Newspeak House is an independent residential college founded in 2015 to study, nurture and inspire emerging communities of practice across civil society and the public sector in the UK. more...
News
We have survived the pandemic. It’s amazing to see you all again. However, we are not out of the woods yet. The last few years have been disastrous for independent spaces. Many have closed their doors forever, and times are still tough. If there was ever a time to become a member, it is now. The pandemic has wiped out our reserves, restricting our core activities and putting us at risk of closing. If you want to make sure your community can continue to benefit from the facilities at Newspeak House, please consider joining as a member.
There has been a lot of chaos. Please bear with us while we find our feet again. We might be a bit slow at replying to emails. Our event programme may be a little sparse, while communities that have been dormant wake themselves up. In the meantime, we have been making ambitious plans:
Future Plans
To increase our resilience as an institution and grow our impact, we are planning to open additional campuses under the umbrella brand of “The London College of Political Technology”. They will form a federated network of spaces, each hosting their own residential programme and sharing a common curriculum. Nothing is certain in a pandemic, but if all goes well, we intend to launch our first new campus in 2024.
As part of this initiative, we are delighted to welcome two new members of our faculty, both leading experts on founding experimental spaces:
Dr Zarinah Agnew
[email protected] • zarinahagnew.com • @zarinahagnew
Zarinah is a neuroscientist by training. After spending over a decade in academia, they left to study the science of groups of brains - that is, humans in collectivity.
Alongside their work with the college, Zarinah runs three nonprofits aimed at experimental aspects of society, collective transformation and para-institutions. The Social Science Observatory is dedicated to the study of social science in the wild, Alternative Justices works towards abolitionist community-based harm prevention and response, and District Commons engineers experimental spaces where humans can ‘be otherwise’. Together, these strands allow both the prefiguration of new social configurations, as well as the study of their transformational potential.
Stephanie Sherman
[email protected] • stephaniesherman.info • @detectiveyes
Stephanie is a design director, strategist, writer, and producer working across urbanism, technology, and culture.
She is director of the MA Narrative Environments program at Central Saint Martin’s, collaborates with The UC San Diego Center for Design and Geopolitics and Design Lab Automation Team, and the future of work thinktank Autonomy
She is co-founder of Elsewhere and Common Field , and has taught at Strelka Institute Moscow, Neon Foundation Athens, Sandberg Institute Amsterdam, Cambridge University, Bauhaus University Weimar, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Institut Hyperwerk Switzerland, and CCA San Francisco.
Retrospective
As we emerge from the pandemic, Newspeak House is looking to the future and how it can survive and thrive for many more years to come. A part of this is seeking constructive criticism from the communities it serves.
We understand that it can feel hard to give direct feedback, even anonymously, but we really hope that you will, as we genuinely wish to learn and improve, as well as adapt to a world that has changed significantly. We will do our best to take heed from any criticisms, wishes and visions that are shared with us.
Scholarships
We’re absolutely awed that some community members have generously stepped forwards to offer scholarships, the first we’ve ever had. Students are now faced with higher living costs than ever before, and our bursary fund was obliterated by the pandemic. This prevents deserving candidates from applying to the course, or being able to focus on their studies.
Newspeak House is still a young, scrappy institution, and it’s a great honour for our work to be recognised in this way. We know that these scholarships will be life-changing to the recipients, and that they will go on to have great impact in their future work. Read on to find out who pledged these scholarships, and also for information on how you can join them. more...
Events
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As part of our research we offer our spaces for civic communities of practice to convene. Since opening in 2015 we have hosted over a thousand events, including lectures, meetups, hackathons, conferences, unconferences, workshops, roundtables, screenings, fundraisers, launches, and exhibitions.
To keep up with the event programme you can subscribe to our event calendar. If you’d like to host an event in our space, you can hire it outright, or if you’re convening a civic community of practice do get in touch ([email protected]) to see if it could fit into our programme.
What's On
Edward Saperia
Each week the college hosts a community dinner called Ration Club. It's open to anyone who'd like to find out more about the college and its work. To find out more or if you'd like to attend, please register.
Register ↗The official bi-annual London meetup for fans of the popular blog Astral Codex Ten (formerly Slate Star Codex) by American psychiatrist Scott Alexander.
There will be drinks and a barbecue on the terrace, and simultaneously a series of short talks in the auditorium. If you’d be interested in giving a talk, please contact [email protected] or @nwspk.
