about Open Rights Group’s AdTech complaint against Google and the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

This event is a great way to learn easy and practical ways to protect yourself online from companies that aggressively target and track you across the Internet.

Bring your laptops and mobile phones so you can use what you learn immediately.

Our planet is in ecological crisis and everyday we are seeing the effects of increasing climate breakdown. Yet from Heathrow expansion to debates over land use, time and again the environmental movement comes up against barriers to achieving the significant systemic change that is needed.

To secure democratic consent for the significant actions we will need to take, we need to understand how to bring more people into the conversation and reach out beyond the activist base. This means exploring how we can create a positive vision of a greener future for everyone in society.

How can we get people to understand the scale and urgency of the challenge without them feeling hopeless? How can we understand and more effectively counter right wing populism and conspiracy theories which deny climate change? At this meet up we’ll be looking at how we can start working together more concretely to solve some of these pressing challenges.

If you know someone who you think needs to be in the room, please do invite them too! We’re really keen to hear from a range of perspectives across the movement and working at different levels.

Drinks and refreshments will be provided.

Every other Tuesday we will be meeting up to collaborate on projects, to discuss progress and to learn together. This is a meetup for engineers of all stripes (hackers, makers, designers and other technologists) who wish to contribute their spare time and talents to radical projects, or work on their own projects. The evening will kickoff with a short introduction round, after which you can proceed to work on your own project, join someone else’s or join one of ours.

What is a radical project? Here at Radical Engineers, we have been seeking and contacting organisations which aim to fundamentally change our economic, political and social systems to enhance human autonomy and social equality. We discuss their projects and clarify any technical challenges or needs they may have so that when they are presented to you, our community, you know that they are properly considered and genuinely useful. Our vetting process means that you will only be working on projects which will help not just to fix the symptoms of our economic systems, but aim to contribute to systemic change itself.

Not an engineer? That’s ok too! You would be surprised at the variety of skills needed for projects. Spreadsheet sprites, word wizards and pixel pirates are valued guests and we could always use a hand scoping out new projects!

See some projects Radical Engineers are working on.

The solar power industry is growing remarkably fast worldwide, with over 100GW installed for the first time in 2018 and over 120GW expected in 2019. This is largely driven by rapidly dropping costs and increasing competitiveness of solar electricity with gas and coal in many countries, almost regardless of action on climate change. Over the past decade, the price of solar modules has fallen over 90% and the big challenges for solar power have moved beyond the cost of electricity, to much bigger questions about the future of electricity.

A new book, Solar Power Finance Without the Jargon, introduces key concepts in finance and renewable energy and provides a readable introduction to the world of business as it applies to solving the energy portion of climate change. It covers startup culture from a personal angle, some less successful examples of solar companies with candid interviews of the founders, and explanations of concepts like levelised cost of energy, the power markets and the experience curve.

Author Jenny Chase, head of solar analysis at financial information provider BloombergNEF, has been tracking solar price, demand, technology and investment since 2006 and aims to write the book she should have read as a student wanting to work in clean energy. This evening will be a chance to meet the author and talk about renewable energy with like-minded people.

The book is available from publisher World Scientific Publishing here and on Amazon here.

New social media communities have bred a renewed interest in radical politics, particularly among the youth generation. Will this culture persist only online, or can we bring our digital communities into the real world to bolster left-wing struggle here?

Join Left Culture Club’s panel event, where we talk about the benefits and pitfalls of using social media to organise online in the digital age.

• Angie Speaks is an anarchist video essayist and Youtuber.
• BadmanMassive is a video producer for Zero Books and Means TV UK, and host of the YouTube-based Spicy Takes series.
• Xexizy (aka. Muke) is a Marxist vlogger and streamer, and founder of the Marxist society at the University of Sussex.

Doors are at 7:00 for a 7:10 start. All are welcome!

The current system of monetisation disincentivises investigative journalism in favour of clickbait and sensationalism. We must find a new model - perhaps technology can help make high quality journalism sustainable again?

A two day hackathon. See the schedule and register your place at hackthepress.org/2019-hackathon/.

Wandsworth Young Labour + London Young Labour trial a new format for a workshop, focused on developing policy solutions to Youth Violence.

A reading group focusing on systems management, where an organisation or group is considered as one or more living systems and this perspective is used to assess how such a system could be structured to function at the highest level possible. This could consider multiple facets of the system, including the individuals working in the system, physical environment, virtual spaces used, tools available, media used for communication, how teams are structured and how information travels, is processed and stored (and more)!

The general intention is that by developing our ability to understand systems we’ll be better equipped to improve (or at least assess) the organisations or groups we work in or with, whether not-for-profit, corporate, or government.

The book for this month is Seeing like a State by James Scott.

We meet roughly monthly on a weekday evening to eat and discuss that month’s book, including its ideas and any practical applications (the day of the week varies). There is no set reading list - the next book is generally chosen at the meeting. Past books include Thinking in Systems (Meadows) and Doing the Impossible (Slotkin).

With the prospect of a general election becoming ever more likely, now more than ever we need to build bridges between technologists and activists on the ground.

Join Campaign Lab for our event Campaign Confessions where we invite candidates, organisers and activists from across the country to share their campaign challenges and where they think Campaign Lab volunteers can help.

For our event, we’ll be joined by Patrick Alcantara & Joe Morrison who are leading the local campaign to unseat Boris in Uxbridge, and Jessie Joe Jacobs one of the Labour Candidates for Tees Valley Mayor, where Labour lost a lot of ground to the Tories in the last election. Our third speaker is to be confirmed.

During the panel and breakout session we’ll explore how the speakers are currently running their campaigns, their current practices in an effort to identify where there is space for innovation and improvement - asking our candidates and activists: how can the Campaign Lab community help their campaigns to innovate?

Campaign Lab is a community of activists, researchers and technologists working towards a more evidence-based approach to campaigning - outside of this event series we run monthly hackdays and meetups, come join us.

A networking event for those applying technology to the upcoming UK election to talk about ideas, resources, strategy and collaborations.

If you have something you want to share with everyone attending, please add it to electiontechhandbook.uk

A meetup for effective altruists who work in/are interested in software, data or tech.

• 6:30pm: Doors open
• 7:00pm: Coworking time and/or networking

This month there will be time for co-working if you wish, bring a laptop and feel free to work on EA-related projects with likeminded folks! Otherwise, you’re welcome to use the time for networking as normal.

Note: This event is targeted at people who already know about Effective Altruism. If you’re new to EA, start with one of the newcomer socials advertised here: https://www.facebook.com/LondonAltruism/

The first meeting of the Equality Discussion Group, where there shall be a discussion on Angela Y. Davis’ book “Women, Race, and Class”.

Future books, podcasts, things to watch will be discussed and chosen by the group each time for the next event.

NB. Don’t worry if you won’t have read the whole book - it doesn’t matter.

Every other Tuesday we will be meeting up to collaborate on projects, to discuss progress and to learn together. This is a meetup for engineers of all stripes (hackers, makers, designers and other technologists) who wish to contribute their spare time and talents to radical projects, or work on their own projects. The evening will kickoff with a short introduction round, after which you can proceed to work on your own project, join someone else’s or join one of ours.

What is a radical project? Here at Radical Engineers, we have been seeking and contacting organisations which aim to fundamentally change our economic, political and social systems to enhance human autonomy and social equality. We discuss their projects and clarify any technical challenges or needs they may have so that when they are presented to you, our community, you know that they are properly considered and genuinely useful. Our vetting process means that you will only be working on projects which will help not just to fix the symptoms of our economic systems, but aim to contribute to systemic change itself.

Not an engineer? That’s ok too! You would be surprised at the variety of skills needed for projects. Spreadsheet sprites, word wizards and pixel pirates are valued guests and we could always use a hand scoping out new projects!

See some projects Radical Engineers are working on.

An informal meetup for people interested in effective altruism and want to work on their own projects or self study.

This may be as individuals or in groups, but we plan to work for 50+ minutes then break at least once and maybe up to three times depending on how much you want to do, with the rest of the evening set aside for socialising and discussing what you’re working on with others.

Note: This event is targeted at people who already know about Effective Altruism. If you’re new to EA, start with one of the newcomer socials advertised here: https://www.facebook.com/LondonAltruism

A day of coding to help the Liberal Democrats HQ, The Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors, and local parties around the country get more done and win more votes.

This event is hosted by The Liberal Democrat Software Group - join to hear about future events.

There will be free pizza for lunch.

Meet people working with Wikidata, learn to use SPARQL to query the database and visualise data in interesting ways! Please bring a laptop to work on.

This is the fourth Wikidata meetup organised by Wikimedia UK at Newspeak House. We hope to support the community of people working with Wikidata and encourage new people to get involved in the project.

This event will be aimed at training people to query Wikidata using SPARQL, a coding language similar to SQL which is commonly used to query databases. SPARQL is not a complicated coding language, and the basics of it can be learned easily, especially if you have previous experience of working with data. This event is aimed at people who want to learn the basics of data science, or people already working in that field.

Wikidata is becoming increasingly important, and data science skills are increasingly sought after by employers in the tech sector. This training will help you get acquainted with some basic concepts in data science, or improve your skills at working with and visualising data.We think this could especially appeal to people studying data science, data journalism or any other data-related field, as well as established data scientists and journalists who want to improve their skills.

Non-alcoholic refreshments will be provided.

If you have a Wikidata project you’re working on and would like to do a 5-10 minute presentation on, please contact me about it - [email protected]

Raise money for the next round of outsourced worker strikes at the University of London

This special TechforGood side-event follows on from our last meetup, which we had to cut short because of the heat: https://www.meetup.com/techforgood/events/263194160/

You don’t have to have attended the first event to come along to this one, and you can see the outputs of that event here: http://bit.ly/TFGJulAllAssets

For this August meetup, the Cyberdelic Society (whose co-founder Carl M Smith spoke at last month’s event) will host a Collective Intelligence summit in order to explore how immersive technologies can be radically recontextualised to help tackle some of the grand challenges humanity is currently facing.

The Cyberdelic Society will set the scene by sharing the outputs from our recent XR for XR event which explored how immersive technologies can be utilised to help combat the climate and extinction crisis. The full video of the XR for XR event is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzwfzwaI81Q

Help us build the collective intelligence around Tech for Good solutions by sharing your opinions, ideas and skills. What are the most relevant areas of concern for you? We look forward to this process of collectively co-creating.

KEY QUESTIONS:

• How do we ensure technologies are part of the solution rather than the source of the problem?
• How are we going to use the power of technology to radically change lives and the environment for the better?
• How can we use technology to help us imagine and realise the level of transformation needed to meet the challenges we face?

KEY CONCERNS:

• How can we avoid replacing imagination with computer animation?
• What do our current imaging and sensing technologies already do to our perception of reality?
• If our senses are enhanced or augmented will we become distracted – or more mindful and connected?
• What are the biological and psychological risks of altering your perception with technology?
• Is transformative technology just a shortcut for people who lack the willpower for consistent work with their bodies, breath, meditation and sitting in silence?
• Do AR/VR/MR/AI (XR) experiences endanger people from getting lost further inside the simulation?
• Do Cyberdelics promise a ‘shortcut’ to a false experience of ‘awakening’/‘enlightenment’?
• Why rely on something external when we have all the answers, power and ability to be conscious co-creators of this ‘world’/’reality’ within ourselves?

POTENTIAL APPLICATION AREAS:

• How can we use immersive tech to both measure the impact we are having on our environment and also explore some appropriate systems change solutions?
• How can we use immersive tech to expand our experience of ourselves and the reality we live in?
• How can we create truly transformative experiences within these immersive technologies?
• How can these technologies help us to reprogram our associations and see ourselves from other perspectives (including the non-human)?
• How can we design and use these technologies to contribute to individual and collective awakening?
• What is the healing potential of these technologies?
• How can hybrid technological devices, of often-prosthetic alienation, help us to reconnect to ourselves and to the surrounding environment?
• To what extent can we influence our internal processes and bodily sensations using external sources? How adaptable is our perception?
• How much can we understand the rules that govern our minds and bodies through these technologies?
• How can artificial senses be used to access a greater dynamic range of reality?

If there is appetite, this may form the first in a series of follow-ups along this theme, led by the Cyberdelic Society.

Every other Tuesday we will be meeting up to collaborate on projects, to discuss progress and to learn together. This is a meetup for engineers of all stripes (hackers, makers, designers and other technologists) who wish to contribute their spare time and talents to radical projects, or work on their own projects. The evening will kickoff with a short introduction round, after which you can proceed to work on your own project, join someone else’s or join one of ours.

What is a radical project? Here at Radical Engineers, we have been seeking and contacting organisations which aim to fundamentally change our economic, political and social systems to enhance human autonomy and social equality. We discuss their projects and clarify any technical challenges or needs they may have so that when they are presented to you, our community, you know that they are properly considered and genuinely useful. Our vetting process means that you will only be working on projects which will help not just to fix the symptoms of our economic systems, but aim to contribute to systemic change itself.

Not an engineer? That’s ok too! You would be surprised at the variety of skills needed for projects. Spreadsheet sprites, word wizards and pixel pirates are valued guests and we could always use a hand scoping out new projects!

See some projects Radical Engineers are working on.

How did Facebook allow an obscure data company named Cambridge Analytica hack the 2016 US presidential election? Why did they do it? What have been the consequences for democracy?

In this enlightening documentary join film makers Karim Amer and Jehane Noujaim as we explore the motivations of some of the key players in the story and the journey of those that tried to hold them to account.

Featuring some familiar Newspeak House community faces, this is a must see for anyone interested in increasingly murky intersection between politics, data and ethics in elections.

Popcorn will be provided.

“You leave with a very clear sense of how one company aided and abetted the selling of democracy down the river, not to mention having your fingernails chewed down to the quick.” - David Fear, Rolling Stone

“An intelligent but infuriating piece of liberal hand-wringing.” - Owen Gleiberman, Variety

Climate disaster and far-right politics continue to pose an increasing threat in Britain, the rest of our continent and the world. It is time to act. Time to get organised.

DiEM members and supporters from London and the surrounding area will gather on the 8th of August for a third time - this time in the Newspeak House in Bethnal Green, where we will continue to discuss DiEM policy, how to get organised and the future of Europe.

The overarching goal will be to set up AT LEAST ONE new London local group!

There will be a loose agenda for the evening, including a “creative space” at the end of our meet-up.

Considering the great interested in the “Green New Deal for Europe”, our plan to tackle the threat of climate disaster and the burning injustices in Europe and beyond, you can find out more about it here: https://www.gndforeurope.com/

A reading group focusing on systems management, where an organisation or group is considered as one or more living systems and this perspective is used to assess how such a system could be structured to function at the highest level possible. This could consider multiple facets of the system, including the individuals working in the system, physical environment, virtual spaces used, tools available, media used for communication, how teams are structured and how information travels, is processed and stored (and more)!

The general intention is that by developing our ability to understand systems we’ll be better equipped to improve (or at least assess) the organisations or groups we work in or with, whether not-for-profit, corporate, or government.

The book for this month is The Field Guide to Understanding Human Error, by Sidney Dekker.

We meet roughly monthly on a weekday evening to eat and discuss that month’s book, including its ideas and any practical applications (the day of the week varies). There is no set reading list - the next book is generally chosen at the meeting.

Past books include Thinking in Systems (Meadows) and Doing the Impossible (Slotkin).

Prototype games to explore complex systems. Today we explore the game loop in Baba Is You.

Every other Tuesday we will be meeting up to collaborate on projects, to discuss progress and to learn together. This is a meetup for engineers of all stripes (hackers, makers, designers and other technologists) who wish to contribute their spare time and talents to radical projects, or work on their own projects. The evening will kickoff with a short introduction round, after which you can proceed to work on your own project, join someone else’s or join one of ours.

What is a radical project? Here at Radical Engineers, we have been seeking and contacting organisations which aim to fundamentally change our economic, political and social systems to enhance human autonomy and social equality. We discuss their projects and clarify any technical challenges or needs they may have so that when they are presented to you, our community, you know that they are properly considered and genuinely useful. Our vetting process means that you will only be working on projects which will help not just to fix the symptoms of our economic systems, but aim to contribute to systemic change itself.

Not an engineer? That’s ok too! You would be surprised at the variety of skills needed for projects. Spreadsheet sprites, word wizards and pixel pirates are valued guests and we could always use a hand scoping out new projects!

See some projects Radical Engineers are working on.

A meetup for effective altruists who work in/are interested in software, data or tech.

• 6.30 pm: Doors open
• 7 pm: Talks
  • Vicky Clayton (Senior Researcher, Nesta): the desirability of automating impact measurement
  • Ozzie Gooen (Research Scholar, FHI Oxford): Forecasting infrastructure and Foretold, a new forecasting app

Note: This event is targeted at people who already know about Effective Altruism. If you’re new to EA, start with one of the newcomer socials advertised here: https://www.facebook.com/LondonAltruism/

Are you digitally able? A videographer? A copy writer? A social media mastermind? London Green Party has put together a Green Party Hackathon on the 3rd August to help put together a digital campaign from scratch.

Work with Sian Berry to put together a housing campaign designed to push the Mayor and local Councils to take radical Green backed action!

Spaces are limited so please fill out this form to let us know how you want to contribute. We’ll be in touch to confirm places.

Join us for a day of making, playing, failing, and doing as we take a Hackathon and a Scratch Night and smash them together.

About this event

We invite those from the arts and technology worlds, as well as anyone interested in different ideas and new approaches, to come along to this open and relaxed forum for the creation and testing of work that combines digital and immersive technology with artistic practice.

The Hack strand will be a chance for tech people and art people to get together to test an idea, iterate on a concept or demonstrates a method none of which existed at the beginning of the day. They’ll be working away all day and will show off what they’ve created at the open sharing session.

We will give you the chance to try out work in development from those participating in the Scratch strand. Similar to traditional theatre scratch nights we invite direct and collaborative feedback from audiences, but with the pieces growing and changing throughout the day. The Scratch space will be open to the public for free from 12 – 5pm, no sign up required.

The day will culminate in an open sharing session at 5:30pm before we head to Newspeak’s terrace to reflect on the work of the day over a BBQ and drinks.

Further details and participant details to follow. Sign up so you don’t miss out.

Though our open call has now closed there may still be possibilities to participate - get in touch via [email protected]

About your hosts

Trajectory Theatre are interactive digital performance makers. We produce work for both site-specific physical and virtual spaces. Our interests centre around interpersonal connection, the future of the digital era, and challenging notions of reality through perception. To get in touch please reach out on Twitter, or email us at [email protected]

Why fight for a just digital future if there might be no future at all?

Technology crisis and climate crisis have many aspects in common: they are both often invisible, yet pervasive in their impact. Whether it is privacy, bias in AI or open data, the digital human rights community often fights for more equal and just futures while vastly ignoring the environmental crisis we are currently facing.

In this meet up series we want to initiate, map and advance the intersection between digital human rights and climate crisis. That means that we want to figure out how to create a sustainable social, environmental and technological future. By that we aim to go beyond current debates in the community that include arguments such as 1) we need to fly less 2) we need to repair devices 3) bitcoin consumes too much energy. We want to figure out how topics such as bias in AI or open source can be combined with the very idea of sustainability. We want to deepen the intersection between technology and nature.

At this first Sustainable Tech Meetup in London Katrin will give a short introduction with some initial thoughts on the topic. Then we will discuss how the intersection of digital human rights and climate crisis can advance. We will collect national and international initiatives that already work at the tech for good/sustainability intersection to make a first overview. Also, we are going to create a roadmap for more research and activism to advocate for a sustainable social, environmental and technological future.

The Sustainable Tech Meet Up and Newspeak are very happy to receive donations. Please bring pen and paper. If you want to contribute with an input or if you have any questions contact Katrin on Twitter at @KatrinFritsch, private messages are open.

“We have developed an immensely powerful technology. We have stronger means of changing the physical universe than has ever existed before. How are we going to use it? This whole attitude of using technology as a method of fighting the world will succeed only in destroying the world. Technology and its powers must be handled by… people who cherish… above all, the Earth, and treat it with the reverence that is due to one’s own body.” - Alan Watts

How are we going to use the power of technology to radically change lives for the better? That’s a question we will explore in this meetup to really find out if we’re thinking and acting radical enough in applying technology to solve the world’s most pressing social and environmental challenges. Tech for Good is certainly gaining mainstream recognition and popularity, but so is our collective appreciation and recognition of the scale of existential threats facing humanity.

How can we use technology to help us imagine and realise the level of transformation needed to meet the challenges we face? Who is involved? Who needs to be? This event will look at some more ambitious and consciousness-shifting applications and explorations within tech.

The event will start with speakers, then open out into a facilitated ‘citizens assembly’ style discussion where we invite you to bring your ears and ideas.

As always, we’ll have our community announcements at the end, which is a chance for attendees to share an update, funding opportunities, jobs and more with the community. If you’d like to share yours in advance with the organisers, email us at mail@techforgood.tv.

We charge £3 (+VAT) to help manage the number of people who show up on the night, which goes towards the cost of running the event. We don’t want this to become a barrier to attendance, so please get in touch via Meetup messages or directly via mail@techforgood.tv if this causes a problem for you. Furthermore, if you need a VAT receipt please email mail@techforgood.tv.

Our speakers are:

Cassie Robinson, National Lottery Community Fund / The Point People / Tech for Good Global / CAST / Nesta New Radicals Awards: Cassie wears multiple hats in the tech for good space, which gives her a rare perspective on the field and the changes within it. She’ll discuss some of the key burning questions she feels we should all be asking, and who’s working to answer them currently. She’ll set the scene for the citizens assembly discussion around different possible futures, and the challenges we must overcome to get there.

Carl H Smith, Ravensbourne University London / The Cyberdelics Society / The London Experimental Psychonautics Club / Contextology: Carl is a regular writer and speaker on Humanism, Transhumanism and Hyper-Humanism, and how a new mental model can help us better shape our relationship with technology and the world around us. He will share examples of where mixed reality and other XR technologies are enabling positive context engineering, as well as new modes of thinking and embodiment. He will also share the outputs from a recent XR for XR event, hosted by the Cyberdelics Society which explored how immersive technologies can be utilised to help combat the climate and extinction crisis.

We hope to see you there!

Dama & Ellie (Bethnal Green Ventures + CAST)

Register Here

When we talk about technology we always talk about the future—which makes it hard to figure out how to get there. In her new book Future Histories, Lizzie O’Shea argue that we need to stop looking forward and start looking backwards. Weaving together histories of computing and social movements with modern theories of the mind, society, and self, the book constructs a “usable past” that help us determine our digital future.

What, she asks, can the Paris Commune tell us about earlier experiments in sharing resources, that might hold relevance for similar concepts today, like the Internet? Can debates over digital access be guided by Tom Paine’s theories of democratic economic redistribution? And how is Elon Musk not a visionary but a throwback to Victorian-era utopians?

Future Histories has been described by Claire L. Evans as “a potent, timely, and unrepentantly radical reminder of history’s creative potential.” O’Shea will be talking about some of the questions raised by her book and how we can use history to fight for a democratic digital tomorrow.

https://www.versobooks.com/books/2960-future-histories

Often referred to as one of the fathers of systems thinking, Dr John Gall was the first to articulate the counterintuitive nature of systems, in particular how they succeed and how they fail. He is best known for his seminal work The Systems Bible. A Renaissance man, as well as writing on systems, John worked as a paediatrician writing books on parenting, child development, historical novels and memoirs.

Join Newspeak House in warmly welcoming his wife Carol Gall for a special guest lecture celebrating John’s work and their life together.

Carol Gall married Dr Gall in 1994 and for many years worked in his medical office. Together they taught parenting classes and jointly authoring Hit by a Low-Flying Goose a book about their experiences. She has worked as a piano teacher, a special education teacher and tutor, a family counsellor, specialising in young offenders and as a lecturer in child development and music.

In this lecture Carol will explore some of John’s later thinking laid out in his unpublished work and share stories that illustrate some of the many concepts raised in The Systems Bible. Alongside this she will share some of the many personal biographical anecdotes and memories of her life with John that inspired his thinking around systems. The listener does not need a background in systems theory to enjoy and learn from this lecture about John’s life and work.

Labour for a Public Vote is setting up an independent, activist-led grassroots organisation to fight Brexit and promote a left wing remain and reform agenda, called Remain and Reform: Grassroots. They’re proposing a predominantly non-hierarchical structure which they hope will encourage autonomy and engagement - in short, you’re encourage you to get involved, and take a lead on the issues that you’re passionate about.

They are eliciting ideas from across the UK, and from across Europe, in order to develop a transformative agenda that can win widespread public support for our EU membership, and which can win support for the changes needed to make our economy fairer, our societies safer and more secure, and to help us stop climate chaos.

They’re looking for activists who want to be there at the start of this journey, and want to help shape this project from the outset. If this sounds like you, come to their first organising meeting when they’ll discuss all this and more in an open and friendly setting.

Presenting the community powered tourism platform Fairbnb.coop, and kicking off the search for someone to develop the London node!

Fairbnb.coop platform cooperative is a community-centred alternative to current vacation rental platforms that prioritises people over profit and offers the potential for authentic, sustainable, and intimate travel experiences.

As a community of engaged citizens, researchers, and people coming from a variety of professional backgrounds and different cities we have been working together for several years to create the platform, and the beta version is finally nearly ready to be released.

We are now looking for like minded people to foster the creation of Local Nodes in towns and cities in the UK.

If you’re interested in finding more about what this involves you can find more info here.

While in London for LONDON UNBOUND 2019 we are organising a meet up and our co-founders will be delighted to meet whoever is interested to participate in this co-creation process.

