Connecting through play
The Tech for Good Organisers Network's July update
Summer is here, and after the warmest June on record, July is full of activity, festival and play. Here’s what’s going on in the Tech for Good Organisers Network community.
What’s on our radar?
Organising can sometimes feel like a drag; a repetitive nightmare of agendas and action points. Even when our impact is powerful, the effort it takes to organise can seem overwhelming. So how do we bring communities together, build connection, and make organising a pleasure?
As part of incubating and dreaming better futures, the RADAR community has been exploring the role of play as a force for good. As their interactive report reminds us:
No matter our age, play empowers us to think and communicate differently, to step outside of the ordinary. It opens us to moments of serendipity, it enriches our lives, it enables us to connect over a common language where one otherwise might not exist.
Play can learn, connect, and create; play with their creative briefs to infuse play in your organising.
As Max Alexander shows in their Playful Manifesto, play can help us find true connection, play can help us share our true selves in true joy.
When we play we close the gap between “what we are trying to do” and “how we are doing it”. The gap which frustrates us, causes us to compromise, to stretch and bend in ways that feel not quite right. In play we are perhaps our most authentic selves.
Are you using play as part of your communities? We’d love to hear from you!
What’s going on across the Network?
Here are some quick updates from our community:
William Mortada shares how CiviCamp London went
Edward Saperia has launched docs.plus (alpha) - try it out!
Sign up to Nesta’s new Civic AI Observatory, which is launching soon.
Find out about AbilityNet’s 2023 Tech for Good Award winners, and listen to the Tech for Good Live podcast episode with AbilityNet’s Mark Walker
GrantAdvisor UK - the platform designed to facilitate an open dialogue between grantseekers and grantmakers - has just rolled out as a permanent service, and is encouraging grantseekers to participate
Community People are holding an unconference in September, in London (and online).
dxw are going to be hosting UKCharityCamp, which the Tech for Good Organisers Network is supporting. More to come soon!
Many of our members will be resting over summer, and it’s a well deserved rest!
Upcoming Events
Tech for Good groups across the UK are organising exciting projects and activities in July. Here are some from our Network:
10 July
Addressing digital poverty : Mapping the Bath Digital Divide (Bath) with Tech for Good South West, 9:30am - 12:30pm
Ethical Software coworking days at the Hackspace (Manchester), 10am - 4:30pm
How philanthropists can support social movements (London) with Social Change Lab and Newspeak House, 3-5pm
10 - 13 July
Addressing digital poverty: Community Tech hackathon (Bath) with Tech for Good South West, 2pm onwards
11 July
Young people’s digital learning environments: Imagining the Future (Bath) with Tech for Good South West, 4:30 - 6pm
12 July
Introduction to Accessible Data Visualisation (online) with Data Collective, 12 - 1pm
13 July
Community Tech: monthly meetup (online) with Promising Trouble, 11am - 12 noon
Winner takes all: how to open up tech monopolies with James Plunkett (London and online) with Nesta, 6 - 8pm
Leading with Empathy in Tech (Leeds) with Women in DevOps, 6:30 - 9pm
14 July
Addressing digital poverty: A city divided (Bath) with Tech for Good South West, 10am - noon
London Prompt Engineers: Prompt Jam (London) with Newspeak House, 6 - 11pm
18 July
Civic Hacknight (London) with hack.london and Newspeak House, 6:30 - 9pm
19 July
Digital Trustees Matchmaking (online) with Third Sector Labs, 10am
AI + Accessibility: Building Equitable Futures with Machine Learning (London and online) with Newspeak House, 7 - 9pm
20 July
LGBTQ+ Meetup (July): How Can We Support Transgender People in Tech? (Edinburgh) with CodeBase Edinburgh, 12 - 1pm
Breaking Barriers: Black Tech in Brum (Birmingham), 6:30 - 9pm
22 July
Neurodiversity as a Superpower in the Tech World (Online) with GDG Edinburgh, 9-5pm
24 July
Campaign Lab Hack Night (London and online) with Newspeak House, 7 - 9pm
27 July
Responsible Tech Collective | Learning and Possibilities (Manchester) with Noisy Cricket CIC, 1 - 3pm
30 July
London Experimental Spaces & Community meet up (London) with Newspeak House, 5 - 8pm
31 July
Principles, tips & approaches for extracting insights from your database or CRM (online) with Tech Soup Connect London, 12 - 1:30pm
9 August
Tech for Good Scotland meetup (Glasgow) with Third Sector Lab, 10 am - 12 noon
Resources you can’t miss!
Podcasts
Hear about the Bath Digital festival and everything Tech for Good South West is doing, in the Tech for Good South West podcast
Tools
Improve your chat experience for your community with cooby.co for WhatsApp and startadam for cross-platform collaboration.
Can AI help you manage your life and tasks? Goblin.tools is showing us how.
Articles / Resources
Pauline Roche shares her learnings on how to build an open data community on LinkedIn (from Open Data Camp)
Find out how an abundance mindset can help your work and community.
The Design Justice Network is offering honorariums for Design Justice nodes wanted to build the care in their work.
Videos
Care about Digital Communication, Inclusion and Storytelling? Watch the excellent season 3 of the Dr Tech Show
Łukasz Szulc held a talk on Feminist and Queer Manifestos for Digital Utopias in Sheffield, which you can watch online.
Have anything you’d like shared in the August newsletter? Or would you like to join the Tech for Good Organisers Network? Email us on hello[at]techforgoodorganisers.uk
 | A guest post by
|