Register ↗This is the monthly social for effective altruism, aimed at people already familiar with effective altruism. No specific themes, and no need to be there from the start, just come along and chat about whatever you want!
Register ↗The Open Co-op is a collaborative collective of coders, commoners, architects, artists, engineers, ecologists and systems changers. Together, we are building the tools, technologies and protocols of a collaborative, regenerative economy.
We promote co-ownership, platform co-ops, open source and regenerative economics.
Join members of the London community for a long overdue catch-up over a cup of tea at Newspeak House on Wednesday 28th September.
We’ve had our heads down for a while and have been busy:
- Developing an updated version of Murmurations - the decentralised data sharing protocol - see the Regen map as a demo
- Launching Open Web Systems, to provide open source email and Nextcloud powered by renewable energy
- Collaborating with Meet.coop - to promote open source conferencing tools
- Launching Co-op Data Club - to help co-ops promote each other
- And developing an updated version of PLANET, our vision for a suite of open source tools to help us steward a regenerative economy.
But all this working online gets tiring and, like most people, we miss the fun, laughter and inspiration which comes from face-to-face interaction.
So, the OPEN Meetup is simply a chance to share and hear news about everyone’s projects and to catch up with old and new friends and connections, without any specific agenda or expectations.
We will run the event as an open space so that everyone has a chance to share news about their projects with one main group or in separate discussions, depending on how many people attend and want to present.
If you are working on, or interested in developing, any part of the regenerative economy and / or have an interest in how co-owned and decentralised tools and technologies can support the transition to a more equitable society then this event is for you.
If the event goes well we will organise further Meetups, in conjunction with other related networks and communities to further discussions, create more connections and to encourage meaningful action which helps create the regenerative economy we all want.
Save the date, tell your friends and networks, bring your news and be ready to share.
If you’d like a drink other than tea please bring that too - and some to share!
Register ↗A new book from Cybersalon, a think-tank focusing on the process and effect of the digital revolution in industry, society and its emerging digital cultures. Story writers collaborate with subject experts to break the frame of traditional forecasting and investigate paths where fast-evolving technology may take us. The book focuses on four main areas of rapid change: money, communities and identity, health and food, and retail and the reshaping of our high streets.
Dive into the future of abortion in the era of programmable money; living under a “nanny state” determined to control what you put on your plate; trading convenience against surveillance in your local neighbourhood; earning real, transferable cash via gaming; the impact of total financial surveillance on the future of politics; and many more.
Based on the year long events & workshop series ‘Tales From The Cyber Salon’ this collection of provocations brings together a blend of near-future speculative fiction and non-fiction commentary. Be prepared for warnings and inspirations from those who speculate about the future and those who make it a reality.
Edited by Stephen Oram and Benjamin Greenaway, with an introduction by Douglas Rushkoff.
Register ↗Do you want to work on open source but never find the time? Us too! Join us in an open source hack night. Bring your own projects or choose one of these that we will be working on:
- polis, an application for large scale open ended feedback, built with JavaScript, React.js, Node.js, Clojure.
- decidim, a participatory democracy framework, built with Ruby and Rails.
The plan for this event: Improve the code for one of these applications. Fix a bug or implement a small feature.
Event notes
- Scan through the above projects and their issues and figure out what to work on more specifically.
- This event is for people who feel comfortable coding on their own.
- We are not familiar with these projects! We’ll be figuring it out as we go along with you.
- High quality snacks and drinks as always!
- Attendees are expected to come with their own laptops. We’ll provide AC electricity and wifi.
- Feel free to arrive at any point, most people come around 6:30 to 7:00.
Join online
If you’re interested in contributing but not able to attend, we will also be online in our Discord group. Hope to see some people there as well!
Register ↗What: A panel to make sense of a new government — and what it means for UK tech — for those across tech and policy.
Speakers:
- Sarah Gates, Head of Public Policy at Wayve AI
- Joel Gladwin, Director at Taso Advisory and former adviser at DCMS
Who’s it for? Founders, political advisers, VCs, policymakers, software engineers, designers, data scientists, and anyone who cares about technology, public impact, and the future.
The panel will be followed by drinks & networking.