This will be the first of a series of events part of a European roadshow that will span over the next 15 months with the goal to involve as many communities as possible in our project.

Programme of the meet up::

• 6:00 pm: Doors open
• 6:30 pm: Presentation of Fairbnb.coop project
• 7:00 pm: Co-creation Workshop in small groups
• 7:45 pm: Food and drink, chill

Every other Tuesday we will be meeting up to collaborate on projects, to discuss progress and to learn together. This is a meetup for engineers of all stripes (hackers, makers, designers and other technologists) who wish to contribute their spare time and talents to radical projects, or work on their own projects. The evening will kickoff with a short introduction round, after which you can proceed to work on your own project, join someone else’s or join one of ours.

What is a radical project? Here at Radical Engineers, we have been seeking and contacting organisations which aim to fundamentally change our economic, political and social systems to enhance human autonomy and social equality. We discuss their projects and clarify any technical challenges or needs they may have so that when they are presented to you, our community, you know that they are properly considered and genuinely useful. Our vetting process means that you will only be working on projects which will help not just to fix the symptoms of our economic systems, but aim to contribute to systemic change itself.

Not an engineer? That’s ok too! You would be surprised at the variety of skills needed for projects. Spreadsheet sprites, word wizards and pixel pirates are valued guests and we could always use a hand scoping out new projects!

See some projects Radical Engineers are working on.

Brave Conversations was created to bring thinking around Web Science and the Social Machine to mainstream conversations that occur in everyday life. Its objective is to demystify the world of emerging technologies and enable an exploration of the impact that these technologies will have on our selves, our communities, our societies and our planet.

We deliberately create a space where everyone can be brave, can say the things that they know need to be said, and be prepared to apply intellectual rigour to challenging ideas that might take us to uncomfortable places.

Background

In 2008 a group of people from industry, government, academia, and the community sectors came together to create the first Brave Conversations (then called the Meta conference) to create a forum for people to discuss and debate the emerging issues related to humans and their use of digital technologies.

At about the same time a group of luminaries from the Web world were creating Web Science in order to focus interdisciplinary research on precisely the same thing.

Since that time the world has changed.

The Web has evolved from being read-only to read-write and now dominates how the majority of society interacts with digital platforms, giving rise to the largest companies of the modern era. These companies are now pushing the boundaries for how data and information are used and are becoming a key driver for the next step in human evolution.

We can all feel that the world ahead is very different from the world behind, but:

• How often do we find the time to step back, to engage in robust and challenging dialogue and debate with others from diverse backgrounds about what sort of future we want to create?
• How often do we feel that our opinions are respected, that we have the space to imagine real possibilities, and that we can take some proactive control of the world that is emerging?

Objectives

The goal of Brave Conversations is to challenge everyone who participates - regardless of what background they come from, or what their skillset and expertise are - to more fully explore and understand the interplay between humans, the societies we live in, and the technologies we have created.

We want to empower people to proactively make decisions about how we live our everyday lives, how we participate as commercial actors within the economy, and how we operate as digital citizens and exercise our political rights. That empowerment comes from demystifying data and information and understanding how it informs the everyday decisions which gradually create the future.

Each of those decisions begin on an individual human level - our bodies and our minds - and then emanates out to our families, communities, societies and from there to nation states. We are all responsible for the world we are creating and never has there been a time when we have more potential to influence the changes around us. But we need to be given the space for robust debate and respectful curiosity, learning from each other, playing with ideas, and asking the questions that are both confronting and potentially will take us to uncomfortable places.

How it works

The best way to learn is through experience and the act of playing with ideas.

We have deliberately chosen to partner with Newspeak House to co-host Brave Conversations London 2019 to build on the work we have been doing around the world over the past two years. Our aim is to enable that teams of diverse participants to critically examine our current societies through the lens of systems, communications, governance and technology.

This is important as the Geopolitics of Political Governance is now playing itself out as the Internet and the Web become more enmeshed in how regimes govern.

Brave Conversations complements the work being done at Newspeak House to address the challenges and opportunities which face contemporary society.

A new public service - and how we plan to make it

How do we better create a culture of mutual aid, reciprocity, co-operation, and collaboration in our cities?

How can more public social eating spaces be made and how can they be more inclusively designed?

At a time when public services are increasingly under threat, can we create an entirely new one?

The National Food Service is a new idea. A public system emerging from a network of social eating spaces across the UK. The goal is to enable social eating spaces to better interrelate, tackle common issues as a unified body, and provide a collaborative, inclusive welfare system for all.

Join members of the NFS Campaign as they explain their vision for the organisation, detail the progress so far, and invite the audience to contribute their ideas to the project.

This event is free to attend. Donations for the evening meal are optional, and not expected. Please email ‘‘[email protected]ail.com’’ about dietary requirements.

Running order:

• 18.00: Doors open
• 18.30: Campaign update - What is the NFS, and what have we been doing?
• 19.00: Group discussions
• 20.00: Dinner is served

Follow the campaign on:

• Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/National-Food-Service-472002436672526/
• Twitter - https://twitter.com/national_food
• Podcast - https://open.spotify.com/show/31CVoO6KLoXq1wyjmM7zhR

more onion is an award winning digital agency behind the Campaignion platform, which delivers high-impact digital campaigns and fundraising for progressive non-profits. Come and meet the more more onion team as well as fundraisers and campaigners from across the UK charity sector.

ON THE AGENDA

• New Campaignion features - thank you page overlays, custom redirects and more
• Campaign showcase - how Compassion in World Farming have gathered over a million signatures for their #EndTheCageAge European Citizen’s Initiative
• Consultation report launch - be the first to see tips, best practice and case studies from Young Minds, Stonewall, Open Rights Group and more on helping your supporters take part in public consultations

Please Register: https://www.more-onion.com/en/campaignion-london-july19

For those who are new to Campaignion (or fancy a refresh!), please feel free to join us a little earlier at 2.00pm for a demo.

A year since launching, the London Renters Union is establishing itself as a powerful union where renters can get organised and win the big changes to the housing system we all need.

We’re now looking to grow and expand the union so we can organise in new places, get more people involved and build the power of renters.

To do that, we need YOU!

Join us for an evening of training and planning.

We’ll be talking about how we can communicate in ways that encourage people to get involved in organising, and how we can do street stalls and other outreach effectively.

We’ll also be planning some exciting stalls and outreach for over the summer. Bring your diaries so you can leave with some dates for exciting outreach in it!

No experience of activism or the LRU is required to join this session!

Childcare is available if needed, please let us know in advance by emailing [email protected]

A meetup for effective altruists who work in/are interested in software, data or tech.

Come to chat with other EAs about doing the most good with tech. After our first successful run of having talks last time, we’ll return with another exciting talk this time.

• 6.30 pm: Doors open
• 7 pm: Talks
  • Michal Trziesimich (Rethink Charity, Local Effective Altruism Network): How LEAN rebooted the EAHub, a social platform for effective altruists
  • Mark Somerset (Freelance software engineer): How to find freelance work as a software engineer

Note: This event is targeted at people who already know about Effective Altruism. If you’re new to EA, start with one of the newcomer socials advertised here: https://www.facebook.com/LondonAltruism/

Millions and millions of people across the UK say they are sometimes, or always, lonely. Many older people say they go more than a month at a time without speaking to friends or family.

It’s thought to be as bad for you as being obese and even smoking.

At The Reader we have spent more than 20 years getting people of all ages reading great literature aloud together because it gives us the opportunity to read more and read differently.

Storytelling is an ancient human practice and, done in this way, it allows us to imagine a future beyond screens.

The Reader has launched a unique collaboration with Hackney Libraries to get people of all ages reading great literature aloud together.

If you’ve been wanting ‘something more’ in your life, you can train to use this powerful practice to change your local community.

Come to Newspeak House on Monday 8 July from 7pm to 8.30pm for a conversation about why getting together in real life matters more than ever, followed by a Shared Reading taster.

Stop scrolling.

Email: [email protected] to book.

Please note - you will need to bring a laptop to this event

Since June 2018 we’ve been a busy bunch, the Campaign Lab community has sourced hundreds of demographic and austerity impact datasets, developed scrapers and written parliamentary questions and FOIs to source the more hard to get datasets. We’ve built a comprehensive UK ward-level election results dataset and begun comparing factors impacting elections across the country.

But we’re not finished yet. Come and join us for our next hackathon as we continue to build the case for an evidenced-based approach to electoral campaigning in the UK.

What is Campaign Lab?

Thousands of activists across the UK volunteer their time and energy for electoral campaigns every year. Year in, year out, we use the same campaigning methods and tools we always have, because we think they work.

But there have been very few contemporary analysis or studies undertaken to assess the impact or value of electoral campaigning methods in the UK. Similarly, there have been precious few attempts to determine the effect of local economic factors such as house prices and austerity on election results and vote share.

So, if no one else has done this, then maybe it’s about time we started?

We’re building a repository of publicly available data and models to better understand the 2018 Local Elections, identifying which results bucked the national political and demographic trends. These are areas in which local campaigning may have actually made a difference and where we can start learning and testing.

This is about developing an evidence-based approach to electoral campaigning.

But we need your help.

So if you’re interested in chipping in and developing a new data-driven approach to understand what actually goes on in elections and campaigning, bring your laptop and join us for a day of politically motivated data science.

Over the course of our new hackdays we’ll be tackling the questions plaguing activists up and down the country, making a real impact on elections and political campaigning right across the country.

Check out the Campaign Lab volunteer teams and project guide

You will need to bring a laptop to this event

Everyone welcome – beer, soft drinks, a big homemade soupy lunch and pizza dinner will be provided!

Not been to a Campaign Lab meet up before? No problem! Come along to meet politically-minded progressive data scientists, reasearchers and activists who are working together to change the way we analyse and understand political election campaigning.

All attendees to Campaign Lab HackDays may join future discount data science courses put on specifically for Campaign Lab volunteers - contact us for more information.

We think that discussing the ethics and impacts of data science is important, but also, kind of fun? There’s a lot of good writing out there and one of the most important principles is to discuss and debate the ethical questions. We hope this will help people gain the tools they need to think about this in their jobs or in DataKind projects, or in encountering algorithmic tools in their everyday life. But if all you get out of it is some friendly discussion over a coffee or beer, that’s also good.

Reading List:

• How do we define fairness? 21 Fairness definitions and their politics - Arvind Narayanan, 2018 [video; 1hr]
• Machine Bias - the Propublica COMPAS story that is the key reference point in talks about algorithmic bias and unfair outcomes [article]
• Where fairness fails: data, algorithms, and the limits of antidiscrimination discourse - Anna Lauren Hoffman, 2019 [academic article]
• IBM AI Fairness 360 tool [blog + links to interactive tutorials]

Every other Tuesday we will be meeting up to collaborate on projects, to discuss progress and to learn together. This is a meetup for engineers of all stripes (hackers, makers, designers and other technologists) who wish to contribute their spare time and talents to radical projects, or work on their own projects. The evening will kickoff with a short introduction round, after which you can proceed to work on your own project, join someone else’s or join one of ours.

What is a radical project? Here at Radical Engineers, we have been seeking and contacting organisations which aim to fundamentally change our economic, political and social systems to enhance human autonomy and social equality. We discuss their projects and clarify any technical challenges or needs they may have so that when they are presented to you, our community, you know that they are properly considered and genuinely useful. Our vetting process means that you will only be working on projects which will help not just to fix the symptoms of our economic systems, but aim to contribute to systemic change itself.

Not an engineer? That’s ok too! You would be surprised at the variety of skills needed for projects. Spreadsheet sprites, word wizards and pixel pirates are valued guests and we could always use a hand scoping out new projects!

See some projects Radical Engineers are working on.

Wikipedia is one of the first places that people go to find out information about any subject. Google’s search results privilege Wikipedia links highly, and many Wikipedia pages receive millions of views a year. It’s hugely important for fans and music companies to ensure that their artists are well-represented on the site.

Join the Association of Independent Music (AIM) and Wikimedia UK for the latest AIM Academy workshop, with expert guidance on how music companies and artists can fully optimise and understand Wikipedia.

Why Wikipedia is important for you and your artists

• Having a Wikipedia page is a sign that an artist is established and successful. Because the text is Open Licensed, it can be reused elsewhere - Spotify and the BBC use biographies from Wikipedia for artists listed on their sites.
• Images used on Wikipedia also end up appearing elsewhere, so uploading a good image of your artist is a way to influence how other sites present your them.
• Wikipedia pages will be added to and curated by fans, so it’s also a way that fans can engage with the artists they care about.
• Wikipedia pageviews are open – find out about how to access your data (page views, edits, editors etc) and how to analyse it. Did you know these pageviews count towards some charts.

Who should attend?

• Anyone with an interest in understanding Wikipedia and open licences.
• Anyone working in artist marketing, press, promo or label management.
• Self-releasing artists, or anyone who manages their own online presence.

Thanks to breakthroughs in science and technology, the future could be profoundly better than the present – provided we recognise this opportunity, and take appropriate actions.

In this vision, there will be an abundance of all-round human flourishing. Everyone will have the means to live better than well - healthier and fitter than ever before; nourished emotionally and spiritually as well as physically; and living at peace with ourselves, the environment, and our neighbours both near and far.

That’s the vision of the Transhumanist Party UK. The Party is developing a set of bold top level targets for the UK to seek to achieve by 2035. These goals are intended to be memorable, clear, and inspiring.

A number of these goals have already been publicised (text/video) and are generating a rich set of feedback (feedback survey!)

This meeting is a chance to join members, supporters, friends, and critics of the Transhumanist Party UK to take this discussion further forward:

• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the Party’s current set of goals for 2035?
• What are the most important steps to take to significantly enhance all-round human flourishing by 2035?
• And bearing in mind both the potential and constraints of both technology and politics, what transformations would need to be well advanced by 2025?

The event will involve a short presentation followed by an extended discussion of roadmap options and priorities. It’s free to attend, but numbers will be restricted, so please RSVP in advance.

Join Wikimedia UK and Open Street Map UK for a joint event, following on from Open Street Map’s AGM earlier in the day. The plan is to get people interested in Wikidata to meet people from the OSM community and talk about possible areas of collaboration.

If you would like to present a short talk of 5-10 minutes about a Wikidata or OSM project you are working on, please email [email protected] to let us know that you would like to speak.

There will be room for people to meet and discuss their projects, and hopefully the weather might be nice and we can also use the outside terrace. So whether you want to come and talk about a specific project or just to meet other Wikidata and OSM users to find out more about the projects, come and join us for a casual discussion of all things OpenData and OpenMaps!

This year the OSMUK AGM will be held in London at Newspeak House, Bethnal Green, 1-5pm. There will be an official AGM bit followed by short talks and possibly some planning activities.

Schedule talks or discussions at https://www.loomio.org/d/rnWSF7uZ/osmuk-agm-schedule

At 3pm we have invited Wikimedia UK to join us for a “Wikidata Meets OSM” crossover. There should be attendees from the South East and further afield.

The future of governance is distributed. Exchange ideas and get a glimpse into our governance track at Web3 Summit. Also: Open afterparty!

Are you involved or interested in distributed governance, future of governance, DAOs, blockchain governance? Join us on Friday, June 28 at Newspeak House and discuss related topics in an open conference format.

This will be the official after-party drinks to the OPEN 2019 Event (www.open.coop). So, prepare to welcome the participants from the conference too, discussing P2P, co-ops and distributed governance.

We will run a similar format to the DGOV Council, with open discussion format and some lightning talks. If you’re working on an interesting project related to Decentralized Governance, DAOs or Blockchain and want to share it: please drop an email to [email protected]

Phoebe Tickell will share ideas and thoughts from the dgov retreat in May with us. Also, there might be a glimpse into our preparation for the dedicated track on governance during Web3 Summit on August 19-21 in Berlin.

We look forward to seeing you!

Timing:

• Welcome / Intro / Topic Selection – 10 mins
• Lightning talks, 3x 10 mins
  • Phoebe - dgov foundation retreat recap
  • [propose yours]
• Facilitated Discussion (Lean Coffee Format) – 60 mins

Join charity campaigners from across the sector to learn how to communicate effectively with stakeholders in government.

Hattie FitzGerald, former campaigner and now a civil servant at the Home Office, will talk about how charity campaigns and communications are viewed from within a Government department, and how to land your messages most effectively.

Simon Morrison is Deputy Chief Executive at Nesta, the innovation foundation working to bring bold ideas to life to change the world for good. He has extensive experience of communications, and whilst at the Home Office led one of the most comprehensive media engagement and public affairs programmes in the UK. We’ll be talking to Simon about what he learned and how it shaped the way he now approaches influencing stakeholders in Government.

This event is for charity campaigners to discuss best practice and challenges in campaigning for change. We meet quarterly to hear from expert speakers, share ideas and build relationships across the sector. New members are always welcome.

Registration will open at 13:30 with the event starting promptly at 14:00. The session will finish at 16:00.

Please Register

Trajectory Theatre brings together the brightest minds in the XR community for an evening of debate and discussion.

Like most technologies XR has seen a lot of its research and early exploration performed under the banner of the armed services. Without long term investment from governments attempting to use it as a tool of military strength, we would not have consumer VR and AR today. Does this then have moral implications for the artists and makers using XR? And what should be our stance on further funding from the military?

SPEAKERS

• Bill Thompson is a technology writer, best known for his weekly column in the Technology section of BBC News Online and his appearances on Click on the BBC World Service. He is also an Honorary Senior Visiting Fellow at City University London’s Journalism Department and writes for BBC Webwise.
• Roderick D. Morgan, Director and Producer at Trajectory Theatre.
• Chair: Jo Kerr, digital consultant, Fellow of the Intersticia Foundation and a Resident Fellow of Newspeak House.

Read the re-cap of our last event: Content vs Technology in XR.

RUNNING ORDER

• 6.30-7pm: Arrivals, drinks, nibbles and networking.
• 7-8pm: Debate and discussion.
• 8-9pm: Drinks and networking.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Trajectory Theatre are interactive digital performance makers. We produce work for both site-specific physical and virtual spaces. Our interests centre around interpersonal connection, the future of the digital era, and challenging notions of reality through perception. To get in touch please reach out on Twitter, Instagram or email us at [email protected]

Welcome to our Co-BBQ, made up of three communities centred around Coworking, Coop and Coliving.

Hosted by Open Coop, The European Coworking Assembly, and co-liv.

Founders and Coders CIC is a UK-based nonprofit that develops and runs tuition-free, peer-led training programmes in web development, guided by our core values of cooperation, inclusion and social impact. We operate in London and work with Mercy Corps and the UK government to deliver programmes in the Middle East and Africa.

Today we’ll discuss upcoming changes to the programme and Tech For Better, as well as have demonstrations of the summer cohort’s prototypes.

Virtual Futures presents Aaron Bastani in conversation on his new book, ‘Fully Automated Luxury Communism: A Manifesto’ (Verso, 2019).

Fully Automated Luxury Communism promises a radically new left future for everyone.

The first decades of the twenty-first century marked the demise of the current world order. Despite widespread acknowledgement of a series of disruptive crises, the proposed response from the mainstream has been to stick with the status quo. Against the confines of this increasingly limited politics a new paradigm has emerged. Fully Automated Luxury Communism claims that new technologies will liberate us from work, providing the opportunity to build a society beyond both capitalism and scarcity. Automation, rather than undermining an economy built on full employment, is instead the path to a world of liberty, luxury and happiness. For everyone.

In his first book, leading political commentator Aaron Bastani conjures a new politics: a vision of a world of unimaginable hope, highlighting how we might move to energy abundance, feed a world of 9 billion, overcome work, transcend the limits of biology and build meaningful freedom for everyone. Rather than a final destination, such a society heralds the beginning of history.

In conversation with Richard Barbrook, Senior Lecturer at University of Westminster. Moderated by Luke Robert Mason, Director of Virtual Futures.

Aaron Bastani is co-founder and senior editor at Novara Media. He holds a PhD from the New Political Communication Unit, University of London, examining social movements in the digital environment which fail to correspond to the traditional logic of collective action. His research interests include new media, social movements, asymmetric strategies and post-scarcity political economy. He has written for Vice, London Review of Books, Guardian and Open Democracy.

Richard Barbrook is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Westminster, London, England. He is a trustee of Cybersalon and a founder member of Class Wargames. He has written about the politics of the Net and gaming in his books Media Freedom: The Contradictions of Communications in the Age of Modernity; The Class of the New; Imaginary Futures: From Thinking Machines to the Global Village; and Class Wargames: Ludic Subversion Against Spectacular Capitalism.

• 18:30 – 19:00: Registration & Drinks
• 19:00 – 20:00: In Conversation with Aaron Bastani
• 20:00 – 20:30: Audience Q&A
• 20:30 – Late: Book Signing & Networking

Please register. 
Discounts are available for students and early career researchers. Contact [email protected] for Promo Codes. Tickets are FREE for journalists and members of the press. 
Virtual Futures (Est.1994) is a Community Interest Company (CIC). Ticket sales help to cover the cost of filming and documentation.

‘Fully Automated Luxury Communism: A Manifesto’ is published by Verso: https://www.versobooks.com/books/2757-fully-automated-luxury-communism

Follow the debate on Twitter #VFSalon / @VirtualFutures

This 2 day workshops will cover elements of the ‘Transition Training’ used by the Transition Towns movement to resources its members. This will include covering the following elements:

• Exploring the context issues; such as climate change and peak oil, and wider ecological questions, and social justice and equality.
• Introduction to the Transition model and the principles behind it. We will examine the issue of the right scale to create a Transition Initiative. Small groups will experiment with a world cafe style discussion around what experience we bring.
• We will explore different types of visioning, including an exploration of the ‘Deep Adaptation’ agenda.
• We will look at awareness raising, why we need to do it and how. We will explain how people engage with change and play the awareness raising game. We will also take a look at practical projects.
• We will look at groups and group process, in particular the role of the initiating group. We will look more generally at how and why functioning in groups can either be heaven or hell.
• We will examine the role of networking and partnerships. A strategic model for building good relationships in your community will be explained.
• We will introduce the role and practices of inner transition. What is inner transition, and why is it important. We will offer some psychological models which make it easier for us to incorporate this often neglected and tricky side of Transition.
• We will look at what makes a healthy human culture and how to avoid burnout.
• We will see us look at the global spread of transition, how to connect with and make best use of the world wide learning network.

Workshop host background:

Naresh Giangrande

Co-founder of Transition Town Totnes, the first Transition Town, and of Transition Training, Naresh has been involved in designing, running and evolving many of the events, groups, and trainings that have been at the heart of the enormously successful Transition project. He has delivered the hundreds of Transition Trainings to thousands of participants in twenty countries worldwide.

As one of the Transition Town founders he has given dozens of lectures and interviews, and spoken at many conferences and other public events. He set up and coordinated the Energy Group of Transition Town Totnes and was a director of Transition Town Totnes Ltd. Before the Transition movement took over his life he lived and worked in an eco community, was Managing Director of a landscape company, and a gaffer in the film industry, as well as teaching meditation.

His work for Transition Network has lead to a passion for working with self-organising systems, and how participatory learning can be fostered and strengthened across the movement. This has lead to coordinating Transition Network’s work with academic researchers. He is fascinated by data analysis and the block chain, while being painfully aware of the preciousness of life, his capacity for love, and acceptance of his own mortality.

He is father to two lovely daughters.

Sophy Banks

Sophy jointly set up the first “Heart and Soul”, or Inner Transition group in Totnes in 2006. She co-founded Transition Training and, during her time at Transition Network, delivered Launch and other workshops to transition projects around the world.

A trainer for over 20 years she has worked as an engineer, information systems consultant and psychotherapist and has considerable experience of voluntary sector and community projects.

In 2016 Sophy stepped back from the Transition movement to give time to her own work and teaching.

Join Medact, Medact Refugee Solidarity Group, MSF Take Action Group, and Docs Not Cops for an evening of short films, and discussion to celebrate #WorldRefugeeDay.

We will be showing a selection of shorts exploring the themes of identity, inclusion and how we can contribute.

SCREENING

• HAMSA - Caroline Spearpoint (trailer)
• Only My Voice - Myriam Rey (trailer)
• Flight - Laura Wadha (trailer)
• Entitled - Adeyemi Michael (trailer)

We are delighted to be joined by Caroline, Laura and Adeyemi who will introduce their films and join us in a discussion exploring people’s experience of migration and the impact of the Hostile Environment on migrant communities. There will also be an opportunity to hear about what Migrant Solidarity Group, Medact, Docs not cops, and the local MSF group are doing in refugee and migrant health and meet other folk from the group. The event is free to all, no one will be turned away.

From Heathrow expansion to debates over land use, time and again the environmental movement comes up against barriers to achieving the significant systemic change that is needed to tackle climate chaos.

With Extinction Rebellion and the School Climate Strikes bringing unprecedented attention to the threat of inaction and Labour voting to declare a climate emergency, how can we make sure this focus is best utilised? What are the competing priorities within the left that stop more from being achieved? How can we find a way through them? What compromises can we reach? Could a Green New Deal offer the solution?

Join us for a workshop in which we explore how we can build bridges across the left to unlock new and lasting support for a greener future.

The sell out corn-based snack event is back. It’s Wine and Wotsits time.

You say wot?

That’s right, there aren’t enough wotsits in campaigners lives, so a few times a year we co-ordinate people coming together to share some of their successes. It’s a pecha kucha format, which means approx 5 presentations of 20 slides, each lasting 20 seconds. It will be an opportunity to hear from cutting edge speakers doing exciting things. Previous speakers include those from Save the Children, Shelter, WWF, Unlock Democracy, Which?, Change.org, National Autistic Society, Care2, Let Toys be Toys, Transform Justice and many more. If you have something you’d love to talk about, please let us know!

