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 ↗You say wot?
That’s right, there aren’t enough wotsits in our lives, so a few times a year we co-ordinate people coming together to share some of their successes (or failures). It’s a pecha kucha format, which means approx 5 presentations of 20 slides, each lasting 20 seconds. Previous speakers include those from Save the Children, Shelter, WWF, Unlock Democracy, Which?, Change.org, Care2, Let Toys be Toys, The Sunday Times, pollsters, leading academics, journalists and many more. If you have something you’d love to talk about, please let us know!
Wot Wot Who?
We have a cracking list of speakers including:
- Sarah Wakefield (WWF) - Can we get business to work for the planet? Getting Supermarkets to take action
- Phoebe Tickell (Moral Imaginations) - enchanted activism
- Seyi Falodun-Liburd (Level Up) - #nomorelyes - the campaign to take toxic hair relaxers off the shelves
- Rob Blackie - Breaking Putin’s Censorship
How many tickets are there?
120 in person, we always sell out so book early and join the waitlist if you can’t get in.
If we have capacity we will do a virtual event too. There are 100 further tickets available for that. If you book one please note we can’t guarantee we will be able to provide it. Wotsits volunteer power is, alas, finite.
Wot if I don’t like wotsits?
While we grieve for what your tastebuds may miss, you can come and not eat wotsits. They are simply the snack that is provided.
We don’t provide any drinks so please bring whatever you would like. Alcoholic, non alcoholic, whatever floats your boat. There was once a splinter table of gin and onion rings fans. Further crisp based diversity is encouraged.
Who is behind this?
Ali Goldsworthy and Kate Norgrove attempt to “host”. Jess Day of More Onion, Usman Mohammed, and Jon Date of di:ga Communications help too. The team is expanding so we can put this on more frequently. Check back to find out who else is on board. None of us get paid. You all make us laugh and we get to eat crisps. That’s payment enough.
Register ↗What: A panel to demystify the Labour Party — and what a Labour government would mean for UK tech — for those across tech and policy.
Speakers:
- Tom Adeyoola, Panel Member for Labour’s Start-Up Review, Angel investor, Exited founder and Extend Ventures Co-Founder
- Hannah O’Rourke, Campaign Lab (formerly Labour Together)
- Matt Davies, Open Data Institute (formerly Labour Party)
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.
Organised by TxP, the community bridging the worlds of tech and policy, founded by Andrew Bennett and Tom Westgarth.
Register ↗Once a quarter Centre for Democracy organises democracy co-working days to bring together individuals and organisations within the UK democracy space, with more than 50 organisations joining us across our previous events, including Democracy Classroom, Civic Power Fund, Fair Vote UK, Nesta, Sortition Foundation, I Have A Voice, Radix Big Tent, Public Interest News Foundation, Unlock Democracy, Zero Hour and so many more!
So if you’re working on a democracy project or organisation, or just keen to meet people that do, come along and join us for a coworking day on the 9th December at Newspeak House. We’ll be putting on tea & coffee, snacks and refreshments, including croissants and pastries for the early birds.
This is a joint event, brought to you by Democracy Network and the Centre for Democracy. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to drop us an email at [email protected]
Democracy Network are a network of people and organisations working on issues of power, democracy and voice throughout the UK. We aim to connect and work with others to build a stronger democracy fit for the 21st century. We do this through connecting people and supporting collaboration, increasing knowledge, skills and resources, and coordinating influencing strategies and action. Join the network here.
Centre for Democracy runs a fortnightly online meetup, publishes a sector bulletin read by more than 400+ democracy organisations, and maintains a database of democracy organisations, jobs, events, funding opportunities and research. For more info, please see centrefordemocracy.org.uk.
The UK Democracy Coworking Day forms part of the UK Democracy Network’s Annual Conference programme - don’t miss out - register here for the two day conference.
Register ↗At this month’s meetup for technologists in effective altruism, we’ll be hearing from Jack Lewars, the Executive Director of One For The World, with a short in-person talk on the latest thinking on effective giving.