Register ↗The News Futures 2035 foresight project is a response to concerns about the future of public-interest news in the UK. It brings together experts from inside, alongside and outside the news industry who are working together to imagine, and create, a better future. This participatory, action-research project has been initiated by Dr François Nel at the Media Innovation Studio (MIS) at the University of Central Lancashire. It will help us consider alternative scenarios, develop new visions and catalyse better relationships, all focused on the question: how can we secure the supply of trusted, public-interest news in the UK?
After many years of change and struggle, we believe we’re at a turning point in the future – and history – of news. Ultimately, many have a dystopian vision – where the provision of trusted news is lost – and where people are vulnerable to false information, disengaged or avoid news altogether. It may be that we are not currently able to give communities what they want or need – but if our audiences switch off – we know the public interest is not being served.
To explore our questions, we’re working with two experienced facilitators of participatory, multi-stakeholder processes: Dr Bruno Tindemans, Chief Foresite Officer for the government Department of Works in Brussels, and Alain Wouters, a strategy consultant formerly of the group planning department at Shell. While our primary focus is on public-interest news in the UK, we believe what we learn will be relevant further afield, not least because the British media has often led the way.
If you would like to attend the event or be included in the News Futures research group, please register to express your interest:
Register ↗Hacktoberfest is a month-long event to promote open source in October. We are organising a Hacktoberfest event to come together and hack on open source!
- 18:00 Welcome!
- 18:30 What is Hacktoberfest? What is open source? How to contribute to open source?
- 19:00 Anyone interested in sharing their open-source projects, come forward!
- 19:15 Hacking time
- 21:00 Show and Tell
High quality snacks and drinks provided!
Attendees are expected to come with their own laptops. Sweet AC electricity provided.
Register ↗Do you want to work on open source but never find the time? Us too! Join us in an open source hack night. Bring your own projects or choose one of these that we will be working on:
- polis, an application for large scale open ended feedback, built with JavaScript, React.js, Node.js, Clojure.
- decidim, a participatory democracy framework, built with Ruby and Rails.
The plan for this event: Improve the code for one of these applications. Fix a bug or implement a small feature.
Event notes
- Scan through the above projects and their issues and figure out what to work on more specifically.
- This event is for people who feel comfortable coding on their own.
- We are not familiar with these projects! We’ll be figuring it out as we go along with you.
- High quality snacks and drinks as always!
- Attendees are expected to come with their own laptops. We’ll provide AC electricity and wifi.
- Feel free to arrive at any point, most people come around 6:30 to 7:00.
Join online
If you’re interested in contributing but not able to attend, we will also be online in our Discord group. Hope to see some people there as well!
Register ↗Do you want to work on open source but never find the time? Us too! Join us in an open source hack night. Bring your own projects or choose one of these that we will be working on:
- polis, an application for large scale open ended feedback, built with JavaScript, React.js, Node.js, Clojure.
- decidim, a participatory democracy framework, built with Ruby and Rails.
The plan for this event: Improve the code for one of these applications. Fix a bug or implement a small feature.
Event notes
- Scan through the above projects and their issues and figure out what to work on more specifically.
- This event is for people who feel comfortable coding on their own.
- We are not familiar with these projects! We’ll be figuring it out as we go along with you.
- High quality snacks and drinks as always!
- Attendees are expected to come with their own laptops. We’ll provide AC electricity and wifi.
- Feel free to arrive at any point, most people come around 6:30 to 7:00.
Join online
If you’re interested in contributing but not able to attend, we will also be online in our Discord group. Hope to see some people there as well!
Register ↗Do you want to work on open source but never find the time? Us too! Join us in an open source hack night. Bring your own projects or choose one of these that we will be working on:
- polis, an application for large scale open ended feedback, built with JavaScript, React.js, Node.js, Clojure.
- decidim, a participatory democracy framework, built with Ruby and Rails.
The plan for this event: Improve the code for one of these applications. Fix a bug or implement a small feature.
Event notes
- Scan through the above projects and their issues and figure out what to work on more specifically.
- This event is for people who feel comfortable coding on their own.
- We are not familiar with these projects! We’ll be figuring it out as we go along with you.
- High quality snacks and drinks as always!
- Attendees are expected to come with their own laptops. We’ll provide AC electricity and wifi.
- Feel free to arrive at any point, most people come around 6:30 to 7:00.
Join online
If you’re interested in contributing but not able to attend, we will also be online in our Discord group. Hope to see some people there as well!
Register ↗