Wot Wot Who?

Top notch speakers. Wot else?

• Faty Kane - Girls Not Brides
• Ella Goldner - Zinc VC
• Alex Chesterfield - behavioural scientist
• Deborah Coughlin - Studio X
• Ros Urwin - The Sunday Times

.. more to come

How many tickets are there?

A limited number, we generally have a waitlist, so sign up early. We try and fit in as many people as we can.

How does it work?

You show up with whatever you want to drink (wine, fizz, non-alcoholic, whatever takes your fancy), we provide the wotsits and some cups. You have a great evening. It’s deliberately timed to allow people to come straight from work.

Wot you waiting for? (as Gwen Stefani would say) #wineandwotsits

With deepening funding cuts and an increasing need for support, the services that charities and non-profits provide are more crucial than ever. In short, we need to help more people, but with less funding.

In addition, consumer behaviour and expectations are rapidly changing – as are those of our beneficiaries. People do not change how they want to access and experience services when they switch between sectors – charities and non-profits need to meet these expectations. Frankly, social care needs to catch up.

This event will showcase the journey that Action for Children and the charity sector is embarking on. Exhibitions and speakers will talk about:

• developing user-led services that start small
• real life examples and (often hard) lessons learned
• our vision for the future of digital services – which is scalable and data rich
• how to work collaboratively with agencies and funders to achieve real impact for beneficiaries

Speakers include:

• Kate Stulberg – UX Lead, Action for Children
• Rachael Gilthorpe – Digital Services Manager, Action for Children
• Lynn Roberts – Head of Digital and Innovation, Action for Children
• Darshan Sanghrajka – Founder, SuperBeingLabs

This event is free to attend, however registration is mandatory to secure your space.

Every other Tuesday we will be meeting up to collaborate on projects, to discuss progress and to learn together. This is a meetup for engineers of all stripes (hackers, makers, designers and other technologists) who wish to contribute their spare time and talents to radical projects, or work on their own projects. The evening will kickoff with a short introduction round, after which you can proceed to work on your own project, join someone else’s or join one of ours.

What is a radical project? Here at Radical Engineers, we have been seeking and contacting organisations which aim to fundamentally change our economic, political and social systems to enhance human autonomy and social equality. We discuss their projects and clarify any technical challenges or needs they may have so that when they are presented to you, our community, you know that they are properly considered and genuinely useful. Our vetting process means that you will only be working on projects which will help not just to fix the symptoms of our economic systems, but aim to contribute to systemic change itself.

Not an engineer? That’s ok too! You would be surprised at the variety of skills needed for projects. Spreadsheet sprites, word wizards and pixel pirates are valued guests and we could always use a hand scoping out new projects!

See some projects Radical Engineers are working on.

It’s been a busy few months! We’ve won section 21 but with Theresa May resigning as Prime Minister we are going to have to work hard to push this new legislation over the line.

On Monday 17th June we are coming together to plan out our next steps on Section 21 and more. We’ll work out which campaigns to work on, who we need to join us and what each of us can do to win for renters.

Expect a big conversation about section 21, next steps and building a big network of campaigners.Feel free to bring a friend and some food or drink (if we each bring something , we’ll share a big picnic together).

The civic tech meetup for curious passionate people.

Tonight we’ll be hearing from:

• Helen Milner, CEO of Good Things Foundation
• Laurie Parma, Neuropsychologist - The fastest way to culture change
• Irina Bolychevsky, Redecentralize - We can’t just break up Big Tech, we must break them open
• Alex Blandford, Person of Interest - ‘I’ve got the power’ and 3 other inaccurate songs about politics and the internet

Join us for a screening of Knock Down The House - the story of four women taking on American politics. Hosted by BBC journalist Catrin Nye at Newspeak House in Shoreditch, this event has been put together by WebRoots Democracy and Unicef’s Next Gen London.

Entry is free of charge and we are planning to hold a Q&A session with one of makers of the film (details tbc). Spaces, however, are limited and you will need to be on the guestlist in order to attend.

When tragedy struck her family in the midst of the financial crisis, Bronx-born Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had to work double shifts in a restaurant to save her home from foreclosure. After losing a loved one to a preventable medical condition, Amy Vilela didn’t know what to do with the anger she felt about America’s broken health care system. Cori Bush was drawn into the streets when the police shooting of an unarmed black man brought protests and tanks into her neighborhood. Paula Jean Swearengin was fed up with watching her friends and family suffer and die from the environmental effects of the coal industry.

At a moment of historic volatility in American politics, these four women decide to fight back, setting themselves on a journey that will change their lives and their country forever. Without political experience or corporate money, they build a movement of insurgent candidates challenging powerful incumbents in Congress. Their efforts result in a legendary upset.

The Echo Chamber Club invites you to a meet up and discussion on: “what makes a healthy information environment?”

There are many subjects being examined by academics, journalists, think-tanks, technologists and policy makers when it comes to digital’s impact on democracy. Disinformation, misinformation, information warfare, truth-making, conspiracy theories, data privacy, data politics, political advertising, microtargeting, transparency, mediatisation, normalisation, echo chambers, filter bubbles, herd thinking and more.

Democracy is a contested term. We agree that it means: “rule by the people”. But we also acknowledge that in a modern nation state the people need to elect representatives to govern them. Information then must circulate between citizens and the government in order to ensure that ‘the people have the power’. But what are the best mechanisms for this? What are the institutions that we absolutely need? Are there any red lines?

We often talk about various digital structures ‘undermining democracy’. But if we cannot agree what democracy is, then how do we agree that it is being undermined? How can we then look to how to use digital to promote democratic ideals?

The purpose of this meeting is to bring experts in this field together to discuss these difficult issues. There will be provocations, conversation, drinks & snacks.

SCHEDULE TBC

Please register to ensure your place.

A meetup for effective altruists who work in/are interested in software, data or tech.

Come to chat with other EAs about doing the most good with tech. After our first successful run of having talks last time, we’ll return with another exciting talk this time.

• 6 pm: Doors open
• 6.30pm: Talk by Alex Zari (Senior Software Engineer, Imperial College London): “Why research science needs software engineers”

Note: This event is targeted at people who already know about Effective Altruism. If you’re new to EA, start with one of the newcomer socials advertised here: https://www.facebook.com/LondonAltruism/

Psephology is a division of political science that deals with the examination as well as the statistical analysis of elections and political polling. Psephologists and the polls they create and interpret are a powerful force in contemporary politics. They shape our political narratives around elections, govern the news cycle and act as powerful social proof of a campaign’s success or failure.

As trust in polling declines and as technology begins to unlock new sources of political information, we ask what is the future of this discipline and how will it affect campaigning?

So how do psephologists calculate results and turnout? What kind of models, approaches and data do psephologists currently use? Can new approaches be developed using data science techniques which are emerging from different sectors?

For our event, we’ll be joined by Marcus Roberts, Director of International Projects for YouGov and John Sandall, Founder of SixFifty, a community of voluntary data scientists, and software engineers who worked on a model to predict the 2017 election results. (Further speakers to be announced).

Campaign Lab is a community of activists, researchers and technologists working towards a more evidence-based approach to campaigning - outside of this event series we run monthly hackdays and meetups, come join us.

Snacks and refreshments will be provided.

This event will feature two top data protection experts working “hands on” to devise mechanisms of accountability for personal data processing, with particular focus on artificial intelligence applications. Reuben Binns will present some of the work that he is leading at the Information Commissioner’s Office on AI auditing, while Sophie Stalla Bourdillon will discuss promises and challenges that she has encountered at Immuta in promoting the adoption of responsible data management practices. We’ll thus have the opportunity to hear about cutting-edge issues in this domain from the perspective of both the regulator and the private sector.

Schedule:

• 6:30 - 7:00 pm Networking time
• 7:00 - 8:30 pm 2 talks (30 mins + 15 mins Q&A for each speaker)
• 8:30 - 9:30 pm Networking time and refreshment

Speakers:

Reuben Binns recently joined the ICO on a two-year Research Fellowship. He will research and investigate a framework for auditing algorithms and conduct further in-depth research activities in AI and machine learning. Dr Binns is also a researcher in Computer Science at the University of Oxford. His research interests include technical, legal and ethical aspects of privacy, machine learning, and decentralised systems. He has a BA and MSc in Philosophy from University of Cambridge, and a PhD in Computer Science and Law from the University of Southampton.

Sophie Stalla-Bourdillon is Senior Privacy Counsel and Legal Engineer at Immuta, the leading data management platform for data science. She is responsible for examining current data protection and model risk frameworks, helping customers to embed aspects of these frameworks within the Immuta platform, and framing these practices into digestible, easy-to-scale methods so they can better control risk across their data science programs. Sophie is also a professor at the University of Southampton Law School of law, where she co-directs the Web Science Institute. She is the author and co-author of several legal articles, chapters and books on data protection and privacy, including Privacy vs. Security (Springer, 2014). Sophie is Editor-in-chief of the Computer Law and Security Review, a leading international journal of technology law, and has also served as a legal and data privacy expert for the European Commission, the Council of Europe, the Organisation for the Cooperation and Security in Europe, and for the Organisation for Economic Development and Cooperation.

The talks and QA will be filmed for people who can’t make the event. For past presentations check out London Mydata on Youtube.

Most people agree that the quality of information and discourse during election and referendum campaigns is too low – both in the UK and in other democracies around the world. But what can be done about it?

Drawing on their recent report for the UCL Constitution Unit, Alan Renwick and Michela Palese will lead a discussion of what our vision for a better democracy should be and what practical steps can be taken to get there. They will explore the lessons that can be learnt from a range of democracies in Europe, North America, and the Asia-Pacific and propose an ambitious new model for transforming how we conceive of democratic campaigning.

Dr Alan Renwick is Deputy Director of the Constitution Unit. He is an expert on elections, referendums, and deliberative democracy, and recently served as Research Director for the Independent Commission on Referendums.

Michela Palese was Research Assistant and McDougall Fellow at the Constitution Unit. She is now Research and Policy Officer at the Electoral Reform Society.

Their report, Doing Democracy Better: How Can Information in Election and Referendum Campaigns Be Improved?, can be read here: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/news/2019/mar/new-report-doing-democracy-better

Join Lyrical Science for Minds on Tap, our event series where public audiences listen to scientists discuss their research in the format of 10 minute-long inspiring talks.

Six scientists from King’s College London and University College London will speak about their cutting edge research on Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s and Motor Neuron Disease. We’ll also share our vision to bring public support and philanthropy to early career researchers in the medical sciences.

You’ll be able to learn more about the state of critical research in this field, network with the scientists over drinks, and discover a new way to get involved in scientific discovery.

For an example of what these talks look like, check out Dr Lizzie Glennon’s talk from our inaugural Minds on Tap event last November: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5SrS6JOUH0

The event is open to all members of the public – carers, friends or family members of those who have suffered from neurodegenerative diseases; scientists, science lovers, philanthropists, members of foundations or corporations and anyone interested in helping the scientific community gain the support it needs to conduct critical research on neurodegenerative diseases. Whatever your background, simply come on by, hear the scientists and enjoy the informative and inspiring evening.

At Lyrical Science, we help scientists share their inspiring stories with the public in an effort to connect them with private funders and philanthropists. Scientists are often prevented from doing life saving research by funding shortages outside of their control. This event is about helping brilliant young scientists communicate their research to the public in an inspiring and compelling format. It’s also a call for philanthropists to fund their labs. We’re a team of early career researchers and public speaking creatives across the US and UK and can’t wait to share our vision with you in person.

Visit lyricalscience.com and find out how we got started

UnFound is for tech founders and start-ups looking for a different way to set-up and run platform businesses. It brings together platforms that would like to go about their business in a more collaborative and inclusive way.

• Hear about the potential for platform co‑ops
• Hear how your platform or product could benefit from the co‑op model
• Learn about next steps and support available
• Meet others exploring this space for their next platform idea

The events are being delivered by Cat Ainsworth and Annie Legge of Dot Project in collaboration with Co-operatives UK and Stir to Action. Find out more: http://unfound.coop

UnFound is funded by The Hive - a support programme for co-ops delivered by Co-operatives UK in partnership with The Co-operative Bank: http://thehive.coop

Come and share your most prescient analyses, cutting insights, and hottest takes on the European Elections, a day after the dust has settled.

The European Parliament Election 2019 is a pivotal moment in the history of the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025, and even more so for the European Union as a whole. How well will DiEM25, the European Green New Deal and the European Spring perform in the 6 countries they are running in? What will the future of the continent look like? How much will the far-right gain?

The fate of Europe is on the line! This is why we teamed up with Another Europe Is Possible and DiEM25 United Kingdom in watching the announcement of the Exit Polls.

The Race Beat is a network for people of colour, open to anyone working in, or interested in, journalism.

We are independent of any media organisation and open to all people of colour – experienced news reporters, citizen journalists, students, writers, freelancers, staff writers, broadcasters, media academics, aspiring columnists and critics. You don’t need to be a professional journalist to join us. Come down and get involved!

The May meet up will be a great a chance to get to know people of colour who are interested in the media. We will also be discussing further our big events coming up later in the year, including a panel at Byline Festival on the coverage of climate change the environment. Where are the people of colour?

We are also planning a one day conference in Glasgow on Friday 27 September with Gary Younge as keynote speaker and another day long event in London in November. Both will include workshops, panel discussions, networking.

Bring ideas for who you would you like to see speak at our events this year, or maybe you are a journalist who could offer some training?

This is a space for people of colour only. We welcome queer and trans people of colour and all other identities.

The venue is wheelchair accessible.

About us

We want to create space for writers of colour to come together and begin to:

• collaborate on race related stories and reporting projects on a wide range of subjects,
• provide accessible spaces for regular discussion; on craft, on racism, on class, skills sharing, solutions,
• build partnerships with small organisations fighting for better representation and supporting writers of colour,
• strategise on ways to properly fund more quality journalism (comment, criticism, investigations) and race reporting by writers of colour.

Sign up to our mailing list

Join us for a special EU Election week event focused on technology’s worrying impacts on UK democracy.

Nearly a year after the General Data Protection Regulation was implemented, questionable data practices on social media advertising are threatening UK elections. We’ll hear from Who Targets Me about their innovative browser extension that improves transparency in online advertising by showing users who is targeting political ads at them and why.

We’ll also hear from our new Data & Democracy Project Officer Pascal Crowe about why we should be concerned about electronic voting trials in the UK. We’ll also hear about ORG’s upcoming event ORGCon.

No technical expertise are necessary, all are welcome to this free event. Attendees will be offered discounted access to our July event ORGCon 2019!

Extinction Rebellion Democratic Socialists is an independent collective of activists within the XR movement who are interested in progressive socialist ideas for concrete political, economic and social change. We view the climate crisis primarily in terms of climate justice: this means that in order to fight climate change, we also need to fight the social systems which drive its destructive march. We sponsor events and workshops dedicated to sparking conversations around movement-building practice, outreach and consciousness-raising, and the practical policy questions that come with any serious committment to de-carbonising the economy within our lifetimes.

This is our launch event! XRDS is a freshly-minted collective, so this will be a relatively informal occasion for people to meet, greet, and share their ideas about what kind of good a group like XRDS could do for Extinction Rebellion and the broader movement to de-carbonise the economy.

Asad Rehman, Executive Director of War on Want, will join us to talk about the need for an intersectional approach to the climate crisis and the need to place the people most affected by climate change at the heart of the movement to defeat it. Asad was Head of International Climate at Friends of the Earth from 2009 to 2017, and has over 25 years’ experience in the non-governmental and charity sector. Asad has served on the boards of Amnesty International UK, Friends of the Earth International, Global Justice Now and Newham Monitoring Project. Find out more at www.waronwant.org

Doors open from 7:00 PM for a start around 7:30. Asad’s presentation will be followed by a period for questions and discussion, which will be followed by time for general networking. Snacks and drinks will be provided.

To stay up to date, follow XRDS on Facebook and Twitter!

• www.facebook.com/Extinction-Rebellion-Democratic-Socialists-2296611777242659
• www.twitter.com/XRDemSocs

In this training we will take people through the methodology and practice of an NVDA (non-violent direct action) training. We will discuss what makes an effective training and trainer, as well as the necessary facilitation skills to hold a training session.

Those attending will practice leading the exercises used in our training, and better understand why they are used.

Those attending will NEED to have attended one of our NVDA trainings previously and be prepared to lead the group through various exercises.

As the movement grows, we need to build our base of organisers. This is a great opportunity to develop the tools needed to effectively carry out NVDA training, prepare people for actions, and understand why Civil Disobedience works.

By the end of the session you will be ready to carry out XR NVDA Trainings.

900 million people are currently participating in a massive festival of electoral democracy in India. Over 6 weeks, Indian citizens are going to the ballot to elect 545 MP’s to govern them for five years. 2014 saw Prime Minister Narendra Modi ride a massive wave of anti-incumbency to enter the highest office with a thumping majority. Five years hence, the man and his mania may have waned a little but he remains the favourite to win the elections.

The five years of Modi rule has raised profound questions on the idea of India. His government has witnessed the rise of whatsapp lynchings, Hindutva terror, environmental destruction, devastating fiscal and monetary policies and a near absolute control of popular media.

So how does Modi continue to remain popular? How do we, here in the UK, view these elections? What do the outcomes mean for democratic space and dissent? How social media is shaping the Indian elections?

To discuss these complex questions and engage in a lively debate, we have Salil Tripathi joining us. Salil Tripathi is a senior adviser at the Institute for Human Rights and Business. Based in London, he is a contributing editor at Mint and Caravan in India, two respected media outlets. He is currently Chair, PEN International’s Writers in Prison Committee and an outspoken individual on twitter @saliltripathi

Event format:

• A quick primer on Indian elections for 7-10 minutes
• Salil Tripathi offering his views for 25 minutes
• QnA from the chair for 10 minutes
• QnA from the audience for 45 minutes

Come join us for this free event. Please arrive from 6 PM for a 6:30 start. We will wrap up by 8:30 pm.

This event is not being put together by any organisation. We are just individuals interested in Indian politics, culture and society.

Gen:impact aims to connect young (22-35 y/o) professionals in London who work in the social impact space. Our goal is to provide a casual setting to exchange ideas, build relationships, and collaborate towards social change. Whether you work in social entrepreneurship, education, the charity sector, impact investment, or something different, we look forward to meeting you.

• 7:00 - 7:30 PM - Arrivals - Arrive and meet.
• 7:30 - 8:30 PM - Fireside Chats - Learn about exciting projects in the impact space from your peers.
  • Angus Innes, Jangala
  • Tanveer Sian, Social Finance
  • Ellie Ereira & Aly Blenkin, Pivotal Act
• 8:30 - 10 PM - Networking - Mingle with your peers in the impact community

Org/speaker bios:

Jangala is a London-based charitable organisation that design and make Wi-Fi systems to provide connectivity to those displaced by natural and man-made disasters. In 2015, Jangala made the first and only wifi network in the Jungle, the refugee camp in Calais, providing internet to over 5000 people a week. In 2018, they equipped 16 grassroots groups across 3 continents with their first product Big Box. In 2019, their aim is to distribute 100 more systems. Angus joined Jangala back in November to lead strategy and business development. His talk will discuss what brought Jangala together back in Calais, how he came to join and what they have planned for the future.

Social Finance is a London-based social enterprise that aims to deliver social change through innovative mechanisms such as its social investment model, the Social Impact Bond, now scaled across 24 countries, and its Impact Incubator which has incubated unique responses to difficult issues such as domestic violence and refugee integration. Tanveer is an analyst at Social Finance who will speak about the Impact Incubator’s Black Thrive initiative which aims to reduce inequalities in mental health outcomes in the black community in London.

Pivotal Act is a program that partners with humanitarian organizations and nonprofits to identify, design, and develop practical technology solutions to pressing challenges around the world, born out of San Francisco-based software and design org Pivotal. Aly and Ellie are associate directors at Pivotal Act and will talk about the projects they’ve run. These include finding ways for NGOs to share data during emergency responses for distributing cash aid, improving the design of toilets in refugee camps, creating a tool to support young people in foster care, and designing for climate change resilience in coastal cities. With a background in Industrial Design, Systems Thinking and Service Design, Aly is passionate about designing products and services that addresses social and environmental issues. Ellie comes from a product management background and has has worked on developing technology to make social impact from an international development angle at the World Bank and with private sector startups.

Note: This will be the first event held by Gen:impact. There will be some light snacks and drinks available, but please BYOB!

The third meetup for government digital folk to share their work and ideas around designing case-working systems in government.

For this event, the theme is around around developing standards and patterns. We’re going to experiment with more collaborative sessions.

The agenda will be:

• 10:00 - 10:30: Arrival
• 10:30 - 12:30: Morning session: A series of workshops to look at defining standards for caseworking systems
• 12:30 - 13:30: Lunch break (sorry, no lunch provided)
• 13:30 - 16:00: Afternoon session: Unconference style sessions open to anyone to suggest topics

If you have any questions at all, please email: [email protected]

You can read write-ups of the previous events here:

• Designing caseworking systems #1
• Designing caseworking systems #2

Pease note this event is limited to people working in government only.

Please sign up with a government email address.

The financially driven, capitalist economy works as it does by design. Money is created by banks as interest bearing debt and serves the interests of the few over the many. Money, as it has been designed, is the core driver of environmental destruction, global warming, inequality and poverty.

If we are going to escape the multitude of systemic issues which plague our planet the monetary system has to change.

Since revolution is unsafe, and reform has been proved ineffective, we need to implement new systems of exchange which out-evolve capitalism. A money system that serves our needs better is not only possible, but is already in operation - it’s known as mutual credit.

The challenge is to refine, scale and integrate the various mutual credit systems so they can support a saner global economic system for people and planet.

The event is for anyone with an interest in the evolution of money and will focus on how mutual credit networks are beginning to build a new, alternative financial system known as the Global Credit Commons.

In an exclusive round table discussion we will hear from:

• Thomas Greco, author of The End of Money and the Future of Civilization, who, for more than 35 years, has been working at the leading edge of moneyless exchange systems, community currencies, financial innovation, and community economic development - and is on a rare visit to the UK from Arizona.
• Representatives of the Open Credit Network, a new UK co-operative mutual credit network made up of businesses who have come together, under a simple shared agreement, in order to trade with each other without the need for hard cash.
• Matthew Slater, complementary currency engineer and author of The Credit commons - A money system for the solidarity economy, a proposed accounting system to allow mutual credit schemes anywhere to trade with each other in a new, global, moneyless system.

Please register. This is a free event but as places are limited we ask for five (conventional) pounds as a deposit to encourage attendance. Attendees deposits will be refunded on request.

Paul (Rally) & Jo Kerr Consults are excited to present a screening of Knock Down The House.

The film will take us behind the scenes as four determined women, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, challenge big money politics in the 2018 race for Congress.

We’re expecting a great crowd of general troublemakers from all sorts of amazing organisations. We will provide popcorn and time for chat. You should bring something to drink.

Newspeak House starts a partnership with GREENHAUS, the co-retail concept store for sustainable products.

Come try some cocktails all PERMACULTURE focused using SUSTAINABLE liquors and SEASONAL fruit!

Join the Center for Innovative Governance Research for a discussion about charter cities, effective altruism, and their plan to lift ten million people out of poverty.

Charter cities are cities with special jurisdictions which give them a blank slate, or close to it, in commercial law. The new jurisdiction allows them to adopt the best practices in business registration procedure, labor law, tax administration, commercial dispute resolution, and more. By adopting governance systems which encourage trade, investment, and entrepreneurship charter cities create the conditions for decades of economic growth. Examples proto-charter cities include Shenzhen, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Dubai, whose successes demonstrate that it is possible for cities to achieve prosperity in 2-3 generations.

Executive Director Mark Lutter and Communications Lead Tamara Winter will be on hand throughout the night to say hi and answer your questions. Whether you’re interested in discovering just what exactly charter cities are or are a skeptic, they’d love to meet you.

Light appetisers will be provided.

A meetup for effective altruists who work in/are interested in software, data or tech.

Note: This event is targeted at people who already know about Effective Altruism. If you’re new to EA, start with one of the newcomer socials advertised here: https://www.facebook.com/LondonAltruism/

Are you an experienced coder, tester or designer that wants to contribute your skills to a socially and ecologically transformative project? Are you new to software and want to join a project that will help you develop your skills? Do you hate a series of vague questions attempting to lure you into something before you know enough to be excited?

Then read on!

The Open Food Network are thrilled to announce our first ever UK Hackathon. Over the weekend of the 4th and 5th of May we’ll be nestling into Newspeak House to spend two days working on real issues for the global open source project. Together we hope to expand our exciting community, bring in new people that believe in what we do and share our experience in building a successful remote open source community. And of course we will share great food, laughs and fun!

What is the Open Food Network?

The Open Food Network (OFN) is a global, open source collaboration building software for short and local supply chains. We want to make it easy for people to build vibrant and viable communities around the production and distribution of healthy, sustainable food. Our open source platform is used in a dozen countries by hundreds of food enterprises, selling millions of pounds of good food every year. Our global team is built of about 25 people around the world, working on product, dev, testing, UX and support. OFN is growing fast and are hoping to expand our community of passionate food tech enthusiasts.

What to Expect

Over the weekend you will:

• Work in teams to tackle issues that are affecting sustainable farmers and community food projects all over the world
• Build and share your skills. Our stack is built on Ruby, Rails, Postgres, AngularJS deployed with Ansible (Unicorn, NGINX).
• Learn from OFN developers, contributors and professionals
• Contribute to issues in different stages of our pipe process – from development to testing to release
• Work on problems that suit your skills and interests – design, UX, coding, APIs, testing
• Learn about our processes and systems, including how to become a paid contributor in the longer term.
• Meet an amazing group of like minded people working to use tech to make the world we want to live in
• Stickers and other (much more) exciting rewards for being involved and making contributions!