Then we’ll kick back with some drinks and food (vegan), chat about how to do the most good, plus learn about and share current job and project opportunities.
Please do invite any friends or colleagues you think would be interested!
Register ↗Commemorate the eradication of smallpox with a festive unconference at Newspeak House.
This event is aimed broadly at anyone who is enthusiastic about making the world a better place with science and technology, but in particular fans of rationality, effective altruism, and blogs like Astral Codex Ten and LessWrong.
In classic unconference fashion there will be mildly-structured conversation about whatever you like, as well as plentiful food & drink, and a cake with a picture of a vaccine on it.
We’ll kick things off around 2pm, but don’t worry too much about missing the start.
Register ↗As the winter sets in join us for a bi-weekly Campaign Lab Hack Night - a regular session to work on your tech side projects to help the progressive left campaign more effectively. You can either bring your own project or help out on one of our ongoing ones.
Snacks and drinks provided. All you need is to bring yourself and a laptop!
All technologists, activists, organisers and campaigners, are welcome. We also welcome any new people who are interested in politics and technology and evidence based campaign innovation on the left. Everyone welcome!
In the new year we’ll be presenting our projects at a special showcase.
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.
Register ↗Come help us chip away at civic challenges! We’ve got everything you need for a fun and purposeful hacknight: a presentation to learn from, wonderful co-conspirators to meet, some projects to work on, and delicious food to eat!
- 6:00-6:30: Doors open. Food!
- 6:30-7:00: Welcome and intros
- 7:00-7:30: Presentation TBA and Q&A/discussion
- 7:30-9:00: Breakout groups (make something!)
These pilot events are to gauge interest in hosting a more regular event. We’ll need your energy and contributions to make that work! We are running currently one-off hacknights that, with your support, aspire to become more regular. We are inspired by:
- g0v is a grassroots social movement community dedicated to deepening the civic engagements and connections between the social arena and citizens. It is a decentralised civic tech community with core values of information transparency, open results and open cooperation. g0v London is an exploration of seeding a g0v community in London, UK. For more info, visit g0v.tw/intl/en
- Civic Tech Toronto is a diverse community of Torontonians interested in better understanding and finding solutions to civic challenges through technology, design or other means. They run weekly “civic hacknights for everyone”, where people of all backgrounds and skill levels are welcome to attend. https://link.civictech.ca/meetup (Civic Tech Toronto was in turn inspired by the values and format of Chicago’s ChiHackNight.)
Hope to see you Tuesday! Don’t forget to bring your laptop for hacking!
Register ↗- 6.30-7.00 PM: Doors open: grab some snacks and meet new people
- 7.00-8.00 PM: Lightning talks on Effective Altruism topics:
- Denise Melchin - Preventing stillbirths as a cause
- Lydia Field - Why we should work on preventing suicide
- Ben Williamson - Family Planning: A Significant Opportunity for Impact
- 8.00-10.00 PM: Discussions & social time
As the winter sets in join us for a bi-weekly Campaign Lab Hack Night - a regular session to work on your tech side projects to help the progressive left campaign more effectively. You can either bring your own project or help out on one of our ongoing ones.
Snacks and drinks provided. All you need is to bring yourself and a laptop!
All technologists, activists, organisers and campaigners, are welcome. We also welcome any new people who are interested in politics and technology and evidence based campaign innovation on the left. Everyone welcome!
In the new year we’ll be presenting our projects at a special showcase.
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.
Register ↗As the winter sets in join us for a bi-weekly Campaign Lab Hack Night - a regular session to work on your tech side projects to help the progressive left campaign more effectively. You can either bring your own project or help out on one of our ongoing ones.
Snacks and drinks provided. All you need is to bring yourself and a laptop!
All technologists, activists, organisers and campaigners, are welcome. We also welcome any new people who are interested in politics and technology and evidence based campaign innovation on the left. Everyone welcome!
In the new year we’ll be presenting our projects at a special showcase.
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.
Register ↗