We’ll provide lunch, snacks and drinks throughout the two days.

If you would like to attend but travel or accommodation costs are prohibitive please get in touch as we might be able to help.

Wikimedia UK is organising the second London Wikidata meetup. If you’re working on Wikidata projects, or interested in Wikidata and want to find out how to get involved, come along and talk to us about it.

As this will take place in the downstairs part of Newspeak, there will be an opportunity for brief presentations. If you have a Wikidata project you’re working on and would like to do a 5-10 minute presentation on, please contact me about it - [email protected]

This event will not be catered, but you are welcome to bring your own food or drink into the venue.

Come along to this free introduction with Autopia creator Stephen Reid to learn how to use the platform, and how you can contribute to its development.

Autopia (https://autopia.co/) is a platform that makes organising co-created gatherings and sticking to good habits easy and fun.

Most of the gatherings organised via Autopia are smaller than 150 people and last less than a week. We’ve found this to be a sweet spot offering great depth of connection for reasonable time and cost.

People use Autopia to organise gatherings across the globe: both standalone gatherings, and camps at larger events like Nowhere and the Borderland.

The process of co-creating a gathering on Autopia can act as a kind of initiation into collective intelligence and emergent order.

Come along to this free event to learn more.

The Race Beat is a network for people of colour, open to anyone working in, or interested in, journalism.

At the April meet up we will talk about our plans for 2019, including day long training events in London and Glasgow, as well as panels at summer festivals. Bring ideas for who you would you like to see speak at our events this year - writers, editors, broadcasters. Are you a journalist who could offer some training? Do you want to get involved with organising or have access to event space?

It will also be a chance to chat and get to know people of colour who are interested in the media. Some of us might also have a drink afterwards.

This is a space for people of colour only. We welcome queer and trans people of colour and all other identities. You don’t need to be a professional journalist.

Please note - you will need to bring a laptop to this event

Since June 2018 we’ve been a busy bunch, the Campaign Lab community has sourced hundreds of demographic and austerity impact datasets, developed scrapers and written parliamentary questions and FOIs to source the more hard to get datasets. We’ve built a comprehensive UK ward-level election results dataset and begun comparing factors impacting elections across the country.

But we’re not finished yet. Come and join us for our next hackathon as we continue to build the case for an evidenced-based approach to electoral campaigning in the UK.

What is Campaign Lab?

Thousands of activists across the UK volunteer their time and energy for electoral campaigns every year. Year in, year out, we use the same campaigning methods and tools we always have, because we think they work.

But there have been very few contemporary analysis or studies undertaken to assess the impact or value of electoral campaigning methods in the UK. Similarly, there have been precious few attempts to determine the effect of local economic factors such as house prices and austerity on election results and vote share.

So, if no one else has done this, then maybe it’s about time we started?

We’re building a repository of publicly available structured data and models to better understand the 2018 Local Elections, identifying which results bucked the national political and demographic trends. These are areas in which local campaigning may have actually made a difference and where we can start learning and testing.

This is about developing an evidence-based approach to electoral campaigning.

But we need your help.

So if you’re interested in chipping in and helping with a new approach to understand what actually goes on in elections and campaigning, bring your laptop and join us for a day of politically motivated data science and innovation.

Over the course of our hackdays we’ll be tackling the questions plaguing activists up and down the country, making a real impact on elections and political campaigning right across the country.

Check out the Campaign Lab volunteer teams and project guide

You will need to bring a laptop to this event

You do not need to be a data scientist or developer to take part in this event!

Everyone welcome – beer, soft drinks, breakfast pastries, a big homemade lunch and dinner will be provided!

Not been to a Campaign Lab meet up before? No problem! Come along to meet politically-minded progressive data scientists, researchers and activists who are working together to change the way we analyse and understand political election campaigning.

All attendees to Campaign Lab HackDays may join future discount data science courses put on specifically for Campaign Lab volunteers - contact us for more information.

Collectives are everything, from the cells of our bodies and brains to the groups, nations, and ecosystems we are part of. Are there principles that characterise collective intelligence across scales? Have the factors that lead to human group performance been accurately measured? How do flocks of birds or swarms of bees make collective decisions, and are there lessons in them for human groups? When are crowds wise and when are they stupid? Can technology improve collective decisions? If so how, and by how much?

Drawing on research from academia, corporate performance optimisation, and group decision technology, we’ll dive into the knowns and unknowns of collective intelligence and see where they lead.

We’ll start with an interactive presentation on some of the key findings on collective intelligence from psychology, biology, ecology, and elsewhere.

Then, we’ll take the research out of the journals and experiment with it, using conversational games, human swarming, voting by convergence, and other experiments to test our real-world sensitivity to collective intelligence principles and how they appear (or don’t!) in the groups we’re part of.

Throughout, we’ll tap the collective’s intelligence about collective intelligence with reverse Q&A, discussion, and experimental group decisions about the flow of the event.

A meetup discussing the state of data privacy and data ethics. If you’re working in privacy, grab a free ticket.

Speakers:

“Fuck your banners, fuck your pop-ups and fuck your feature walls!” - Shad Jahangir @systemantix, fellow of Newspeak House, design director of Metomic. He’ll talk about designing data transparency and trust into the fabric of the web.

“Data everywhere, how we got to this point.” - Ben van Enckevort @benvan87, CTO of Metomic, will be talking briefly about the state of data on the web and how we got here. He promises he will only mention Facebook three times.

Since becoming Lord Mayor of Sheffield in 2018, Magid ‘Magic’ Magid has taken the political scene by storm, making headlines in the UK and across the world. A former child refugee, Magid is Sheffield City Council’s first Green Party mayor and its youngest at 29. His monthly campaigns have reached millions of people online and have touched upon a wide range of issues including knife crime, climate change, Brexit, and the NHS.

Areeq Chowdhury (Chief Executive, WebRoots Democracy) will be in conversation with Magid and will be delving into his journey from Somali refugee to one of the most engaging young politicians the UK has ever seen. In particular, we will be exploring his methods for “doing politics differently”.

How urgent is the need to take serious action over the threat of what some are calling “climate catastrophe”? What are the factors that prevent sufficient attention being given to this topic? And what are the best methods to overcome this state of learned ignorance, and to advance practical solutions?

Andrew Medhurst, former investment banker, now climate change activist with Extinction Rebellion, a global movement focussed on creating mass nonviolent civil disobedience.

Paul Powlesland, founder of Lawyers for Nature and Newspeak House Fellow.

Gavin Starks, founder of Open Environmental Risk Standard, aiming to radically increase the accessibility of data required to address a wide range environmental risks.

In this half-day training, we will focus on the foundation of every collaborative team: how to communicate effectively and deal with conflict in a productive way.

We’ll look at the appropriate use of digital communication tools, understanding how different tools suit different jobs. We’ll examine typical reactions to conflict, and how to choose the right response when conflict arises. We’ll explore how to give good feedback and improve your listening skills.​

You’ll leave with processes your team can use to address conflict, and practice the skills that will make you a more effective communicator.

This workshop is ideal for groups working with less hierarchy and more collaboration: cooperatives, self-managing teams, startups, Teal organisations, Agile squads, innovation units, flat NGOs… if you’re growing a participatory culture of shared leadership and mutual accountability, this training is for you. ​ Our knowledge is rooted in our lived experience in our own organisations at the forefront of collaborative work practice. We bring examples from different groups around the world, as well as research from academic studies. We host participatory learning exercises for participants to reflect on how these lessons apply in their group context.

The Hum is Nati Lombardo and Richard Bartlett. We have been immersed in decentralised organisations since 2011, playing co-leadership roles in the Loomio tech co-op and the Enspiral network of social enterprises. For the past 3 years, we’ve been travelling the world sharing our experiences, and learning with others about non-hierarchical management. We’ve worked in 17 countries, with a huge diversity of organisations across all sectors.

We’re offering a 20% discount for “early bird” tickets, purchased before March 20th. This training is even more effective when multiple people from the same team can join. If you have 3 or more people coming together, contact us for a group discount.

On the 5th of April, each council will release a document called a Statements of Persons Nominated, which details the candidates for the upcoming local elections. We need to manually enter this information into a database so that more useful things can be done with it. Come and help!

Trajectory Theatre brings together the brightest minds in the XR community for an evening of debate and discussion.

The first in the ‘Trajectory Talks’ series will explore the nuances of a topic that has long fallen into platitudes and empty conjecture.

Does the answer to broadening audiences for XR lie with content, or technology? It’s a challenging binary choice, but it’s also potentially limiting.

We’ll unpack the arguments through lively discussion to reach a collective understanding of what a successful content-driven ecosystem looks like.

Four people from across the arts and tech space will frame the discourse, before we open up to a ‘fishbowl’ discussion where everyone has the opportunity to share their views and experiences. You are all experts, so we’ll hear from as many of you as we can.

SPEAKERS

• Roderick D. Morgan, Director and Producer at Trajectory Theatre.
• Chair: Jo Kerr, digital consultant, Fellow of the Intersticia Foundation and Resident Fellow of Newspeak House.

Further speakers to be announced soon.

RUNNING ORDER

• 6.30-7pm: Arrivals, drinks, nibbles and networking.
• 7-8pm: Debate and ‘fishbowl’ discussion.
• 8-9pm: Drinks and networking.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Trajectory Theatre are interactive digital performance makers. We produce work for both site-specific physical and virtual spaces. Our interests centre around interpersonal connection, the future of the digital era, and challenging notions of reality through perception. To get in touch please reach out on Twitter, Instagram or email us at [email protected]

This training explores how we make group decisions when there’s no top-down command-and-control structure.

You’ll learn different decision-making protocols, like consensus, consent, and the advice process. We’ll unpack the neuroscience of cognitive biases, and how to de-bias your decisions. And we’ll investigate how digital tools can help you make collective decision more efficiently.

This workshop is ideal for groups working with less hierarchy and more collaboration: cooperatives, self-managing teams, startups, Teal organisations, Agile squads, innovation units, flat NGOs… if you’re growing a participatory culture of shared leadership and mutual accountability, this training is for you. ​ Our knowledge is rooted in our lived experience in our own organisations at the forefront of collaborative work practice. We bring examples from different groups around the world, as well as research from academic studies. We host participatory learning exercises for participants to reflect on how these lessons apply in their group context.

The Hum is Nati Lombardo and Richard Bartlett. We have been immersed in decentralised organisations since 2011, playing co-leadership roles in the Loomio tech co-op and the Enspiral network of social enterprises. For the past 3 years, we’ve been travelling the world sharing our experiences, and learning with others about non-hierarchical management. We’ve worked in 17 countries, with a huge diversity of organisations across all sectors.

We’re offering a 20% discount for “early bird” tickets, purchased before March 20th. This training is even more effective when multiple people from the same team can join. If you have 3 or more people coming together, contact us for a group discount.

A meetup for software/web developers, tech and data science people in London who are also interested in effective altruism.

Innovation is a term we hear a lot in government and the private sector. Innovation is a lot of things. Innovation is emerging technology, new ideas, experimentation, and partnering across sectors. It’s self-driving cars and conversational interfaces and it’s also applying for your first passport online.

We’ll have talks from the GovTech Catalyst team, the head of front-end development at GDS on Progressive Web Apps and more. We’ll hear about what innovation means for designers in government.

We Hack London is a hackathon where you will have the opportunity to work together with people, NGO leaders and entrepreneurs to develop solutions to challenges in London.

Confirmed mentors include:

• Alex Stephany: Founder & CEO, Beam
• Marilise de Villiers: Director of Security Skills And Culture, Centrica
• Sherry Peck: Chief Executive, Safer London
• Ben Hudson: Project Director, London Sustainability Exchange

Schedule:

• 09:30am Registration
• 10:00am Welcome and speaker
• 10:20am Split into Challenge groups
• 10:30am People pitch project ideas
• 11:20am Project teams form
• 11:30am Break
• 12:00pm Hacking begins with Mentors
• 02:00pm Lunch
• 02:45pm Hacking continues
• 05:30pm Break
• 05:40pm Keynote speaker
• 06:00pm Presentations to judges
• 07:30pm Judging and awards
• 08:00pm Close

All attendees must register.

Find out more at the We Hack London website.

The UK government’s Prevent policy places a legal obligation on professionals working with children and families to identify and report children and vulnerable adults at risk of radicalisation. This process can have serious implications for families’ freedom of movement and right to privacy, including restrictions on children travelling abroad under guidance issued by former President of the Family Division Sir James Munby, or removal of children in the family courts according to documentation collated by CAGE in 2018. This is contentious and raises many questions. As practitioners what do we perceive as ‘radicalisation’? Are terms like ‘radicalisation’ and ‘extremism’ adequately defined in law? At what point does ideology place children at risk of serious harm? And in cases related to radicalisation, does secrecy in the interests of national security interfere with the human rights of children and families?

This event is open to social work and mental health practitioners, academics and students. Beginning with a panel discussion, we will explore the impact of the Prevent policy on children and families in social work and mental health practise from multiple perspectives. We will invite practitioners to together for a workshop led by the charity Medact, and share experiences of working within the Prevent policy, the ethical challenges it raises for practitioners, and ways of practising or advocating to uphold the human rights of the people we work with.

• 19:00 - Welcome/Refreshments
• 19:30 - Panel Discussion
• 20.15 - Break/Refreshments
• 20.30 - Workshop
• 21.30 - End

Note: The perspectives offered by panellists are their own. They do not represent BASW London, Psychologists for Social Change or MedAct.q

Speakers

Chair: Sumayyah Hart is a BASW London committee member and has held a number of senior roles in children’s services across London, including Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) in Lambeth and Independent Reviewing Officer in Hammersmith and Fulham. Her current positions are Child Protection Advisor and Child Protection Conference Chair for Brent.

Dr. Asim Qureshi is Research Director for CAGE, a London-based advocacy organisation working to empower communities impacted by the ‘War on Terror’. Asim collected evidence from families and published the report ‘Separating Families - How PREVENT Seeks the Removal of Children’ in 2018. The full report can be found here.

Dr. Tony Stanley was Chief Social Worker for Birmingham Children’s Trust and Principal Social Worker for Tower Hamlets. He has published three papers on social work practise and the Prevent duty with colleagues Dr. Surinder Guru, Dr. Anna Gupta and Vicki Coppock, and recently led the BASW Webinar ‘A Risky Time for Muslim Families: Professionalised Counter-radicalisation Networks’.

Dr. Charlotte Heath-Kelly is Associate Professor in Politics and International Studies at Warwick University. Her research focuses on Counterterrorism in the UK and USA and Counter-Radicalisation Policies The Guardian’s coverage of her research into Prevent Duty Safeguarding in the NHS is here and here (also see Ted-X Warwick talk on ‘The Motivations for Terrorism’).

Dr. Tarek Younis is Newton International Fellow at UCL (University College London). His current project is a a community ethnography study of the impact of anti­-radicalisation discourse within healthcare institutions on the recipients and providers of PREVENT policy.

Anna Sekular is a caseworker with PreventWatch, which supports people impact by the Prevent policy to access legal advice and representation.

Workshop Coordinator: Reem Abu-Hayyeh works for the charity Medact, and is set to launch a consultation into healthcare professionals experiences of working within the Prevent policy in 2019. Reem has worked in advocacy and campaigns particularly on social justice issues relating to the marginalisation of BAME and migrant communities in the UK and Europe. In her last role at Maslaha, Reem managed projects focusing on Islamophobia, gender and stereotypes, working primarily with young people.

The sell out corn-based snack event of the quarter is back. It’s Wine and Wotsits time.

You say wot?

That’s right, there aren’t enough wotsits in campaigners lives, so a few times a year we co-ordinate people coming together to share some of their successes. It’s a pecha kucha format, which means approx 5 presentations of 20 slides, each lasting 20 seconds. It will be an opportunity to hear from cutting edge speakers doing exciting things. Previous speakers include those from Save the Children, Shelter, WWF, Unlock Democracy, Which?, Change.org, National Autistic Society, Care2, Let Toys be Toys, Transform Justice and many more. If you have something you’d love to talk about, please let us know!

Wot Wot Who?

ou’re getting a sneak peak at this and we will be unveiling the full line up in the next week or so. We’re thrilled to announce our first speakers though..

• Sarah Corbett - Craftivist Collective
• Polly Billington - UK100
• Bayo Adelaja - Do it Now Now
• Kat Sladden - We Huddle

How many tickets are there?

A limited number, we generally have a waitlist, so sign up early. We try and fit in as many people as we can.

How does it work?

You show up with whatever you want to drink (wine, fizz, non-alcoholic, whatever takes your fancy), we provide the wotsits and some cups. You have a great evening. It’s deliberately timed to allow people to come straight from work.

Register

Hate has gone viral and is destroying our communities. Our world has has become tribal, ‘betrayal’ and ‘treason’ appear daily in social media about even the smallest differences of opinions.

How can we fight this footballisation of politics ?

How can we change Them and Us into our shared community again?

“Learning another language is like having a chance to live another life” this quote is true but learning another language takes a lot of time and are all busy people. Lucky for us, playing a game can be like peeking into someone else’s life. In the space of a few hours we can explore in-depth how native Alaskans live (Never Alone), with a glimpse into how incredibly collaborative culture manages to survive in the harshest of climates, how lack of privacy is turned into strength.

In Where the Water taste like Wine we are faced with unemployment and survival dilemmas from the Great Depression times in US. It has amazing soundtrack and shows live in rural US during the tough period in American history. It also explores the Other, non-urban values.

On The Surface – How to be friends with people who are different? Exploring empathy and feelings for others. A game by Digital Liberties for The Challenge and ISD.

Flash Demo VR from Casto – showing a VR game recreating old environments, alternative worlds that can be explored as a story background- Huddersfield Uni) will be show in the break.

The Problem: Our online filter bubbles (Twitter, Facebook) have a propensity to create rapid polarisation (Paolo Gerbaudo and Jamie J Bartlett), where quickly some Them and some Us emerge, praying on people’s innermost fears, emphasising tribalism and exploiting their insecurities. From polarisation to extremism is only a short hop and as a society we need to search for ways to ‘vaccine’ ourselves against the siren call of hate.

The Challenge: How do game designers create worlds where experience of other world, other lives and unfamiliar cultural context can be experienced by thousands of people in a space of few hours and without the need to learn their language? Can games become our hate-vaccines? How can intense emotional gaming experience convey the subtle and often nuance differences in opinion love, sense of community, sense of belonging and shared history or lack of it. Can we create as powerful games as 12 Angry Men movie was for Human Rights movement in 1960 ?

Join us on 18th March to find how hit games step up are the Force for Good in the world obsessed with hate.

Speakers

• Ben Greenaway – Cybersalon’s Game Reviewer-in-Chief
• Simon Sarginson – ex game developer (RockSteady Studios and SplashDamage)
• Casto Vocal – VR /3D developer (Huddersfield University /Teeside University)
• Chaired by Eva Pascoe – Cybersalon

What is holding us back from creating a powerful and inspiring vision for our future? Why do we seem stuck in making minor upgrades to managerial capitalism?

One of the youngest law professors in Harvard’s history at 29, Professor Roberto Unger played a significant role in bringing democracy back to Brazil, served in Lula’s government as a minister and has been called “a prophet” by the famed philosopher Richard Rorty. A key influence and inspiration to Obama he was also one of Obama’s toughest critics, memorably arguing against Obama’s second term.

Unger is the author of several important and groundbreaking works, most recently “The Future of American Progressivism” and “The Knowledge Economy”. For decades, he has been a pragmatic utopian, working to envision a practical path to a radically better future at a time when such political dreams were unfashionable. An outspoken critic of neoliberalism and a prophet before his time, he early identified the ideological bankruptcy of managerial capitalism. Now, at a time when history seems to be proving him right, we should learn all what we can from this pioneering voice.

The conference will be facilitated by Dr Rufus Pollock, economists, technologist and author of the Open Revolution and Dr Liam Kavanagh cognitive scientist and Director of the Art / Earth / Tech institute.

Common Knowledge is a newly founded non profit tech workers cooperative with a mission to support and build infrastructure for grassroots political and community organising.

Join us for an evening debrief and workshop. We’ll be presenting the work done in the last two weeks, the third sprint of work. Then we’ll be putting this in the context of the last six months of the project and deciding next steps.

Since October, we’ve been designing and testing our first product, a political organising and community capacity building platform. This work is aimed squarely at boosting the levels of autonomous organising in the progressive space and grassroots movements, activating a largely passive activist population and decentralising and devolving key community resources currently held by large institutional actors.

March 15th will mark the end of our third sprint. We’d like to invite you down, have a few drinks with us and share in our work and learnings. We’ve interviewed over 70 activists and organisers across London as part of this project so far and are currently testing a range of assumptions we’ve developed from those conversations - that’s a lot of juicy learnings.

Alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, and snacks will be provided.

The event will be split between a presentation and discussion of our work and a short breakout and group feedback session.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of party activists across the world pound the streets and knock on doors in an effort to mobilise large numbers of citizens to vote for their party of choice.

Get Out The Vote (GOTV) voter mobilisation has become a staple of electoral campaigning, but as new technologies develop and new political forces take root, is there room for improvement?

Join Campaign Lab for the first event in our new series exploring the potential for innovation in electoral campaigning in the UK and beyond.

For our debut event, we’ll be joined by Rudi Shenk, former National Outreach Director of Obama for America, and Matt Goddin, Labour Party organiser for Ilford North, one of the few Labour wins in 2015. Our third speaker is to be confirmed.

During the panel and breakout session we’ll explore current methods and GOTV strategies used by political parties and campaigns in an effort to identify where there is space for innovation and improvement - asking our speakers: in an ideal world, how would you improve the GOTV operation?

Campaign Lab is a community of activists, researchers and technologists working towards a more evidence-based approach to campaigning - outside of this event series we run monthly hackdays and meetups, come join us.

Purpose is central to resilience in organisations, but it’s more than a mission statement. Drawing on academic theory and practical examples, this talk will show how to figure out what an organisation is really working towards and build resilience. It will touch on the relationship between people and technology in organisations, how to understand different people’s perspectives and how to design for changeability.

Dr Eloise Elliott-Taysom is a Product Manager specialising in emerging technology, data and AI. She did her PhD in Engineering at Cambridge University looking at resilience in complex socio-technical systems. Her most recent publication, ‘On the Resilience of Sociotechnical Systems’, can be found in a new book on Systemic Design.

Burglary affects 2 in every 100 households, and it sucks! In 2018 there were 664,000 burglaries. It’s a miserable and frightening experience for the victim, and a huge drain on police resources.

We’re building a bot to help the victims of burglary. If you’re interested in being a part of the project, join us on Tuesday 12th!

You can find out more at our site: https://www.policecoders.org/home/2019-01-projects/002-burglary-victims-support-bot

If you meet any of these criteria, then you’re perfect for this project:

• Creative problem solvers who’d like to give a little back.
• Former victims of burglary who’d like to reach out and help others.
• C# developers with a passion for doing some civic good.
• Professional testers who can push our bot to its limits.
• Security professionals with knowledge around GDPR compliance and secure design.
• HTML/CSS/Javascript coders and designers who’d like to help make our work open and accessible to the public.
• Copywriters who can help us with conversational text and blog posts.
• Technical writers to help us preserve the legacy of our framework.

Police officers, we’ll be reaching out once we’ve completed a working prototype that we can structure around the work you do.

The market for personal data is broken. All of our information is traded behind our backs every day by 3rd parties with whome we have no direct relationship. Misaligned incentive structures ensure our privacy is violated again and again.

How did this happen and what we can do about it? The GDPR gives you powerful new rights, but real world constraints continue to prohibit large numbers of people from exercising those rights.

While the problem may seem unprecedented, it is actually something we have solved many times before. Personal data is just an information good, best thought of as a newspaper we publish about ourselves to be read by AIs. What this means is that, in effect, every person is now an author whose copyright is being infringed. As such, we draw draw important insights into this problem by studying information economics and information law.

In this lecture, we identify the key failures afflicting the market for personal data by examining the history of other types of information goods, including books and music. We examine how societies in the past helped fix these broken markets, how new technologies require regular updates to the rules and regulations governing these markets, and outline our solution to the problem modelled on the Worshipful Company of Stationers.

What does a 15th century publishing guild have to do with this 21st century problem? Join the discussion to find out!

Open to those interested in conflict intervention and reconstruction, the mapathon will try to bring people together through a collective activity of mapping one of the Syrian cities (Daraya) affected by the conflict.

Bring along your laptop and mouse to the mapathon where you will be guided through the process of mapping, and given a summary about our project as a whole. Also, the role of open maps platforms in humanitarian intervention and human rights protection in conflict areas.

Other than being a tool for intervention and protecting property rights for Syrians, this mapathon will be a safe and friendly space where we can get to know each other and explore together what can maps reveal about different areas in Syria and how can they be put on the map for all Syrians.

Part of a multi-stage project that seeks to draw maps for urban cities and areas across Syria based on satellite images available through open mapping platforms. The priority is given to areas which fall under laws and decrees that legalise the confiscation of properties owned by Syrian citizens who fail to claim it, giving the priority to the destroyed properties a result of the conflict. The project will be carried out through multiple mapathons adopting a bottom-up approach which depends on the the participation of volunteers (Syrians and non-Syrians) in the mapping process.

One of a series of bi-monthly socials for those interested in community-led housing.

This month we’re joined by Zarinah Agnew (zarinahagnew.com), a US based neuroscientist and social scientist, and a member of the Embassy Network (www.embassynetwork.com) of ten intentional communities spread over six countries.

Zarinah will give a short talk about their exploring and iterating living methods, and in particular their eight month experiment with forms of governance (embassygovernance.space).

Also present will be members of existing cohousing and coliving communities in London, who will be happy to share their experiences and knowledge. You can meet others who are forming projects, looking for members for existing projects and you can find out about other events, advisers, consultants, funders and other organisations.

The event is free to attend and children are welcome.

Feeling daunted about coming alone? We feel that too sometimes. Send us a message with the words ‘buddy me up’ and we’ll make sure you are welcomed in by one of the group and helped to feel at ease.

Cohousing London is a community-led organisation working to create a network of diverse, inclusive, sustainable and affordable cohousing developments across London: facebook.com/groups/cohousinglondon

KIN helps to deliver world-class sustainable and community-led housing projects, providing site finding, facilitation, design and funding: cohousing.co / kinarchitects.co

An afternoon diving into an open dataset of repair data on electronics to discover what is impeding repairs.

Take part in person at Newspeak House, or participate remotely.

The Restart Project collects data on every repair attempted at their community repair events. That data is used to present insights into the devices and problems found to those who design, manufacture and regulate products in the first place. The aim is to identify the barriers to repair that people come up against, whether it’s lack of spare parts, poor documentation, or simply bad design.

This Open Data Day focuses on computers, the product most frequently brought to Restart Parties. New regulations on the repairability of computers will soon be discussed at EU level. The data may reveal common problems, common (and less common!) solutions, and what are the barriers to repair that should be highlighted to policymakers.

There is data on over 10,000 devices from repair events around the world, and a group of volunteers has fixed over 50% of them, offsetting tonnes of e-waste and hundreds of tonnes of CO2 emissions in the process.

There will be a range of data and research tasks suitable for newcomers and experienced analysts, and tools will be provided for the analysis if required. All you’ll need to do is bring a laptop.

The planet is in ecological crisis: we are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction event this planet has experienced. Scientists believe we may have entered a period of abrupt climate breakdown. This is an emergency.

In this public talk, climate speakers from Extinction Rebellion will share the latest climate science on where our planet is heading, discuss some of the current psychology around climate change, and offer solutions through the study of social movements.

Everyone is welcome and there will be time to ask questions and discuss afterwards. Entry is free.

Paolo Gerbaudo (author), Anastasia Kavada (University of Westminster), Adam Klug (Momentum co-founder), Matteo Canestrari (digital politics expert).

From the Five Star Movement to Podemos, from the Pirate Parties to La France Insoumise, from the movements behind Bernie Sanders to those backing Jeremy Corbyn, the last decade has witnessed the rise of a new blueprint for political organisation: the digital party.

Paolo Gerbaudo will discuss the transformation of political parties in the digital era, drawing on the argument of his new book The Digital Party: Political Organisation and Online Democracy, with scholars and practitioners of digital politics.

In the book Gerbaudo addresses the organisational revolution that is transforming political parties in the time of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Cambridge Analytica. Drawing on interviews with political leaders and organisers, he demonstrates that besides rapidly growing in votes, these formations have also revitalised party democracy, involving hundreds of thousands in discussions carried out on online decision-making platforms.

Participatory, yet plebiscitarian, open and democratic, yet dominated by charismatic ‘hyperleaders’, digital parties display both great potentials and risks for the development of new forms of mass participation in an era of growing inequality. All political parties will have to reckon with the lessons of the digital party.

Paolo Gerbaudo is a political sociologist and the Director of the Centre for Digital Culture at King’s College London. He is the author of The Digital Party: Political Organisation and Online Democracy (2018), The Mask and the Flag: Populism and Global Protest (2017) and Tweets and the Streets: Social Media and Contemporary Activism (2012).

Please note - you will need to bring a laptop to this event

Since June 2018 we’ve been a busy bunch, the Campaign Lab community has sourced hundreds of demographic and austerity impact datasets, developed scrapers and written parliamentary questions and FOIs to source the more hard to get datasets. We’ve built a comprehensive UK ward-level election results dataset and begun comparing factors impacting elections across the country.

But we’re not finished yet. Come and join us for our next hackathon as we continue to build the case for an evidenced-based approach to electoral campaigning in the UK.

What is Campaign Lab?

Thousands of activists across the UK volunteer their time and energy for electoral campaigns every year. Year in, year out, we use the same campaigning methods and tools we always have, because we think they work.

But there have been very few contemporary analysis or studies undertaken to assess the impact or value of electoral campaigning methods in the UK. Similarly, there have been precious few attempts to determine the effect of local economic factors such as house prices and austerity on election results and vote share.

So, if no one else has done this, then maybe it’s about time we started?

We’re building a repository of publicly available data and models to better understand the 2018 Local Elections, identifying which results bucked the national political and demographic trends. These are areas in which local campaigning may have actually made a difference and where we can start learning and testing.

This is about developing an evidence-based approach to electoral campaigning.

But we need your help.

So if you’re interested in chipping in and developing a new data-driven approach to understand what actually goes on in elections and campaigning, bring your laptop and join us for a day of politically motivated data science.

Over the course of our new hackdays we’ll be tackling the questions plaguing activists up and down the country, making a real impact on elections and political campaigning right across the country.

Check out the Campaign Lab volunteer teams and project guide

You will need to bring a laptop to this event

Everyone welcome – beer, soft drinks, a big homemade soupy lunch and pizza dinner will be provided!

Not been to a Campaign Lab meet up before? No problem! Come along to meet politically-minded progressive data scientists, researchers and activists who are working together to change the way we analyse and understand political election campaigning.

All attendees to Campaign Lab HackDays may join future discount data science courses put on specifically for Campaign Lab volunteers - contact us for more information.

Aaron Swartz was a young hacktivist, and co-founder of Reddit, early developer of RSS, Markdown and Creative Commons. He led the campaigns against SOPA and was both an excellent technologist and activist.

He was convicted for mass downloading academic journals from JSTOR from MIT. His final charges included a cumulative maximum penalty of $1 million in fines, 35 years in prison. He hanged himself two days after prosecution.

Let’s come together and remember what happened by watching the documentary about him, The Internet’s Own Boy (available here), and be inspired together by his courage. Afterwards we will have time for chatting.

• 19:00 Arrivals
• 19:30 Screening starts
• 21:30 Discussion/networking

This month’s theme is health. Whether you lead a healthy life still largely depends on where you are born, your socio-economic class, race, gender and sexual orientation. Given this reality, how do we ensure we all have access to health services? How do we ensure issues that affect the health of marginalised populations (e.g. drug addictions, or tropical diseases) get researched and treated? And, how do we promote healthy habits when our digital lives, increased social isolation and sedentary lifestyles are putting our (mental) well-being at risk? Many radical initiatives are working to tackle these problems. They need our help!

We are inviting organisations working in this area to meet engineers of all stripes (hackers, makers, designers and other technologists) who wish to contribute their spare time and talents to these projects. During the meetup we will run a speed dating session, for organisations to introduce themselves to our engineers.

Please confirm your presence.

See other projects Radical Engineers are working on.

This meetup is the final one in our three-part series, ‘Interdisciplinary alchemy’, exploring what data scientists can learn from delving into other disciplines.

This time, we’re turning the spotlight on civil liberties activists. As technology continues to permeate more and more aspects of our lives, data is increasingly becoming a civil rights issue.

We’re asking how data scientists and activists can work together to design innovative tech solutions that don’t compromise our civil liberties.

Bringing years of experience along with some fresh ideas to help us consider this question, we have a panel of speakers from the world of civil liberties activism, including:

• Hannah Couchman - Policy and Campaigns Officer at Liberty
• Frederike Kaltheuner - Data Programme Lead at Privacy International

More speakers to be announced soon!

• 6.30pm: Doors open and sign-in
• 7.00pm: Welcome from host
• 7.10pm: ‘What can the worlds of data science and civil liberties activism learn from working together? - panel discussion
• 7.45pm: Questions to the panel
• 8.30pm: Drinks and a chance to chat
• 9.00pm: Finish

Wikimedia UK is organising the first Wikidata meetup in London.

If you’re working on Wikidata projects, or interested in Wikidata and want to find out how to get involved, come along and talk to us about it.

Those of you familiar with the world of finance know it is a complex world built on trust. Banks and financial institutions are hard at work with how they can win our trust again, and offering options for ethical investment is high on the list. It is a positive development, but also something we need to remain critical about: to what extent can we see ethical investing as a way to make the world a little bit better?

The discussion will be hosted by Eline Hesse, who has spent three years creating Petrol Dollars for a Different Engine, a documentary of her experience researching how to reinvest her portfolio in a sustainable manner. She has spoken to many sustainable investment experts and various bankers raising the question if it is possible to match your ideals with your capital. She would like to start a discussion about the value of ethical investing presently and in the future.

Join us at Newspeak House for a rebellious song sharing workshop. Bring your favourite protest, peace and medicine songs and let’s learn them together in a co-created space.

Whether you want to learn songs to take with you to Extinction Rebellion actions, or you just want to come together with a group of people to create beautiful music you are very welcome. We will start by sharing some XR favourites before opening up the space for new sharings. If you have an instrument that you wish to bring, please do. Otherwise just come with yourself and your voice and you’re ready to go!

Following from this event there will be an open discussion on ethical investment, asking to what extent we can see ethical investing as a way to make the world a bit better.

Campaign Lab is a community of political analysts, researchers, developers and data scientists organised around a simple idea, to develop an evidence-based approach to electoral campaigning in the UK.

After 5 fun meetups and a fantastic hackday we’re pausing for breath to do some strategy thinking!

We’ll be discussing:

• Our methodology: What have we achieved so far, next steps & getting to grips with statistics
• Our “austerity mapping” platform: How can we get funding for it and who can help us build it?
• Our testing & innovation: How can our community help candidates who approach us for help in future elections?
• Our governance & structures: How can we organise ourselves and make better decisions together?
• Our skills & training: How can we upskill our community? How can we share and exchange our technical and political knowledge?

It’d be great to see campaign labbers old and new come along and help us work out our strategy for the next 6 months… We can promise homemade veggie burgers & wedges!

Want to recap where we’ve got to? Check out our GitHub and join our slack!

Our second meetup is themed around the idea of waste. From fast fashion to endless packaging, we are surrounded by the unnecessary. This meetup is about ways to get rid of it.

This could be dematerialisation, sharing, reuse and transformation.

We are inviting organisations working in this area to meet engineers of all stripes (hackers, makers, designers and other technologists) who wish to contribute their spare time and talents to these projects.

Please confirm your presence.

See other projects Radical Engineers are working on.

Following up from the Human Networks Convergence held in Barcelona in October 2018, a gathering which brought together people from 16 different networks to see how we might experiment and learn together, we are hosting a small gathering in London to continue the conversations on ecosystemic collaboration, systemic change and networks, working on shared challenges.

This will be an open space with a small number of people (10-12) who are working in the areas of ecosystemic collaboration and addressing complex issues that involve a variety of players. The purpose is to exchange insights and learn from each other.

This gathering is organised by Corina Angheloiu (Forum for the Future), Phoebe Tickell (Enspiral) and Manel Heredero (Ouishare). If you can’t attend or think of someone who would be interested in this topic, please feel free to make it your own and invite them.

For more context:

• Weaving networks — when we all need to be spiders by Corina at Medium
• Write Up after the Convergence in Barcelona
• Festival by Emergence by Manel at Medium
• “If we want to address the complex problem situations that the world is facing, being a smart systems thinker and innovator is not enough. We need to engage in new ways of collaborating that promote continuous, productive and collective learning and innovation. These collaborations require us to learn social skills, build social structures, and adopt attitudes of openness to learning, trust and responsibility, however hard it is to let go of the behaviours and structures that hold us back.” Why being smart is not enough — the social skills and structures of tackling complexity by Mieke van der Bijl

Take part in a live round of Work Cycles, a productivity technique:

1. Register for the event. (It’s free, but there’s limited capacity — so we ask you only register if you can actually attend.)

2. Bring work you want to accomplish. This isn’t a lecture or networking event — you’ll actually be getting your work done at the event.

3. There will be 20-30 minutes of setup and overview where you’ll learn how to break your work into a more efficient format.

4. You’ll work in cycles: 30 minutes of focused work followed by 10 minute breaks to analyze, plan the next cycle block, get feedback if desired, and do some brief socializing.

5. At the end of the whole day, you’ll debrief lessons learned for 10-20 minutes, share lessons with other cool people attending, and call it a day.

Ultraworking has run Work Cycles both virtually via videoconferencing, and live and in-person with thousands of people around the world, including at coworking spaces, top universities like the University of Chicago, at the offices of top companies including YCombinator-backed startups, and at government-sponsored innovation spaces like the Seoul Global Startup Center.

For more info on the technique, see ultraworking.com.

Prototype games to explore complex systems. Today we explore the game loop in Return of the Obra Dinn.

On 16th January 1969, young Czech philosophy student Jan Palach burned himself to death. He did so in protest against the growing indifference of citizens towards the gross injustices of the communist regime. The impact of his act was unprecedented. It changed the course of Czechoslovak history and became a symbol that inspired protesters around the world.

There are many different kinds of sacrifice. What is the meaning of sacrifice today? Is it the right way to protest? What can we learn from the legacy of Jan Palach’s most radical act?

The purpose of this event will be to address these questions. We will discuss the philosophical origins of the idea of self-sacrifice, from Christianity to Buddhism to the New Left. We will hear people sharing their own personal experiences with protest by sacrifice. We will engage in a collective ritual to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Jan Palach’s death.

Help us vectorise Mandate-era maps of Palestine, and learn about open mapping tools

We found archival maps of mandate-era Palestine (from 1923 to 1948), including details of 500+ ethnically cleansed villages and towns. We have made them available through PalOpenMaps.org. Now we are working on extracting the data out of the maps, in order to make them useful and accessible to artists and researchers. All the data that we produce will be freely licensed for anyone to use.

In this event, we will introduce the project, show you how to vectorise historic maps using open mapping tools (OpenStreetMap/osm-seed), and we will spend the rest of the session exploring the maps and vectorising sections of it.

No previous mapping experience is necessary. All you need is a computer, curiosity and a desire to help. Please bring a laptop & mouse if you have one. If not, then you can still help by pairing up with another attendee. The more eyes the better!

This will be a relaxed Sunday afternoon, we will provide light snacks and drinks.

Palestine Open Maps is a project supported by Visualizing Palestine and the Bassel Khartabil Free Culture Fund.

Insights from the South is a new event format by IDEAS Globally, to create the space for knowledge exchange between London and the Global South. Our theme for this event is ‘Designing for Development’: how can external efforts for development be improved through perspectives from the ground?

Come listen to IDEAS Globally authors present their Insights on key issues in Development today, and have your perspectives challenged by our international speakers - community leaders, business people and artists who connect us with the local reality of each topic. Witness conversations that will change your perspective of development and North-South relations.

IDEAS Insights are short academic briefs written by members of the IDEAS Globally international network, providing thought leadership on development and social enterprise. All IDEAS Globally Insights can be read freely at: www.ideasglobally.org/Insights. They have been viewed over 6,000 times (and counting!). This event will use selected insights as the starting point for deeper discussion of issues in the Global South.

Our Selected Insights authors:

• Tamas Katona: “Narratives of Development (Hungary’s Social Enterprise Landscape in Historical Context)”.
• Kristina Funk & Alyette de Royere: “Women in Nepalese Healthcare as a Potential for Development”.
• Joe Forsdick: “Grids & Batteries: Strengthening Energy Reliability against Natural Disasters”.

Our Outsights leaders:

• Dr Estella Carpi, Postdoctoral Research Associate: “Analysing South-South Humanitarian Responses to Displacement from Syria: Views from Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey”.
• Shamim Azad, writer and poet: “The Significance of British-Bangladeshi Bilingualism and History in my Writing and Social Activism”.

Register now!

We live, socialize and work in communities, with some of our closest friends, families and colleagues. We also live in a world that socializes and reinforces violence. We live in a rape culture where media portrays violence and violation as romance.

Data indicates that most consent violations take place, not in abandoned alley ways by strangers, but by people we know, in places where we are supposed to feel safe. One in four women in north america will be assaulted in their lifetimes, many men also. This affects us all, not just those directly harmed. Families are destroyed, communities are fragmented, workplaces become alienating.

How we do best prepare ourselves for these issues? How do we create a culture that clearly sets the bar for the future society that we wish to live in? How do we create restorative and alternative processes and practices that protect those that are harmed in our communities, and also work to guide, teach and serve those who have done the harm? What do you each want to see, how would you like to be treated should you find yourself on either side of the coin in one of these situations?

Come and join us for a discussion around how we’d like society to deal with these issues and to see if we can take some of these lessons on into our day to day life.

Format // Doors 7pm // Talk 7.30pm // Moderated discussion 8pm - 10pm

Food, drink, pretty lights, live music, and more political technologists in one place than is probably wise.

Please register so we can plan for attendance: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/christmas-at-newspeak-house-tickets-52482297966

Recent predictions about the future of work point in the direction of an incredibly fluid labour market. We face an increasingly precarious employment-market, where the individualisation of labour — seen as a push towards self-employment, short-term contracts, unpaid internships, and disingenuous forms of non-standard employment — becomes the unhappy norm.

At Newspeak House on 13 December 2018, three leading experts will debate the future of work, unions, and the digital economy.

• Dr. Christina Colclough, Director of the Future World of Work, UNI Global Union
• Dr. Barry Cofler, Deacon Fellow, Oxford University; Researcher, Policy Network
• Final Speaker TBA

Audience participation is encouraged. We will assess the technological and political barriers that limit union’s use of data as well as the skills and systems needed to overcome them.

Our goal is to understand how trade unions – the natural and historic advisor and guardians of collective rights – must adapt to this new digital economy to meet the needs and aspirations of workers.

In the question period, we will explore how digital technologies could be used by unions and workers to improve job quality and collective empowerment.

New, expanded and updated edition of How to dismantle the NHS in 10 easy steps: The blueprint that the government does not want you to see, by Dr Youssef El-Gingihy published by Zero books

The much anticipated new, expanded and updated edition of How to Dismantle the NHS in 10 Easy Steps comes with high praise from Noam Chomsky, Jeremy Corbyn, John Pilger and Ken Loach.

Dr Youssef El-Gingihy is a Tower Hamlets GP at the Bromley by Bow Centre. This book tells the story of how the NHS is being sold off and why you might have to buy private health insurance soon. It contains new chapters on the junior doctors’ strike and the introduction of US style healthcare models of accountable/integrated care. It also has a coda on how we can save the NHS.

Events have spiralled since the first edition of How to Dismantle the NHS in 10 Easy Steps. The junior doctors’ strike, the Conservative victory in the 2015 general election, the Corbyn phenomenon, the unexpected Brexit vote and the arguably even more unexpected loss of the Conservative majority in 2017.

Further, since writing the first edition, Dr. Youssef El-Gingihy found himself stricken with a life-threatening illness and the NHS doctor became the NHS patient. The fight to save the NHS transformed into a fight for his own life.

Now, fully recovered, Dr El-Gingihy returns to his 10 Easy Steps in order to strengthen his original argument on the 70th anniversary of the NHS. Dr El-Gingihy’s insights have never been more vital as our National Health Service continues to be hit by the privatisation of public services.

more onion is an award winning digital agency behind the Campaignion platform, which delivers high-impact digital campaigns and fundraising for progressive non-profits. Come and meet the more more onion as well as fundraisers and campaigners from across the UK charity sector.

ON THE AGENDA

• New Campaignion features - upgraded ‘email protest’ actions and more
• Campaign showcase - insights into campaign actions and strategies including Mencap’s Treat Me Well campaign, and Friends of the Earth’s lead generation quiz
• Campaign clinic’ - chance to get input from other campaigners and fundraisers into your campaign plans and challenges
• Christmas drinks, networking and discussion with peers from across the sector

Please Register: https://www.more-onion.com/en/campaignion-dec2018

For those who are new to Campaignion (or fancy a refresh!), please feel free to join us a little earlier at 2.30pm for a demo.

From The Hunger Games to Ready Player One, visions of dystopia dominate contemporary ideas of the future. But is there room for a more hopeful alternative?

At the Utopia Café we explore alternative ideas of the future through the lenses of literature, film, and other media. We also consider how these ideas can be realised.

Drinks and snacks will be provided. Everyone is welcome. :)

Decentralisation is charging ahead, but where to? How do we ensure a decentralised web brings about greater autonomy, privacy, choice? What’s the priority? Which apps work now? What’s in the way for mainstream adoption?

Join us for an evening of decentralized conversation! This month, we’ll host a redecentralized speed dating session: a chance to embark on deep (but short) conversations with those building decentralized apps, or developing decentralized governance models and designs.

In addition we’ll have drinks, pizza and tons of fun!

We encourage you to bring anyone with an interest in decentralization. No prior knowledge required! This movement belongs to all of us!

You can reach us at [email protected], or find us on Twitter: @anoukruhaak, @shevksi

For anyone wanting more context, here’s a blog post on the motivations and values behind redecentralize.org, with suggested characteristics of decentralisation that we should care about (TL;DR distribution of power and how this applies to tech)

This event is open only to Kairos Fellows and specially invited Friends of Kairos.

Kairos UK has partnered with Enspiral to bring you a unique evening, exploring the future of entrepreneurship. Registration is required.

Kairos is a global network of young entrepreneurs seeking to fix broken industries. We are from different continents, verticals and backgrounds but share a desire to leave the world in a better way than how we found it, by sharing our experience, networks and expertise.

Enspiral is a global ecosystem of entrepreneurs and freelancers who develop software and practices for global collaboration, and who collaborate together to launch businesses with a social and/or environmental mission. The Enspiral network has been experimenting with new forms of governance, making decisions and collaboratively budgeting together for 8 years.

Life as an entrepreneur can be tough. As Elon Musk says, “Being an entrepreneur is like eating glass and staring into the abyss of death.” Long days, constant challenges, learning from failures - and unfortunately a lot of this is often done alone.

But could it be different? Imagine a new kind of entrepreneurship, an Entrepreneurship 2.0, where instead of the focus being on the lone wolf entrepreneur, the focus is on the community, and the ecosystem that supports a start-up into flourishing? This kind of collaborative entrepreneurship throws up some big questions:

• How can we come together as entrepreneurs and be stronger?
• How could we pool our resources, time and know-how to be larger than the sum of our parts?
• What kind of impact could we unlock if we learned to collaborate on a large scale?

Cost: We are asking for a £15 contribution to cover food and drink (beers, wine and soft drinks) for the evening and nothing else. If there is any money leftover after organising, this will be donated to charity.

Dresscode: Casual. The evening will be casual but we may decide to go out in Shoreditch after the event.

Format: There will be drinks, we’ll order in some food, and some light exercises to get to know each other better. There will also be slots for some Lightning Talks - 5 minute talks from the community to share what they are working on, and any problems they need help solving.

If you have any questions, please reach out to Phoebe ([email protected]) or Seth ([email protected]).

A huge amount of edible food is wasted and many efforts are being made by governments, companies, charities and community organisations with mixed results. Nick Sellen is hopeful that de-centralized co-operative community organising using open source software can provide a way forward.

Please note that space is limited in the Drawing Room so seats will be allocated on a first-come-first-served basis.

The internet has democratised speech — it has given everyone a publishing platform. So how can we make sense of this explosion of material?

In this Citizen Beta we talk to Turi Munthe and Jamie Bartlett about the new projects they’re working on that try to do just that.

We’ll be covering whether argument mining can actually map an atlas of ideas or arguments, how knowledge and information is currently stored and how that needs to change, and who will actually benefit from these kinds of tools?

Doors open at 7.00pm, talks start at 7.30pm

Speakers

• Turi Munthe. Turi is a VC for Northbase Media. He is most recently the founder of Parli. He is also the founder of Demotix and served as its CEO. Turi has worked as Head for CNN, and at the BBC, NBC, al-Jazeera, Asahi, Reuters, Sky, you name it. He is a Publisher, Editor, Policy Analyst, Lecturer, Journalist. He has written for The Economist, Slate.com, the FT, the Telegraph, the Nation and many others. He has given lectures on Iran to the Central Communist Party of China, and on erotica to the ICA. His one book is the Saddam Hussein Reader. He studied at Oxford University, the Hebrew University and NYU.
• Jamie Bartlett. Jamie is the Director of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media at the think-tank Demos, where he has become one of the UK’s leading thinkers on politics and technology. He is also author of The People Vs Tech (2018) about the relationship between technology and democracy, Radicals (2017) about political outsiders and best-selling The Dark Net (2014) about internet subcultures, which has been translated into 13 languages. His Ted Talk about how dark net technology is changing the nature of cybercrime has been viewed almost 3 million times.

 Schedule

• 7.00pm – Drinks
• 7.30pm – Welcome and intro
• 7.40pm – Turi Munthe
• 7.50pm – Jamie Bartlett
• 8.00pm – Q&A
• 8.10pm – More drinks and mince pies!

Please note - you will need to bring a laptop to this event

Since June, together we’ve sourced hundreds of demographic and austerity impact datasets, and made a start on setting up scrapers and writing parliamentary questions and FOIs to source the more hard to get datasets.

But we’re not finished yet. Come and join us for our first full HackDay as we continue to build the case for an evidenced-based approach to electoral campaigning in the UK.

What is Campaign Lab?

Thousands of activists across the UK volunteer their time and energy for electoral campaigns every year. Year in, year out, we use the same campaigning methods and tools we always have, because we think they work.

But there have been very few contemporary analysis or studies undertaken to assess the impact or value of electoral campaigning methods in the UK. Similarly, there have been precious few attempts to determine the effect of local economic factors such as house prices and austerity on election results and vote share.

So, if no one else has done this, then maybe it’s about time we started?

We’re building a repository of publicly available data and models to better understand the 2018 Local Elections, identifying which results bucked the national political and demographic trends. These are areas in which local campaigning may have actually made a difference and where we can start learning and testing.

This is about developing an evidence-based approach to electoral campaigning.

But we need your help.

So if you’re interested in chipping in and developing a new data-driven approach to understand what actually goes on in elections and campaigning, bring your laptop and join us for a day of politically motivated data science.

Over the course of our new hackdays we’ll be tackling the questions plaguing activists up and down the country, making a real impact on elections and political campaigning right across the country.

Check out the Campaign Lab volunteer teams and project guide

You will need to bring a laptop to this event

Everyone welcome – beer, soft drinks, lunch and dinner will be provided!

Connecting developers, designers and other technologists to radical organizations in need of technological support. Radical organizations aim to solve society’s gravest problems by addressing the underlying systems, rather than merely fighting symptoms.

During this meetup we’ll host a speed dating session, to connect the two groups and get you working on the world’s most urgent problems. In addition we’ll also have drinks and chats and lots of fun!

Are you a technologist? Great, join our meetup and we’ll connect you to organizations that need your help. ‘Help’ can range from getting e-mail setup to building full-fledged apps.

Are you a radical organization? Send us an email: [email protected] We’ll reach out to you and explain a bit about the evening and how you can get the most out of it!

Find more: http://radicalengineers.com and find us at [email protected], or @anoukruhaak on Twitter.

Four scientists from across the UK will speak about the battle against Alzheimer’s, cancer and the future of regenerative medicine. We’ll also share the story of Lyrical Science, and our vision for the future of science funding.

You’ll be able to learn more about the state of critical life science research, network with the scientists, celebrate our public launch over drinks, and discover a new way to get involved in scientific discovery.

At Lyrical Science, we help scientists share their inspiring stories and earn research incomes from their public backers. Scientists are often prevented from doing life saving research by funding cuts outside of their control. This event is about how we change that.

We’re a team of early career researchers across the UK and can’t wait to share our vision with you in person. We look forward to welcoming guests from all backgrounds– scientists, science lovers, philanthropists, impact investors, and anyone interested in helping the scientific community gain the support it needs to conduct critical life science research.

Let’s come together for a beautiful and inspiring evening!

Visit lyricalscience.com and find out how we got started

Got an idea to make the world a better place but need advice or volunteers? Utopia Forum wants you!

We’re looking to follow the reading groups of Utopia Cafe with a venue for people to plan and work on their projects together. Unlike many planning groups, we’re not focused on one type of politics, or on one sector for transformation. Instead we’re hoping to bring together lots of different projects together to transform society as a whole.

In this first meeting, we’ll be discussing Utopia Cafe and Forum as a project, and then opening up the floor for discussion of various projects. Bring your ideas!

Design Hops are the first step for charities exploring the role of digital in their services. By demystifying technology and design approaches, this free half-day creative workshop builds confidence and motivation to take the next step, as well as focus on what that immediate next step should be for each organisation.

For more details and to apply for a place, https://wearecast.org.uk/for-nonprofits/design-hops

At its heart, data science is a set of tools for turning impenetrable datasets into clear insights & decisions that can help you to achieve your goals. This workshop series will introduce you to several of these tools with the aim of giving you practical skills to take away and immediately apply in your own work.

Part I (Mon 5th): A Crash Course in Coding

The first workshop will focus on learning the Python programming language and related libraries for importing, manipulating and visualising datasets.

Part II (Wed 7th): Dabbling with Data

The first workshop leads straight into Part II, which will cover more advanced data visualisation techniques, creating your own datasets by scraping web pages, and a brief introduction to building your own regression models.

The workshops will be hands-on throughout with code examples and exercises provided to apply what you’ve just learned. We strongly encourage you to attend both workshops if possible as they are designed to run together. There are no pre-requisites other than a laptop and your own curiosity.

Registration and further details

Over the last decade, the police, tasked with ensuring our safety, have been so severely defunded that they are unable to help every person, or respond to every crime report. The numbers don’t lie. Over the last 8 years, police funding dropped by 19%, resulting in 20,000 fewer police officers and significantly reduced resources to tackle, investigate and prevent crime.

We can’t magically restore the policing budget, but we can help the remaining officers leverage their police skills by providing the tools and technologies they need to be effective.

While innovation within the police has historically been slow, technology could help overcome a number of obstacles. That’s where you come in.

On 6th November we’re holding our first meet-up at Newspeak House to start building tools for police officers! We welcome software developers, designers and anyone with ideas, critical thinking and problem-solving skills to come along and help out. If you’re not available on the 6th, but you’d like to get involved, join our community to find out more about the projects.

At its heart, data science is a set of tools for turning impenetrable datasets into clear insights & decisions that can help you to achieve your goals. This workshop series will introduce you to several of these tools with the aim of giving you practical skills to take away and immediately apply in your own work.

Part I (Mon 5th): A Crash Course in Coding

The first workshop will focus on learning the Python programming language and related libraries for importing, manipulating and visualising datasets.

Part II (Wed 7th): Dabbling with Data

The first workshop leads straight into Part II, which will cover more advanced data visualisation techniques, creating your own datasets by scraping web pages, and a brief introduction to building your own regression models.

The workshops will be hands-on throughout with code examples and exercises provided to apply what you’ve just learned. We strongly encourage you to attend both workshops if possible as they are designed to run together. There are no pre-requisites other than a laptop and your own curiosity.

Registration and further details

Want to learn how to be a Wikipedia editor and improve the quantity and quality of information about underrepresented subjects on the world’s biggest encyclopaedia?

Wikimedia UK is hosting a Wikipedia training workshop at Newspeak House on November 4 on the subject of Middle Eastern Human Rights.

The content and contributors on Wikipedia still do not represent the diversity of our world. If we are going to truly create ‘the sum of all knowledge’, we need to improve the coverage of underrepresented subjects.

Recent global events have highlighted the lack of free and factual media both in the Middle East and about Middle Eastern human rights subjects.

Wars continue to rage in Syria and Yemen, creating untold humanitarian disasters. Authoritarian states silence their critics at home and abroad. Wikipedia allows anybody with an understanding of its rules and guidelines to contribute to a shared understanding of any subject area, and there has never been a better time to increase understanding of the human rights situation throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) area.

Wikimedia UK is the charity responsible for promoting Wikipedia in the UK. We aim to increase the diversity of the content and contributors to Wikipedia, and organise training workshops for anybody who wants to take part in our projects.

Come to Newspeak House on Sunday 4th November from 12pm for training from Wikipedia experts and help to improve articles on human rights defenders, violations, laws, events and other related areas.

Redecentralize get-together to meet, catchup, share news

Decentralisation is charging ahead, but where to? How do we ensure a decentralised web brings about greater autonomy, privacy, choice? What’s the priority? Which apps work now? What’s in the way for mainstream adoption?

So many interesting topics and a key time for the decentralisation movement. Come to Newspeak House to hear about what’s been happening, plan next steps and meet the community!

We’ll be doing lighting talks - contact hello[@]redecentralize.org or @shevski on twitter to sign up!

Speakers:

Dr Youssef El-Gingihy tells the story of how the NHS has been gradually converted into a market-based healthcare system over the past 25 years. This process is accelerating and the very existence of a National Health Service is in danger. He fears that there will not be an NHS as our generation grows old and certainly not for our children - yet the British public remains largely unaware of this and the media, with few exceptions, have failed in their duty to inform them. Youssef’s book, How to Dismantle the NHS in 10 Easy Steps, has been described by Jeremy Corbyn as wonderful and sobering, and has received rave reviews from the likes of Noam Chomsky and John Pilger.

Dr Sonia Adesara is the co-chair of the Young Medical Womens International Association, Director of the 50:50 Parliament campaign, and Communications Director for Doctors For Choice.

Come and join us for the official launch of the Tech for Better programme, run by Founders and Coders.

• Find out what the programme involves.
• Hear from clients that participated in the initial round of the programme and see the MVPs that have been developed.
• Talk to us about how you can participate in Tech for Better!

More info to follow.

Western communities are plagued with divisions; Leavers and Remainers, Momentum and moderates, ‘deplorables’ and ‘the resistance’. This has been called polarisation, and we’re in an era where identities are fractured more than ever before. Pundits and academics have stated that this is terrible for democracies. Populism is on the rise and we no longer believe in facts to make decisions.

But is this the right way to understand politics in the 21st century? To what extent can the concept of polarisation help us design online public spaces, offline forums and structure journalism?

This evening seminar looks to understand the difference between polarisation and disagreement and asks are we truly more polarised now than ever before? And does that matter?

Join us on the 23rd October where we will host a keynote by Alice Thwaite of Oxford Internet Institute and the Echo Chamber Club, followed by a panel discussion and Q&A.

Spaces are limited so please register

A discussion group for London-based members of the rationalist diaspora.

The diaspora includes, but is not limited to, LessWrong, Slate Star Codex, rationalist tumblrsphere, and parts of the Effective Altruism movement.

All are welcome, whether or not you identify as rationalist.

Usually we have a short list of articles for discussion. No need to read them, but you may well want to. This week the articles are:

1. Diversify your identity (https://markmanson.net/diversify-your-identity)
2. Conscious dreaming and controlled hallucinations (http://www.shaman-australis.com/~claude/dreams.html)
3. In defense of flogging (https://harpers.org/blog/2011/07/in-defense-of-flogging-six-questions-for-peter-moskos/)

We’ll start to talk about these around three. People usually start showing up around two, and there are almost always people around until after six, but feel free to come and go at whatever time.

We also have a subreddit, reddit.com/r/londonrationalish, which right now is mostly used for announcing meetups, but if you think it would be useful for other things too I encourage you to use them for it. You can also suggest discussion articles in the thread for that, reddit.com/r/londonrationalish/comments/8oxedb/reading_group_voting_thread/.

Hacktoberfest is a month-long celebration of open source software. Sign up online, contribute to five projects and get a sweet t-shirt.

At this event, we’ll be focusing on civic tech projects - those which enable engagement, participation or enhances the relationship between the people and government.

If you want to highlight your open source civic tech projects to attendees - you can do so here: https://goo.gl/XaMJK8

We’ll provide some snacks and refreshments.

See you at the event!

What would happen if we locked 100 people in a complex with access to barely enough food for everyone? What if we made it so only one person had the power to say who could eat what and when? Would such a society always fall into totalitarianism? What simple changes to such a society would make a difference?

We know that power can be structured by simple rules in some societies. Bee colonies have a queen with access to the best food and lays all the eggs. Are there simple rules for human societies? How do people organise themselves politically?

We’ll be investigating questions like these in the workshop using a systems modelling approach. It’s possible to create simulation models on computers where individual ‘agents’ behave and interact according to simple rules. We can then observe and study the artificial societies and political systems that we create.

You can see some examples of simulation models from the excellent explorable explanations.

The workshop will be hosted by Dr John Bryden, a research fellow at Royal Holloway, University of London and a fellow of Newspeak House. It will start with a background talk about the topic. Examples of simulation models will be provided to get you started.

You’ll need to bring a laptop and an aptitude for programming. We’re going to be using python, so it would be good if you have python 3, matplotlib and scipy installed.

Please note - you will need to bring a laptop to this event

Since June, together we’ve sourced over 130 demographic and austerity impact datasets, and made a start on setting up scrapers and writing parliamentary questions and FOIs to source the more hard to get datasets.

But we’re not finished yet. Come and join us for our next event as we continue to build the case for an evidenced-based approach to electoral campaigning in the UK.

What is Campaign Lab?

Thousands of activists across the UK volunteer their time and energy for electoral campaigns every year. Year in, year out, we use the same campaigning methods and tools we always have, because we think they work.

But there has never been any contemporary analysis or studies undertaken to assess the impact or value of electoral campaigning methods in the UK. Similarly, there have been precious few attempts to determine the effect of local economic factors such as house prices and austerity on election results and vote share.

So, if no one else has done this, then maybe it’s about time we started?

We’re building a repository of publicly available data and models to better understand the 2018 Local Elections, identifying which results bucked the national political and demographic trends. These are areas in which local campaigning may have actually made a difference and where we can start learning and testing.

This is about developing an evidence-based approach to electoral campaigning.

But we need your help.

To create these insights we need to identify as much publicly available demographic and political data sources as possible.

So if you’re interested in chipping in and developing a new data-driven approach to understand what actually goes on in elections and campaigning, bring your laptop and join us for an evening of data gathering.

You do not need to know how to code to attend and help.

You will need to bring a laptop to this event.

Everyone welcome – beer, soft drinks and food will be provided!

The rapid rise of the gig economy in recent years reflects a huge shift in the way people work. While greater flexibility has created more jobs and low unemployment, in many cases the low-pay and insecurity of some of these jobs means that workers are worse off.

Over three million people in the UK are now estimated to be in insecure work such as temporary work, low-paid self-employment or working on a zero-hours contract, according to the IPPR Prosperity and Justice report. This is not just a problem of the gig economy. The report argues that this trend has reversed the income gains and employee protections secured over much of the last century.

While policy reform is back in the news (BBC), this event will explore how technology could be used to create better work for flexible and independent workers.

We’re interested in how technology can be used to push back against these trends. We’ll discuss products or services that make flexible work benefit workers, as well as employers. For example by helping independent workers increase their income, access benefits, or have more control over when and how they work.

Speakers include:

• Emma Blackmore, Head of Partnerships and Marketing at Gigstr
• Kayleigh Walsh, Co-op member at Outlandish, CoTech and member of the Worker Co-op Council
• Anna Maybank, Co-founder of Poplar (aka Better Work Lab)
• Alysia Wanczyk, Head of Marketing at Trezeo

If you’d like to put forward a speaker then please message us through the WorkerTech meetup page.

The WorkerTech event series is brought to you by Bethnal Green Ventures and sponsored by Resolution Trust and Accenture. This event is delivered in partnership with Newspeak House, The London College of Political Technologists.

This discussion is aimed at people who have a relatively good understanding of the core concepts of effective altruism and know the basic principles behind global priorities research.

We’ll be discussing what the current gaps may be in global priorities research and if and how we as individuals and a community can do anything to help out, whether that is self directed research or working out which organisations we can support more or even whether individual and volunteer research may be negative.

A casual meetup for those who make games!

Please contact @Jupiter_Hadley if you would like to bring your game to show off, we’d love to see what you’re working on!

The Foreign & Commonwealth Office is publishing a list of all British diplomats from 1782-2015. They’re looking for bold and innovative ideas for navigating, using, and presenting the data.

• Where have we had the most female Ambassadors?
• Did diplomats follow similar career paths, or were they posted at random?
• How old are diplomats when they die?

Everyone is welcome, experienced developers and total beginners alike.

The Prize:

• the chance to see your idea become a live product, with the help of FCO experts
• a private tour with our expert historians of the FCO King Charles Street building in Whitehall
• a chance to win Palmerston memorabilia and potentially meet the infamous feline himself

The Event:

• Hacking and building: Friday 28th September 18:00-23:00 & Saturday 29th September 09:00-16:00
• Pitches and Judging: Saturday 29th September 16:30
• Prizes awarded: Saturday 29th September 18:00

Spaces are limited so please register

Some of our most important laws- public safety codes such as building, fire, or electrical codes - are considered the private property of standards development organizations and may only be read at great cost and under conditions set by them. In this talk, Carl Malamud will discuss his 10-year fight to change that situation in the U.S., Europe, and India, including court fights that are ongoing on all 3 continents.

Carl will then discuss the efforts Public Resource, the nongovernmental organization he heads, has undertaken to make other forms of knowledge more broadly available, including works of government and the ongoing fight to free up scientific knowledge for use by students.

Carl Malamud has spent 30 years making government information more broadly available on the Internet. He helped put U.S. court cases, the patent database, non-profit tax returns filed with the Internal Revenue Service, and the Securities and Exchange Commission on the net. In 1993, Carl created the first radio station on the Internet. He has been a visiting professor at the MIT Media Lab and is the recipient of the Pioneer Award from the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Carl’s current work is focused for the most part on India, where he is leading efforts to make several important repositories available. He is the author of 9 books, most recently (co-authored with Sam Pitroda), Code Swaraj: Field Notes from the Standards Satyagraha.

The numbers that govern our lives: The Office of National Statistics, new APIs and the stories we tell

There are some numbers which mean more than others. GDP rising, prices falling, the average cost of a house. Numbers tell us stories about the lives people are leading, whether they have jobs, how much they are earning and how that’s changed year on year.

Access to these numbers governs how we understand and tell those stories, and who we hold accountable for the choices that have lead us there.

The Office for National Statistics has done a spectacular job in recent years of moving us to a position where we can do more.

Come to this Citizen Beta to hear about that journey, and how it’s changing the lives of people everywhere.

Speakers

• Andrew Dudfield, Office for National Statistics
• Mevan Babakar, Full Fact
• More speakers announced soon

 Schedule

• 7.00pm – Drinks
• 7.30pm – Welcome and intro
• 7.40pm – Talks
• 8.30pm – More drinks and chat

From The Hunger Games to Ready Player One, visions of dystopia dominate contemporary ideas of the future. But is there room for a more hopeful alternative?

At the Utopia Café we explore alternative ideas of the future through the lenses of literature, film, and other media. We also consider how these ideas can be realised.

In our third meeting, we’ll be discussing Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed and exploring what the strengths and weaknesses of different types of utopian societies might be. Don’t worry if this is your first meeting as we’ll be focusing on the broad themes of the book more than specifics!

Drinks and snacks will be provided. Everyone is welcome.

This event is brought together and led by Adam Greenfield in collaboration with Theatrum Mundi

Contemporary society is traversed at every level by the software-encoded rules generically known as “algorithms.” Algorithms determine whether or not we’ll be offered a job, or a loan, or a place at school. They guide the route and mode of transit we take on our way to and from work. They drive the disposition and posture of police on our streets, and if we should happen to run afoul of those police, strongly shape just what it is we’ll experience as we make our way through the criminal justice system. They shape what we wear, what we watch, what we listen to, what kind of answers we’re offered when we ask questions, possibly even who we woke up next to this morning. Together, their field of operation is little short of total.

And yet, for all their tremendous power to condition our life choices and chances, very few of us understand algorithms — neither where they come from, nor how they do their work in the world, nor even necessarily what they are. The aim of this one-day workshop is to trace the material effects of these seemingly immaterial actors from a variety of different disciplinary perspectives, and to share what it is we know about their origin, purpose, function and impact on our lives.

For the purposes of this conversation, we have chosen to emphasize three different aspects of our encounter with algorithms: their poetics, kinaesthetics and politics.

By “poetics,” we mean a consideration for an emergent algorithmic aesthetic in art, design, literature and craft, and especially the ways in which algorithmic systems begin to suggest the metaphors through which we explain and contextualize everyday experiences. By “kinaesthetics,” we mean the ways in which algorithms and machine-learning systems capture, understand, represent or condition the human body’s movement through urban space. And by “politics,” we mean the ways in which algorithmic systems condition, constrain or determine collective choice, especially with regard to the allocation of power.

During this day-long working group we will discuss these facets of algorithmic experience. We’re especially interested in the perspective of artists that consciously use the expressive dimension of emergent technologies to communicate experience, as we believe their work plays a critical role in helping a broader public understand the capabilities, implications and limits of the technologies that already do so much to condition our lives.

Agenda

11.15 Session 1 | The Poetics of Algorithmic Culture

Topics to be discussed might include James Bridle’s putative “New Aesthetic”; the legibility (for humans) of spaces and objects designed procedurally/parametrically; the drift into other expressive media of terminology originating in the study of algorithmic systems; and dimensions of the algorithmic sublime and uncanny. Three 10-15-minute presentations and discussion.

12.30 Session 2 | The Kineaesthetics of Algorithmic Culture

Here we’ll treat aspects of the algorithmic capture and regulation of bodily experience: techniques of face recognition, gait recognition, etc.; the abandonment of traditional choreographic notation in characterizing the movement of the human body through space, and possible new approaches to doing same; pattern recognition and the characterization of stereotyped human gestures; and crowd detection, crowd-size and footfall analysis, and their use in the design of urban space. Three 10-15-minute presentations and discussion.

14.30 Session 3 | The Politics of Algorithmic Culture

By “politics,” we mean the ways in which the systems described and discussed condition, constrain or determine collective choice, especially with regard to the allocation of power. Topics might include decision-support systems; credit-scoring systems and their use as tools of discipline; new modes of association or collective. action based on blockchain technologies; and China’s “social credit” system and its implications for networked authoritarianism elsewhere. Three 10-15-minute presentations and discussion.

15.45 Session 4 | General discussion: Algorithms, activism and the arts

16.45 Wrap-up and next steps

Registration: email [email protected] to express interest in attending.

In this public talk, Roger Hallam will explain why we are entering a climate apocalypse and show how denial mechanisms stop us from seeing what is now obvious. Based upon his award winning PhD research on effective campaign mobilisation, he will outline the political response necessary to maximise the chances that we will avoid the extinction we are presently racing towards. It doesn’t involve NGOs and governments.

A year ago, Roger organised a rapid 8-week direct action campaign at Kings College which resulted in a commitment to fully divest from fossil fuels. It involved the painting of the central hall of the university for which he was suspended. He then went on a 14-day hunger strike which led to the College agreeing to all the campaign’s demands.

This talk in being held by the Rising Up Network in towns and cities all around the country in preparation for large scale civil disobedience activities in London this November which will call for emergency action on the climate crisis.

Prototype games to explore complex systems. Today we examine at the game loop in Dead Cells.

Please note - you will need to bring a laptop to this event

Since June, together we’ve sourced over 130 demographic and austerity impact datasets, and made a start on setting up scrapers and writing parliamentary questions and FOIs to source the more hard to get datasets.

But we’re not finished yet. Come and join us for our next event as we continue to build the case for an evidenced-based approach to electoral campaigning.

This coming event we’ll be:

• Doubling down on Police cuts in an effort to correlate local crime data, police cuts and local election results.
• Inputting Local Election results into Democracy Club’s beta results platform.

What is Campaign Lab?

Thousands of activists across the UK volunteer their time and energy for electoral campaigns every year. Year in, year out, we use the same campaigning methods and tools we always have, because we think they work.

But there has never been any contemporary analysis or studies undertaken to assess the impact or value of electoral campaigning methods in the UK.

So, if no one else has done this, then maybe it’s about time we started?

We’re planning to build a repository of publicly available data and develop a model to better understand the 2018 Local Elections and identify which results bucked the national political and demographic trends. These are areas in which local campaigning may have actually made a difference and where we can start learning and testing.

This is about developing an evidence-based approach to campaigning.

But we need your help.

To create these insights we need to identify as much publicly available demographic and political data sources as possible.

So if you’re interested in chipping in and developing a new data-driven approach to understand what actually goes on in elections and campaigning, bring your laptop and join us for an evening of data gathering where we’ll be asking:

• What existing data sources are already structured at a ward level?
• How can we transform data that is not at a ward level into data that is?
• What data is missing and how can we use Parliamentary Questions and FOIs to access it?

You do not need to know how to code to attend and help.

You will need to bring a laptop to this event.

Everyone welcome – beer, soft drinks and food will be provided!

Article 13 of the EU Copyright Directive makes platforms liable for copyright violations of the content they host. It’s facing yet another major vote on 12 September, with dramatically conflicting narratives coming from rights-holders, industry bodies, artists, musicians, and free speech organisations.

Is Article 13 good for musicians or just music labels? Will it usher in a new era of automated Internet censorship or instead help direct royalties to under-appreciated artists? Where do UK political parties stand and why aren’t MEPs voting on strict partisan lines?

Join us for a lively night as we review the current status of the Directive and consider all sides of this important debate.

Speakers include:

• Jake Beaumont-Nesbitt, Copyright Committee, International Music Managers Forum
• Anna Mazgal, EU Policy Advisor, Wikimedia Foundation
• Mike Morel, Campaigns Manager (& musician), Open Rights Group

Are the robots coming for our reporting jobs? How can we augment reporting workflows? What would the automated utopia look like for journalism?

This month, we’re looking at the whole gamut of automation historically used in journalism, and the future promised by AI.

Panel discussion, with:

Bill Thompson, Principal Engineer, BBC Research & Development

Bill has been working in, on and around the Internet since 1984, and was Internet Ambassador for PIPEX, the UK’s first commercial ISP, and Head of New Media at Guardian Newspapers where he built the paper’s first website. He helped develop the Labour Party’s internet policy in 1996.

Bill appears regularly on Click on BBC World Service radio and writes for a range of publications.

Mevan Babakar, Head of Automated Factchecking at Full Fact

Mevan leads a tool-building team that scales the work of factcheckers around the world for the UK’s leading factchecking charity. She co-authored the seminal report “The State of Automated Factchecking” in 2016.

« more speakers announced soon»

Chaired by Manisha Ganguly, Director of the Future of Journalism network.

Drinks and discussions to follow.

Places are very limited so please Register.

A discussion group for London-based members of the rationalist diaspora.

The diaspora includes, but is not limited to, LessWrong, Slate Star Codex, rationalist tumblrsphere, and parts of the Effective Altruism movement.

All are welcome, whether or not you identify as rationalist.

Usually we have a short list of articles for discussion. No need to read them, but you may well want to. This week the articles are:

1. When Your Left Arm Becomes A Chicken
2. The New Politics of Meaning
3. Can Economists and Humanists Ever be Friends?
4. Yuppie Fishtanks: YIMBYism explained without “supply and demand”
5. The Cambist and Lord Iron: A Fairy Tale of Economics

We’ll start to talk about these around three. People usually start showing up around two, and there are almost always people around until after six, but feel free to come and go at whatever time.

We also have a subreddit, reddit.com/r/londonrationalish, which right now is mostly used for announcing meetups, but if you think it would be useful for other things too I encourage you to use them for it. You can also suggest discussion articles in the thread for that, reddit.com/r/londonrationalish/comments/8oxedb/reading_group_voting_thread/.

“Everything you ever wanted is on the other side of fear”

HACK Fear is an interdisciplinary hackathon bringing together technologists, neuroscientists, psychologists, academics, hardware tinkerers, UX, gamers, activists with parkour and mindfulness practitioners to team up and experiment on designing and building out ideas and solutions to hack our own fear and develop our self awareness through technology.

There will be:

• Interactive workshops, both physical and non
• Intensive hacking sessions where teams work on the design and implementation of a prototype that makes progress in hacking fear
• Input and feedback from subject matter experts
• Deeper work uncovering and moving past your own fears and shared ones

We welcome coming both solo and as a team. Cross disciplinary teams will be created with the intent to maximise the potential towards successful fear hacking.

Please note: Bring a laptop. The event will be livestreamed and remote listeners will have opportunities to input comments/requests. Inform the organisers if you do not want to be recorded.

The ideas that come out of Fear Hack could contribute towards R&D for the award winning work of Karen Palmer, who is currently in development for RIOT*, an emotionally responsive film which uses facial recognition and A.I. technology to navigate through a dangerous riot.

*RIOT: You are confronted by a riot cop. Respond with fear and the film goes in one direction respond with anger and it goes in another. RIOT makes the player aware of their subconscious behaviour and enables them to consciously build new neurological pathways in their brain, to override automatic behaviour responses and create new ones.

Fashion consumers can make better buying decisions if they can find out whether an item is ethically produced or not. Likewise, transparency along the fashion supply chain allows investors to better understand where their money is going. Ultimately, clear investor information can help manufacturing workers in the global garment industry know who they are working for and how to leverage for better working conditions.

Yet, supply chain and investor information are scarce, scattered and hard to access.

On August 23, 2018, Clean Clothes Campaign, in collaboration with OpenCorporates and WikiRate, invite you to an Open Data Sprint to find out what kind of investor data is publicly available and how we can all start connecting the dots in supply chains.

We will bring together researchers, data analysts, and activists to map investor to company relations in the fashion industry. The focus of the sprint will be on some of the largest companies within the apparel industry, such as HANES, ASOS, GAP, and H&M.

After the research and review session, we invite you to stay with us for a get together.

Follow updates about the event on twitter with the hashtag #InvestorDataSprint

Program:

• 13:30 - 13:40 Welcoming remarks and introduction
• 13:40 - 13:50 Learn how to research (Goals, Methods, Process)
• 13:50 - 14:00 Group settings
• 14:00 - 15:50 Researching in groups
• 15:50 - 16:20 Share findings and wrap-up
• 16:20 - 17:00 Networking and refreshments

Refreshments will be served. Please let us know if you have any dietary requirements.

As this is an interactive event please bring a laptop so you can participate in the research. The event is open to the public but the venue has limited space, so please confirm your attendance by registering.

A new network for people of colour in the UK - open to anyone working in, or interested in, journalism.

Catch up with exciting plans to develop the Race Beat network, meet other journalists of colour, and feed in your own ideas on what the collective should look like and focus on in the future.

We will dedicate around 30 minutes to workshopping a piece of work/pitch/project proposal by one of our members.

For decades people wishing to organize in more cooperative ways have been encouraged to make decisions by consensus, and for good reason: when it works well, it’s awesome. However—when it doesn’t work—it can lead to personal guilt, frustration; organizational paralysis or disintegration.

What should we do when consensus can’t be reached? What if cooperative decision-making is better achieved in such cases with practices other than “reaching consensus”? In this talk I will explore how score voting with tweaks can provide a simple, scalable and systematically cooperative alternative to the often utopian ideal of consensus.

Please note, due to space this event is limited to only 15 people. If you aren’t able to come, please cancel your ticket so someone else is able to attend.

Launch of the debut book by Carl Miller, Newspeak Fellow & Research Director of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media at Demos: “The Death of Gods – the new global power grab”, a ground-breaking journey to reveal the new centres of power and control in the twenty-first century.

The old gods are dying. Giant corporations collapse overnight. Newspapers are being swallowed. Stock prices plummet with a tweet. Governments are losing control. The old familiarities are tumbling down and a strange new social order is rising in their place. More crime now happens online than offline. Facebook has grown bigger than any state, bots battle elections, technologists have re-invented democracy and information wars are breaking out around us. New mines produce crypto-currencies, coders write policy, and algorithms shape our lives in more ways than we can imagine. What is going on?

For centuries, writers and thinkers have used power as a prism through which to view and understand the world at moments of seismic change. This talk will be about Carl’s journey to find the reality of power today. From a cyber-crime raid in suburbia to the engine rooms of Silicon Valley, and from the digital soldiers of Berkshire to the hackers of Las Vegas, he will explain how power – the most important currency of all – is being transformed, fought over, won and lost. As power escapes from its old bonds, he shows us where it has gone, the shape it now takes and how it touches each of our lives.

Meet and mix with Londoners working in or passionate about social impact and enterprise.

No agenda - This is purely social and with the goal to make connections, learn and collaborate within the industry.

Pop in at anytime between 6-8:30pm for drinks, nibbles and mingling.

BYOB and BYOGrub! Please contribute whatever you would like to share with the group.

Get ready to mix and mingle with people working or interested in the tech for good space over a drink or two. You’ll have the opportunity to hear from some tech for good funders and field-builders, and find out who is actively involved in this space.

We’ll kick off at 6.30pm with a short round of introductions of tech for good funders and field-builders, dive straight into community announcements and use the rest of the time to socialise with some quality people in this community.

Registration: We charge £3 (+VAT) to help manage the number of people who show up on the night, which goes towards the cost of running the event. We don’t want this to become a barrier to attendance, so get in touch via Meetup messages or directly with [email protected] if this causes a problem for you.

The #metoo movement spread virally in October 2017 prompting a global dialogue about countering sexual violence and assault. A stream of more localised movements brought more contextual alternatives around the world. Almost a year on, it’s time to reflect. What has been achieved in challenging norms? How do we build on the momentum? What is the role of digital technology in reporting, solidarity and opening dialogue?

Introducing Hollaback! a global, people-powered movement to end harassment. We work together to understand the problem, ignite public conversations, and develop innovative strategies that ensure equal access to public spaces on and offline. Hollaback! are delighted to invite you to an event to unravel strategies and methodologies which are open for civil society to challenge harassment.

Please join us to hear from these incredible speakers in a panel discussion:

• Laura Somoggi - Women’s Empowerment Expert at Womanity - Womanity fights for girls’ and women’s empowerment and Laura manages The Womanity Award for the Prevention of Violence Against Women, an international award that supports collaborations to combat gender-based violence.
• Manisha Ganguly - Newspeak House Fellow Manisha specialises in investigative journalism and ran a feminist news website and collective in India for five years, including anti-harassment and bystander intervention campaigns
• Molly - Hollaback! London Site Leader
• Miranda Dobson - Hollaback! Oxford Site Leader Miranda is also Communication Manager at the Orchid Project who have a vision of a world free from female genital cutting
• Courtney Young - Board Member, Hollaback and Founder of Think Young Media - a professional storytelling and digital media firm that practices strategic storytelling.

Moderated by Amy O’Donnell - Board Member, Hollaback! and Digital in Programme Lead at Oxfam

Celebrate summer with DataKind UK, a non-profit helping charitable organisations explore and unlock the possibilities within their data.

Impact Founders is a community-run support system for impact-driven entrepreneurs and their companies, which are trying to contribute to solving the world biggest problems.

We love the London summer & are celebrating it with our first Impact Founders Summer BBQ, and we’d love to have you join us!

While attending is free, we ask for a contribution on the day of the event to cover costs of the food.

Find out more about Impact Founders here: www.impactfounders.io

Impact Founders is powered by www.realchangers.com, the recruitment matching platform for impact-driven companies.

Ben Falk will be leading a session getting volunteers to log as many subject access requests as possible, from as many organisations as possible, as a first step towards building a ‘data democracy.’

You will be given instructions on how to request your data from organisations that include the Home Office, the NHS and Facebook, hopefully highlighting how much of your data is available to you, and prompting you to ask the question ‘what do I do with all this?’

Please bring a laptop or tablet if you wish to take part.

We’ve recently seen a flurry of new startup programmes aimed at supporting innovation in public services - from accelerators and incubators to catalysts and challenge prizes.

In this joint CitizenBeta + Tech for Good Meetup we’re bringing together some of these programmes to discuss how they’re supporting startups and public service innovation.

• What are the opportunities and challenges for startups in govtech and civic tech?
• How do these programmes help startups tackle the challenges of developing and selling tech for public services?
• What do they look for when they select startups?

Talks and Speakers

We’ll be joined by speakers from:

• GovTech Catalyst
• Mayor of London’s Civic Innovation Challenge
• Bethnal Green Ventures
• more to be announced

Schedule

• 6.00pm – Drinks
• 6.30pm – Welcome and intro
• 6.40pm – Talks
• 9.00pm – More drinks and chat

See you there!

PS: Don’t miss out! Applications for the GovTech Catalyst and the Mayor of London Civic Innovation Challenge are already open and will close soon.

Apply by July 8th for the Mayor of London’s Civic Innovation Challenge. Offering £15,000 plus partnerships for solutions in 7 challenge areas: dementia, housing and data, active travel, physical activity, isolation and loneliness, electric vehicles and financial inclusion.

Apply by July 18th for the 1st GovTech Catalyst. Offering up to £80,000 to develop a new digital solution to help track waste from source through treatment to end destination.

Commonspoly is a hacked version and critique of the game Monopoly, where the goals are to first re-municipalize private goods and then turn them into Commons. Rather than compete against each other, players must overcome ingrained training and ‘rational’, self-interest maximizing behaviours and instead learn how to cooperate to create a commons-oriented locality. It’s also great fun to play and a good challenge.

We’ll be playing with several boards simultaneously, which will make for a lively game. Apart from enjoying a fun and thought-provoking board game, we’ll also be chatting about commoning, radical politics, collaboration and much more in the context of the game.

An action-oriented workshop hosted by Stacco Troncoso, Richard Bartlett and Natalia Lombardo.

The workshop is free but places are limited! Please sign up by emailing contact AT p2pfoundation.net

From The Hunger Games to Ready Player One, visions of dystopia dominate contemporary ideas of the future. But is there room for a more hopeful alternative?

At the Utopia Café we explore alternative ideas of the future through the lenses of literature, film, and other media. We also consider how these ideas can be realised.

Join us for our second meeting as we discuss Rutger Bregman’s Utopia for Realists and sketch out what we think Utopia could look like. Don’t worry if you haven’t attended before: we try to just use the book as a starting point for much broader debates!

Drinks and snacks will be provided. Everyone is welcome :)

If you are trying to organise in a decentralised, collaborative, less-hierarchical team, you are probably asking yourself: How do we include people in decisions without spending so much time in meetings? How do we develop an open, collaborative culture? How do we encourage participation, engagement, and shared responsibility? And if nobody is in charge, where does accountability come from?

You are not the only one. For the last decade, we have been immersed in these challenges, as we co-founded and built Loomio and Enspiral, two pioneering decentralised organisations. (Read more about us here.)

Everyone seems to face the same challenges when we try to work without a traditional command-and-control structure. The good news is: you don’t have to reinvent the wheel! Many of us have found solutions, and we are here to guide you along the way.

In this Masterclass we will share with you 14 Patterns for Decentralised Organising. These patterns are like lenses for understanding the challenges of working with less hierarchy, and the practical responses that have proven to solve them.

Through this full day of participatory learning, you’ll not only gain new understandings, connections and fresh perspectives. You’ll leave the workshop with practical actions that you can start applying right away, to grow a purpose-driven team environment that feels nourishing, engaging, hugely productive and resilient.

Read More & Register

Last year, 46 journalists were killed. 262 currently remain incarcerated. In the wake of the Capital Gazette shooting and attacks on journalists by governments and the far right around the world, how are we to safeguard journalists in the field physically and digitally from harm?

For this chapter of Future of Journalism, we’re threat-modelling the future of journalists.

It’ll kick off with lightning talks by:

• Rebecca Vincent, the UK Bureau Director for Reporters Without Borders/Reporters sans frontières (RSF), which works to promote and defend press freedom around the world. Rebecca is a former US diplomat, with more than 13 years of experience working on human rights and freedom of expression.
• Colin Pereira, Risk and Safety strategist for the Committee to Protect Journalists, supporting journalists and orgnaisations in the field through both physical & digital safety. Colin will be discussing far right threats, which start off as a digital threat and can have physical security issues.
• Joseph Cox, journalist for VICE’s Motherboard, covering cybersecurity, the digital underground, and the surveillance industry.
• Dr Ala’a Shehabi, activist and co-founder Bahrain Watch, a research and investigation collective. Ala’a is former policy analyst at Rand Europe. She has faced arrest while working with journalists in the field.

Talks followed by world cafe style discussion, and drinks.

This is a workshop for people already exposed to the general idea of Ethics in Mathematics, have some intuition for the need for it, and who are keen to figure out how progress can be made in this area.

The workshop will be small, 10 - 15 people, and is by invitation only. It is mostly for people who have done or are doing mathematics or something adjacent, whether in industry or not. Maurice Chiodo, behind CUEiMS will be joining us.

The workshop will focus on imagining and defining what good looks like, after which we will come up with instrumental goals to get there. We will be identifying who in the room can help with what: from just offering ideas, to taking actions.

Agenda

• 6.30 - 7.00pm - Arrivals, food and drinks
• 7.00 - 7.30pm - Introductions and expectations circle
• 7.30 - 8.00pm - Visioning and goal storming
• 8.00 - 8.30pm - Prioritisation: Evaluating goals by tractability, importance and neglect (prioritisation)
• 8.30 - 8.40pm - Break
• 8.40 - 9.00pm - Action item generation and failure mode spotting
• 9.00 - 9.30pm - Voting, action claiming/owning and collaboration going forwards
• 9.30 onwards - Informal discussion

If there is someone you know who you think should be here, please contact the organiser with a brief description of them and an invite can be sent.

Drinks and snacks will be provided, donations in cash on the day appreciated. If you have any dietary requirements, please contact the organiser.

Hear examples of charities using AI, machine learning, web forms and chat bots to great effect.

Measuring good: Defining product metrics to maximise social impact

Whether you’re working in a for-profit or not-for-profit, as a socially motivated product person you care about making the world a better place.

This meetup is about the challenge of defining product metrics that allow you to optimise the social impact of your product. We will be discussing questions like:

• What in-product metrics do product managers use as a proxy for longer term social impact measures (that might be measured outside the product)?
• How do you make sure that social impact measures can stand up to revenue and growth metrics in prioritisation discussions?
• What do funders look for to give them confidence that an early stage product is generating positive outcomes?

Speakers

• Matt Kepple, Founder at Makerble
• Rachel Kettlewell, Digital Manager at Esmee Fairbairn Foundation

Suggested Reading

• 10 Reasons not to measure impact and what to do instead
• CAST “Mist” Growth (Measuring Integrated Social Tech)

P.S. thanks to everyone in the community who did the quick feedback poll last week - We’re doing this event because it was your top voted topic! If you’ve not done the poll yet, have your say here: Survey

The sell out corn-based snack event of the quarter is back. It’s Wine and Wotsits time.

You say wot?

That’s right, there aren’t enough wotsits in campaigners lives, so a few times a year we co-ordinate people coming together to share some of their successes. It’s a pecha kucha format, which means approx 5 presentations of 20 slides, each lasting 20 seconds. It will be an opportunity to hear from cutting edge speakers doing exciting things. Previous speakers include those from Save the Children, Shelter, WWF, Unlock Democracy, Which?, Change.org, National Autistic Society, Care2, Let Toys be Toys, Transform Justice and many more. If you have something you’d love to talk about, please let us know!

Wot Wot Where?

We are lucky to be back at our regular venue, Newspeak House (big thanks to them for hosting)

Wot Wot Who?

• Esther Foreman, Social Change Agency
• Mike Harris, 89up
• Beth Knight-Yamamoto, Citizens Advice
• Helen Gravestock, Clic Sargent

How many tickets are there?

A limited number, we generally have a waitlist, so sign up early. We try and fit in as many people as we can.

How does it work?

You show up with whatever you want to drink (wine, fizz, non-alcoholic, whatever takes your fancy), we provide the wotsits and some cups. You have a great evening. It’s deliberately timed to allow people to come straight from work.

Register

We’re celebrating the launch of Land Explorer!

Land Explorer is our interactive online mapping platform that provides access to information on land; such as use, ownership and planning. We’ve been improving and updating our initial prototype and are ready to launch our latest BETA version!

Come and join us: test drive new mapping and drawing tools, enrol in future BETA launches, give us feedback.

We’d love the pleasure of your company, so come and celebrate with land professionals, policy folk, public servants, data geeks, and common good land users.

Our aim is to provide community groups, charities and not for profit businesses who manage land for public benefit, with access to the information they need, so everyone has easy access to information about the land around them.

Even in an age of increasingly open data, finding information about land can be time consuming, complicated and costly.

Developers and corporate landowners who purchase and develop land for private profit have the resources to do this but communities, and those seeking to own and manage land for the common good, often can’t access the same information.

Land Explorer has been created in response to this, utilising recently opened up MasterMap data from Ordnance Survey, and a range of other open data, to empower communities and enable more land to be managed for the common good.

Land Explorer helps to level the playing field for community-led development: housing, workspaces, green spaces, energy generation and rural or farming enterprises.

Land Explorer: spaces to live, work, play, generate & grow.

Please note - you will need to bring a laptop to this event

On June 13th we ran our first Campaign Lab, together we sourced over 90 demographic and austerity impact datasets, and made a start on setting up scrapers and writing parliamentary questions and FOIs to source the more hard to get datasets.

But we’re not finished yet. Come and join us for our next event as we continue to build the case for an evidenced-based approach to electoral campaigning.

What is Campaign Lab?

Thousands of activists across the UK volunteer their time and energy for electoral campaigns every year. Year in, year out, we use the same campaigning methods and tools we always have, because we think they work.

But there has never been any contemporary analysis or studies undertaken to assess the impact or value of electoral campaigning methods in the UK.

So, if no one else has done this, then maybe it’s about time we started?

We’re planning to build a repository of publicly available data and develop a model to better understand the 2018 Local Elections and identify which results bucked the national political and demographic trends. These are areas in which local campaigning may have actually made a difference and where we can start learning and testing.

This is about developing an evidence-based approach to campaigning.

But we need your help.

To create these insights we need to identify as much publicly available demographic and political data sources as possible.

So if you’re interested in chipping in and developing a new data-driven approach to understand what actually goes on in elections and campaigning, bring your laptop and join us for an evening of data gathering where we’ll be asking:

• What existing data sources are already structured at a ward level?
• How can we transform data that is not at a ward level into data that is?
• What data is missing and how can we use Parliamentary Questions and FOIs to access it?

You do not need to know how to code to attend and help.

You will need to bring a laptop to this event.

Everyone welcome – beer, soft drinks and food will be provided!

In 2008 mySociety’s Freedom of Information platform WhatDoTheyKnow.com was born.

10 years on, the site is the biggest online archive of Freedom of Information requests in the UK, and has over 6 million visits a year.

With 130,144 users making over 480,000 requests, the site has helped millions of people to get the information they need to understand the workings of public authorities, and to hold them to account.

WhatDoTheyKnowPro, a new powerful toolkit which provides extra functionality for journalists and other people who use FOI in their jobs, has also just been launched.

Now all of that is a reason to celebrate!

mySociety will host an evening of drinks, nibbles and presentations to reflect on the last 10 years, and to look forward to what the future holds for WhatDoTheyKnow.

As spaces are limited, this event is by invitation only and you must present your invitation on arrival. To request an invitation, please email [email protected] and she’ll let you know if spaces are available.

Communal meals at Newspeak House, open to members and non-members alike. A great chance to meet the fellows and get the latest tech & politics gossip.

BYOB, suggested donation £5.

Ration Club is run by volunteers from the community. If you’d be interested in cooking, contact [email protected]

Turkey goes to the polls for a snap election, both presidential and parliamentary, on 24 June. In a rare move, Turkish opposition have largely united against President Erdoğan who could be at risk of losing parliamentary majority. And if no presidential candidate wins 50%+ of votes on June 24, the election will go to a second round in July.

Head over to Newspeak to watch the Turkish election results come in (English broadcast) as we eat, potluck style. Bring a Turkish dish to share if you can, and of course, BYOB.

Cook the Books Club is a facilitated reading group to explore what we can learn about companies using public data sources, drawing inspiration from the latest ideas in social science.

In the fourth session we will discuss platform companies. The data that platform companies collect gives them unique advantages but can also make their operations traceable. What opportunities for intervention does this open, and what does “scraping” reveal about platform capitalism? For inspiration for the discussion, we suggest a number of readings and data sources, focused on creative ways people have studied AirBnb.

Please send an email to [email protected] for more information if you’d like to take part.

• 7:00pm: Doors open and welcome
• 7:30pm: Talks
• 8:15pm: Discussion & drinks

Newspeak House invites you to thoughtful talks and discussions on what Blockchain is and is not, and on real impactful applications of the technology that are already deployed today.

We are very happy to have Ben Laurie, Head of Security and Transparency, at DeepMind, and Sarah Meiklejohn, Reader in Cryptography and Security at UCL, with us to talk about:

• real world non-financial applications of blockchain technology, and
• the trade-offs of blockchain architectures.

Afterwards, there will be group discussions and plenty of opportunity to network.

Some drinks and snacks will be provided by Newspeak House.

If you’d be interested in speaking at or sponsoring this or future meetups, get in touch with @nwspk.

This event is hosted by Andreas Kirsch (@blackhc) at Newspeak House, a community space focusing on the intersection of politics and technology.

About the speakers Sarah Meiklejohn (smeiklej.com)

Sarah Meiklejohn is a Reader in Cryptography and Security at University College London. She has broad research interests in computer security and cryptography, and has worked on topics such as anonymity and criminal abuses in cryptocurrencies, privacy-enhancing technologies, and bringing transparency to shared systems.

Ben Laurie (@BenLaurie)

Ben Laurie is the head of security and transparency at DeepMind in London. He was a founding director of The Apache Software Foundation, a founder of OpenSSL, a member of the Shmoo Group, a director of the Open Rights Group, Director of Security at The Bunker Secure Hosting and spent 10 years in Google’s security team. He is a software engineer, protocol designer and cryptographer.

Ben has worked on Certificate Transparency at Google, and on Verifiable Data Audits at DeepMind Health using blockchain technology.

Communal meals at Newspeak House, open to members and non-members alike. A great chance to meet the fellows and get the latest tech & politics gossip.

BYOB, suggested donation £5.

Ration Club is run by volunteers from the community. If you’d be interested in cooking, contact [email protected]

A Roundtable on Political Psychology at Newspeak House with Lee de-Wit (University College London).

Registration by invitation only.

Agenda

• 18:30 - 19:00 Networking and arrivals
• 19:00 - 19:15 Dr de-Wit opening with a short talk
• 19:15 - 20:30 Roundtable facilitated discussion
• 20:30 - 21:00 Open discussion

Lee’s talk

This discussion will review key findings in the psychology of politics from the last 10 years. This research has discovered a range of individual differences between voters with different political leanings (including different moral values, different personality profiles, and different patterns of neural activity), and more recently individual differences in cognitive flexibility between Leave and Remain voters in the UK’s Brexit referendum.

These differences will be explored in relation to claims that this ‘psychological profiling’ can be used to effectively target different voters (in the context of the Cambridge Analytica scandal). Following that Lee will explore some recent findings from my own research that seeks to test for underlying differences in psychological beliefs and cognitive styles that might help to explain divergent opinions on political polarised topics like immigration and inequality.

Lee is a Teaching Fellow at UCL in the Division of Psychology and Language Sciences. He has recently published a book on the psychology of voting with Elliot and Thompson exploring the biases we bring to the political process.

A discussion group for London-based members of the rationalist diaspora.

The diaspora includes, but is not limited to, LessWrong, Slate Star Codex, rationalist tumblrsphere, and parts of the Effective Altruism movement.

All are welcome, whether or not you identify as rationalist.

Reading for this discussion:

1. Young Men Are Playing Video Games Instead of Getting Jobs. That’s OK. (For Now.)
2. Basic Income, Not Basic Jobs: Against Hijacking Utopia
3. Institutional Memory and Reverse Smuggling
4. Understand - Ted Chiang

Communal meals at Newspeak House, open to members and non-members alike. A great chance to meet the fellows and get the latest tech & politics gossip.

BYOB, suggested donation £5.

Ration Club is run by volunteers from the community. If you’d be interested in cooking, contact [email protected]

Thousands of activists across the UK volunteer their time and energy for electoral campaigns every year. Year in, year out, we use the same campaigning methods and tools we always have, because we think they work.

But there has never been any contemporary analysis or studies undertaken to assess the impact or value of electoral campaigning methods in the UK.

So, if no one else has done this, then maybe it’s about time we started?

We’re planning to build a repository of publicly available data and develop a model to better understand the 2018 Local Elections and identify which results bucked the national political and demographic trends. These are areas in which local campaigning may have actually made a difference and where we can start learning and testing.

This is about developing an evidence-based approach to campaigning.

But we need your help.

To create these insights we need to identify as much publicly available demographic and political data sources as possible.

So if you’re interested in chipping in and developing a new data-driven approach to understand what actually goes on in elections and campaigning, bring your laptop and join us for an evening of data gathering where we’ll be asking:

• What existing data sources are already structured at a ward level?
• How can we transform data that is not at a ward level into data that is?
• What data is missing and how can we use Parliamentary Questions and FOIs to access it?

You do not need to know how to code to attend and help.

Everyone welcome – beer, soft drinks and pizza will be provided!

Register

Join us for the launch of Rufus Pollock’s new book Open Revolution – New Rules for a New Age

Forget everything you think you know about the digital age. The simple truth is that it’s not about privacy, AI or blockchain—it’s about the rules. And hope lies in the fact that we can change them in a radically better way.

Will the digital revolution give us information democracies or information empires? The answer lies not in technology but in a political choice: a choice between making information Open, freely accessible to all, or, making it Closed, exclusively owned and controlled.

In his provocative book Dr Rufus Pollock, founder and president of Open Knowledge, challenges our preconceptions about how the digital age work and its impact on our world.

Open Revolution shows us the source of the increasing inequality and stunted innovation that comes with building our digital age on outdated rules. It offers a solution for how to reboot those rules on a more equal and innovative basis.

North Korea has been directly involved in a wide array of global cyber attacks, including an attempt to steal $1bn from the New York Federal Reserve, the WannaCry ransomware attack, and the Sony hack. Trump is now under pressure to confront North Korea about its aggressive hacking strategy alongside nuclear security issues.

On the night before the historic Trump-Kim summit*, Newspeak House hosts a drinks & discussion evening with Evans J.R. Revere, retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in 2007 as the principal deputy assistant secretary and acting assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. Currently Non-Resident Senior Fellow with the The Brookings Institution and a senior advisor at the Albright Stonebridge Group, Revere has also served as the president of the Korea Society and has extensive experience in negotiations with North Korea

The event is hosted by Ekin Can Genç, a Resident Fellow at Newspeak House and an incoming postgrad student at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford. Ekin is a policy consultant and has a background in international politics through work in Brussels, London, Istanbul and Washington, D.C.

Agenda (11 June)

• 19:00 Door open
• 19:30 Talk by Evans J.R. Revere
• 20:00 Q&A
• 20:30 Drinks & Networking
• 21:00 End

No ticket required.

*The Trump-Kim summit has now been called off – see the letter [but our event will still take place!]: whitehouse letter to kim jong un

Come and discuss the threats and futures of the fourth estate.

We’re looking at collaborative journalism models for our first chapter. It’ll kick off with lightning talks by:

Jules Giraudat, deputy editor of Forbidden Stories, that allows journalists under threat to securely back up their work, so the network can continue the work if something happens to them. Jules is coordinating the Daphne Project, continuing the work of murdered Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia on corruption and money laundering, through a global collaborative investigation of 18 news organizations and 45 reporters from 15 countries. (@JulesGiraudat), (@FbdnStories), (@DaphneProject)

Nick Waters, investigative journalist for BellingCat, that uses collaborative techniques with open source information to conduct investigations such as the downing of MH17, Russian airstrikes in Syria, and the use of chemical weapons in Syria. Nick has investigated the bombing of Damascus’ water supply and specialises in tracking the Islamic State’s drone program using open source information. (@N_Waters89), (@Bellingcat)

Jack Barton, journalist for WikiTribune, a publication founded last year by Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia, to pair the crowd-sourced strengths of Wikipedia with the skills of professional journalists. Jack focuses on international law and corruption. (@jackbarton91), (@WikiTribune)

Maeve McClenaghan, investigative journalist for Bureau Local, that works with local reporters to dig into datasets and publish over 220 exclusive investigative stories in partnership with over 50 local national and international media outlets. Maeve is part of the Bureau Local team, and founder of the award-winning podcast The Tip Off which aims to demystify the inner-workings of investigative journalism. (@MaeveMCC), (@BureauLocal)

In a live podcast Novara tackles some of the big concepts in left-wing politics – from imperialism to revolution, from political ecology to political economy, from electoralism to insurrection.

After the recording, unwind with a few drinks, lively conversation and, doubtless, a disagreement or two.

Communal meals at Newspeak House, open to members and non-members alike. A great chance to meet the fellows and get the latest tech & politics gossip.

BYOB, suggested donation £5.

Ration Club is run by volunteers from the community. If you’d be interested in cooking, contact [email protected]

Technology is completely changing the way we live, work, and play.

What does it mean to be a citizen in the digital age? What common things do we care about and want to tackle as a group? Those are the questions we’re asking people all over the world through our global inquiry into citizens in the digital age.

We kick things off in London where The Fourth Group will host a public conversation. It’s really simple: Join us, engage in debate, meet new people, be part of a movement.

This year The Fourth Group (in partnership with UCL and the Global Social Entrepreneurship Network) is running an inquiry to learn what people want, problems they want to sort out and what actions they want to take in regards to the fourth industrial revolution. To this, we are hosting conversations in every region of the world, and giving everyone the opportunity to engage through our online survey. After listening, we will develop an agenda of issues and solutions which will be launched at Politics Summit 2018 in London. This agenda will form the basis of The Fourth Group’s actions in 2019 and beyond.

Join us at our 2nd WorkerTech meetup - an event for anyone interested in the future of work, and using technology to improve the prospects and power of workers.

“The opportunity for tech-led, pro-worker innovation are many, but there are just too few people pursuing this agenda. That’s what we want to change.” - Gavin Kelly, CEO Resolution Trust

We want to bring together a community of people who can help spread, use, develop, fund and support new WorkerTech solutions. For example, these could be tools that help workers organise and increase bargaining power, boost skills and pay and curb insecurity.

Join us for drinks, talks and networking from 6.30pm at Newspeak House.

If you’d like to speak about an initiative or demo a product on the night then get in touch: [email protected]

Co-working on radical post-capitalist projects.

We look for a wide range of initiatives: from thought-provoking artworks, to alternative financial models and from cooperatively run factories, to tools for collective decision-making. We welcome projects that aim to instigate change and last until they achieve their goal, as well as those designed to survive the long haul. Our program is especially suitable for projects that hope to grow out of the idea phase.

Register

Come on down to the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain’s #DeliverJustice party - raising money for our campaign to end Deliveroo exploitation.

Imagine putting your health at risk to deliver something as banal as a pizza. As absurd as it sounds, this is the reality faced by many Deliveroo couriers, who force themselves to make deliveries in snow, sleet and rain, just to earn enough to get by. By taking advantage of legal loopholes the company is able to deny these workers basic rights such as the right to a guaranteed minimum wage, holiday pay and trade union rights.

Abandoned by their employer and abandoned by the government, a courageous group of Deliveroo couriers decided to come together and fight back. First unionising with the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) and then launching a ground-breaking legal challenge against this food delviery behemoth, these young couriers proved that nobody is too small to take on the powerful.

But now, they need your help. While their legal challenge established the overwhelming desire of the couriers to collectively bargain for their rights, Deliveroo was able to win by inserting an eleventh-hour legal loophole into its contracts. Now, these couriers, backed by the IWGB and armed with a crack legal team including legendary trade union barrister John Hendy QC, are taking Deliveroo on in the High Court.

On 12 June our lawyers will be going to the High Court to overturn a decision preventing the couriers from appealing the case. This case could have massive consequences not only for Deliveroo couriers, but for all workers in the so-called “gig economy”. Winning will create a major precedent that could stop future companies from exploiting workers the same way Deliveroo does, but defeat, could push back a number of earlier victories and put us back years in terms of employment rights.

The potential cost liability is in the tens of thousands and the IWGB, a grassroots union for low-paid and precarious workers, has already been saddled with a £10,000 legal bill by Deliveroo’s lawyers.

Despite the company’s attempts to scare us out of taking action by landing us with legal costs, we are determined to fight back. That’s why we are asking for £50,000 to cover these and any future costs. Any money that isn’t spent will go into the IWGB’s fighting fund, to take on other exploitative companies. With your help we will make sure the courts #deliverjustice.

There’s no reason why we have to allow this multi-billion pound company to bring Victorian work practices into the 21st century. We need your help to push back against the financial might of this company that can spend millions fighting our legal challenge, so please share and donate.

Register

If you are interested in scholarship or activism on the topic of digital labour and the future of work, then consider joining our regular meet-up series that will be held in London.

We aim to meet from 7pm have a few drinks and talk about topics related to digital labour, the platform economy, digital gig work, and online freelancing.

Hosted by

• Mark Graham (@geoplace), Professor of Internet Geography at @oiioxford, researching digital labour, gig economy, economic geography, critical data studies, development, and digital divides.
• Jamie Woodcock (@jamie_woodcock), Fellow at LSE researching digital labour, sociology of work, resistance, videogames, and streaming. Publications: https://t.co/udwCHIzjhh + https://t.co/F66wMq9SSy

Digital and design principles are a well established concept across the tech and startup worlds, and there are already some great sets being used by some of the most digitally mature charities. The Centre for the Acceleration of Social Technology (CAST) has conducted research over the last four months into how charities use principles to design and deliver better digital services.

Together with dozens of nonprofits and grant-makers, they’ve developed a new set of principles specifically designed to align with the needs, language and practice of the UK social sector. These provide clarity on what ‘good’ looks like when developing digital services, to help nonprofits and funders ‘build the right thing in the right way’, whatever stage they’re at.

You can read more about the process, rationale and learnings in this blog: Digital Design Principles for and by The UK Charity Sector

This event will see the launch of the first version of the principles. Over breakfast, we’ll hear from charities about how they’ve used these principles and the impact they’ve had within their organisations, as well as from funders on why the principles are important to them. We’ll also discuss the future of these principles and how we can engage the sector in their evolution.

For more info and to register, visit the Eventbrite Page

Please note - these digital design principles are designed specifically for nonprofits and their funders, so while they will also be relevant to other types of organisation, this event is primarily intended for those two groups and individuals/organisations that support them.

If you’re unable to attend in person, we’ll be livestreaming it on the Tech for Good Facebook page - simply tune in here at the start of the event: https://www.facebook.com/techforgood/

Communal meals at Newspeak House, open to members and non-members alike. A great chance to meet the fellows and get the latest tech & politics gossip.

BYOB, suggested donation £5.

Ration Club is run by volunteers from the community. If you’d be interested in cooking, contact [email protected]

The digital land data team are a new team at the ministry for housing communities and local government. We’ve been set up to help make it easier for people to access the data they need about land and housing. We’re holding an open meeting at Newspeak House so that anyone can drop in and ask us questions about data, tell us the data they need and the problems they have.

We will:

• show what we’ve done so far
• discuss what data people need
• support people to navigate the existing datasets

One way we think the digital land data team can help is to make it easy for different people to find the information they need when they make the decision to move house, build houses or plan local policies. We know that information about land and housing is hard to find, hard to use and hard to reuse. We’d like to make this better.

We’ve found roughly 300 existing datasets, published by around 400 different public sector organisations and done some work to tidy them up. Now we’re leaving the office and asking you to help us work out:

• what data is most needed
• what data is missing
• what are the problems with the data

Github: https://github.com/communitiesuk/digital-land-data

When you hear words like civic tech and open data, we tend to think about shiny websites and csv downloads. But there is nothing necessarily modern or digital about civic tech.

Citizen Beta, History & Policy and mySociety have worked together to bring you historians with perspectives from different points over the last few millenia where technology has changed the relationship between the citizen and the state.

Talks and Speakers

• Short introduction on forgotten histories of civic tech – Alex Parsons (mySociety) & Alix Mortimer (History & Policy)
• Pebbles, potsherds and the polis: legal and political decision-making ‘technology’ in classical Athens’ – Dr Christine Plastow (OU)
• Power to the People? How printing changed politics in early modern Europe. – Dr Sara Barker (University of Leeds)
• The 264-year plan to improve a nation, in every way imaginable: lessons from the history of the Royal Society of Arts. – Dr Anton Howes (King’s College London)

Schedule

• 7.00pm – Drinks
• 7.30pm – Welcome and intro
• 7.40pm – Talks
• 9.00pm – More drinks and chat

Communal meals at Newspeak House, open to members and non-members alike. A great chance to meet the fellows and get the latest tech & politics gossip.

BYOB, suggested donation £5.

Ration Club is run by volunteers from the community. If you’d be interested in cooking, contact [email protected]

• Doors open: 7:00pm
• Talks: 7:30pm
• Drinks & discussions: 8:15-10:00pm

OpenAI’s Jack Clark (@jackclarkSF) is visiting from San Francisco and will give a talk on “Policy puzzles: Openness, Measurement, and Malicious Actors”.

Jack will talk about how the open, rapid development norms of the AI community mean that the technology poses unique opportunities and threats to policymakers.

Some of the opportunities include figuring out ways for governments and other organizations to measure and forecast progress of AI-related technologies to better prepare society for its changes, and learning how to use the open development nature of the AI ecosystem to maximize the number of people that can participate in its development.

Some of the threats include the rapid proliferation of powerful AI capabilities via the open ecosystem leading to the arrival of new threats and the enhancement of existing ones, as discussed in the recent multi-stakeholder Malicious Use of Artificial Intelligence report (PDF).

He will also discuss ways that the AI community in London can become more involved in these and other policy debates and would love to do a Q&A and discuss ways to develop grassroots policy movements in London for AI issues of interest to the attendees.

About Jack Clark

Jack is the strategy and communications director for OpenAI, a non-profit artificial intelligence research company whose goal is to ensure that powerful artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity - both through direct technical work and through analysis of its impacts.

Jack recently testified in congress on the subject of Artificial Intelligence and Public Policy. You can watch the testimony and read the comments here.

He writes a weekly newsletter about cutting-edge AI research and applications called Import AI, which is read by more than ten thousand experts around the world. He has given numerous talks about artificial intelligence and its impact on policy, ethics, and security.

He also helps run the AI Index, an initiative from the Stanford One Hundred Year Study on AI to track and analyze AI progress.

Communal meals at Newspeak House, open to members and non-members alike. A great chance to meet the fellows and get the latest tech & politics gossip.

BYOB, suggested donation £5.

Ration Club is run by volunteers from the community. If you’d be interested in cooking, contact [email protected]

Transition Towns are about people in communities coming together to reimagine and rebuild our world. There are 30+ Transition Towns inside the M25 and 250+ across the UK, not to mention the thousands around the world.

Over the last 2 years, the London Hub has been connecting Transition Towns to share, support and celebrate actions on environmental, social and economic sustainability by local folks for their communities. We also look across and out to build a larger narrative and connect with other organisations as well as develop the infrastructure and communications to make the hub super useful to Transitioners and others.

You’re welcome to come along to the meeting in which we will:

• share what’s going on in our respective groups in an opening go-round
• respond to the needs and interest of those attending, leaving space for that which emerges
• work on a project to connect with other Hubs around the world, share learning and best practice
• open a discussion about a London wide event to build a movement for sustainability suggested for Autumn ‘18/Winter ‘19
• share an invitation to connect with a Community of Practice about work with refugees and asylum seekers from Transition Town Tooting

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a monumental piece of legislation, the ramifications of which we are only beginning to understand.

Join us to learn about your new and strengthened rights as a consumer over the data that organisations store about you including:

• Your Right of Subject Access - get a digital copy of all your data from any organisation in the EU, including retailers, websites, hardware and device makers, government agencies, educational institutions, and many more!
• Your Right to Withdraw Consent to Processing - tell organisatins you no longer consent to them analysing or selling your personal data
• Your Right to Erasure - also known as the “right to be forgotten” exercise your right to delete sensitive personal information from 3rd party servers
• Your Right to be Informed - ask for an explicit elucidation for what your data is being used and to whom it is being sold
• Your Right to Rectification - correct any inaccurate or misleading data no matter where it sits

Following the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal, these rights are more important than ever because in a world where AI is ubiquitous, data is power. Understand your data rights, protect your privacy, and take back full legal control of all your personal data.

We are organising a Wikipedia training workshop in London to mark the 1 year anniversary of the block of Wikipedia in Turkey. We are disappointed that no progress has been made to find a solution to resolve the issue, and would like to improve Wikipedia’s coverage of Turkish culture and history to show that the Wikimedia community is trying to improve both the Turkish Wikipedia as well as the coverage of Turkish culture in English.

All welcome – English and Turkish speakers, including those with no prior experience editing Wikipedia!

Bring a laptop, if you can.

A casual meetup for those who make games!

Please contact @Jupiter_Hadley if you would like to bring your game to show off, we’d love to see what you’re working on!

Cook the Books Club is a facilitated reading group to explore what we can learn about companies using public data sources, drawing inspiration from the latest ideas in social science.

In this session, we’ll discuss the ideas and practice behind corporate governance. We’ll follow that up with a discussion of a critical theoretical perspective, asking whether the corporate form allows for moral action on the part of the corporation or the people within it, and considering what changes are necessary to allow this.

Please send an email to [email protected] if you are interested in participating.

Communal meals at Newspeak House, open to members and non-members alike. A great chance to meet the fellows and get the latest tech & politics gossip.

BYOB, suggested donation £5.

Ration Club is run by volunteers from the community. If you’d be interested in cooking, contact [email protected]

A discussion group for London-based members of the rationalist diaspora.

The diaspora includes, but is not limited to, LessWrong, Slate Star Codex, rationalist tumblrsphere, and parts of the Effective Altruism movement.

All are welcome, whether or not you identify as rationalist.

Reading for this discussion:

1. Inadequacy and Modesty (https://equilibriabook.com/inadequacy-and-modesty/)
2. For Signaling Part I (https://meteuphoric.wordpress.com/2017/09/27/for-signaling-part-i/)
3. What’s College Good For (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/01/whats-college-good-for/546590/?utm_source=atltw)
4. College Isn’t a Waste of Time (https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-12-11/college-isn-t-a-waste-of-time)
5. Archipelago and Atomic Communitarianism (http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/07/archipelago-and-atomic-communitarianism/)

Ntropy and DCC Global invite you for Decentralised A.I. Brunch on Saturday, 5th May at 10am. On the menu - round table open discussion where we will be joined by our special guest Ben Livshits, Chief Scientist at Brave Software.

Software is eating the world and internet has become the most important connecting tissue between crowds, organisations and platforms. Lacking a web native model of value exchange, the internet resulted in copying business models of conglomerates of the past creating extremely centralised and powerful entities capable of establishing complete control over choice, opinion and access.

Artificial Intelligence is giving superpowers to the software that is already consuming the world, thus this control tightens. Responsibility frameworks are poorly established and not web native either.

Agenda:

• 10:00 Meet & Greet with tea/coffee
• 10:30 Inspiration video & discussion “Showcase how centralised computer and algorithms are inefficient and biased”, recommended by Guillaume Chaslot
• 10:45 Introduction to Ntropy and DCC Global
• 11:05 Special Guest’s Talk about “Machine learning on the edge”. We are accustomed to the big data approach to machine learning, where user data is aggregated, leading to privacy challenges. I’ll talk about the challenges of machine learning on the edge, i.e. client devices, and the trade-offs between the accuracy and privacy.
• 11:30 Closing, more tea & coffee networking

Guests:

• Ben Livshits - Chief Scientist for Brave Software, reader at Imperial College London and an affiliate professor at the University of Washington
• Guillaume Chaslot - Founder at Algotransparency (virtual intro)
• Nare Vardanyan - Co-founder at Ntropy Network
• Alina Bezuglova - Leader at Decentralised Computer Consortium

About special guest:

Ben Livshits is Chief Scientist for Brave Software (https://brave.com/), the company behind the Brave browser, a fast, open source, privacy-focused browser that blocks intrusive ads and trackers. He is also a Reader at Imperial College London and an affiliate professor at the University of Washington. Previously, he was a research scientist at Microsoft Research. He received a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University in 1999, and his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University in 2006. Ben’s research interests include application of sophisticated static and dynamic analysis techniques to finding errors in programs. Ben has published papers at PLDI, POPL, Oakland Security, Usenix Security, CCS, SOSP, ICSE, FSE, and many other venues. He is the author of over 100 academic papers, dozens of patents, and multiple tech transfer awards for bringing research into practice.

About organisers:

• DCC Global - research & innovation playground for decentralised computing community
• Ntropy - a family of client-side data, algorithms and applications

Communal meals at Newspeak House, open to members and non-members alike. A great chance to meet the fellows and get the latest tech & politics gossip.

BYOB, suggested donation £5.

Ration Club is run by volunteers from the community. If you’d be interested in cooking, contact [email protected]

House of Lords committee for Regulating The Internet is seeking submissions before 11th May.

Cybersalon will hold Open Workshop to formulate a combined submission.

The Lords have posted a set of specific questions/format and during the workshop we will address each of them in depth. Space limited so please book early.

Workshop Leaders: Helen Keegan (Mobile Marketing), Eva Pascoe and Ben Greenaway (Cybersalon)

Join us for an evening of discussion on Ethics in Mathematics, a relatively neglected field with high potential to make tractable improvements to society. This bold statement rests on the premise that mathematicians are extremely valued by society and often end up in powerful places.

Our speaker is Maurice Chiodo, a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics at the University of Cambridge, bye-fellow in mathematics at King’s College Cambridge, co-ordinator at the Cambridge University Ethics in Mathematics Society and lead investigator of the Cambridge University Ethics in Mathematics Project.

• 18:00 - 18:30 Networking and arrivals
• 18:30 - 19:00 Maurice Chiodo introducing the field and current challenges
• 19:00 - 19:30 Q&A
• 19:30 - 21:00 Themed focus groups that revolve
• 21:00 - 22:00 Unfacilitated conversation

Drinks and snacks will be provided.

It’s great that Government Digital Service has done so much for services and products that affect citizens lives, but…

• What is government not building?
• What are the services that are outsourced to third parties?
• What does that mean for accountability?

In this session we’ll hear from some cancelled projects and third party services that are core to democracy in the UK.

Further reading: https://github.com/paulmaltby3/digitalpolicyreadinglist/blob/master/Digitalpolicyreadinglist.md

Prototype games to explore complex systems.

Newspeak House invites you to a roundtable focused on political data and modelling, hosted by:

Dr John Bryden, Research Fellow at Royal Holloway. John’s research focuses on modelling the behaviour of political groups and developing methods to study political activity on social media, especially on Twitter.

John Sandall, Fellow at Newspeak House. John is an independent data science consultant. In April 2017, he created SixFifty in order to predict the UK General Election using open data and advanced modelling techniques.

The event will be very informal, and we particularly welcome activists and practitioners with no academic background. The event will be held in the Newspeak House Drawing Room. Space is very limited, so please register as soon as possible. We reserve the right to refund tickets depending on capacity changes up to three days before the event.

Snacks and drinks will be provided.

Communal meals at Newspeak House, open to members and non-members alike. A great chance to meet the fellows and get the latest tech & politics gossip.

BYOB, suggested donation £5.

Ration Club is run by volunteers from the community. If you’d be interested in cooking, contact [email protected]

With the growing interest in so-called ‘dark’ political advertising, fake news, and unfettered online abuse, Governments around the world have been attempting to regulate and clamp down on social media platforms. Is it all in vain? Can it be done? Should it? What can practically be enforced?

Join us to listen, learn, and question on the 3rd of April.

Speakers to be announced.

Spaces are limited so please register

Screening of short documentary “When Citizens Assemble”, panel discussion and Q+A

Panel - additional members to be announced:

Patrick Chalmers – director and producer of When Citizens Assemble, pilot episode for the All Hands On documentary series on democracy. Journalist and author of Fraudcast News.

Ireland’s efforts to break a decades-old political deadlock over its de facto abortion ban inspired a bold political response. Its politicians agreed to create a Citizens’ Assembly to tackle the issue.

A random pick of Irish people deliberated on the highly contentious question. One hundred people took part, balanced for age, gender, social class and region. They heard from experts, campaigners and women directly affected by the ban. Their conclusion, reached in April 2017, recommended radical liberalisation.

The assembly’s work helped bring on a national referendum on abortion in 2018, when Irish voters will have a chance to change abortion laws.

Ireland’s approach was similar to the one it used on same-sex marriage, which voters approved in 2015. Both mark breakthrough moments for all those wondering how politics could be done differently. Rather than leaving decisions to elected politicians, The Irish showed how public wisdom can help cut through controversy.

At a time of deep dysfunction in our electorally driven politics - what issue wouldn’t lend itself to a citizens’ assembly approach? Where might things be on Brexit, on Scottish independence, poverty and other social justice questions given access to public panels addressing such questions?

When Citizens Assemble is the first in the global, nine-film series All Hands On. The series focus will be the state of world democracy and real-life efforts to radically improve it using the ages-old device of public juries. Follow the films, or get involved directly to help fund and publicise it, by signing up for project updates via this link.

When Citizens Assemble was made possible thanks to help from founding partners the newDemocracy Foundation and Common Weal, who gave support in cash and kind.

Communal meals at Newspeak House, open to members and non-members alike. A great chance to meet the fellows and get the latest tech & politics gossip.

BYOB, suggested donation £5.

Ration Club is run by volunteers from the community. If you’d be interested in cooking, contact [email protected]

Glyn Wintle, experienced penetration tester and security industry professional intersperses infosec horror stories with insights, tools and tips for keeping your users and their data safe.

This talk is scheduled to last 1 hour, with time for questions and an opportunity to meet others from the Police Rewired community afterwards.

Refreshments will be provided.