Box | reboot11 – 6 comments
Future-building for Wikicrats
How do we think it should work? What should it include?
I am bringing different people together at Reboot, who otherwise would not be there, to help bring action to the European Union concerning technology and digital policies. In a three part workshop we will work towards proposals for the EU regarding tech policy to act on.
The first two parts are short (400 seconds / Pecha Kuch style) introductions into the different perspectives participants are bringing to the table. The third part will be a Knowledge Café formatted session, to work towards results. This effort is supported by the EC, so the EU is looking forward to our results and suggestions.
Description:
I've been working hard to get a number of people to Reboot that are able to bring different perspectives to the discussion about what the EU should be working on in the coming years concerning technology and digital policies. This has been made possible partly by the financial support of the EC. Reboot brings together a crowd that is uniquely positioned to express the knowledge and understanding needed for technology and digital policies. This effort is supported by the EC, so the EU is looking forward to our results and suggestions.
My aim is to get to concrete proposals for the EU in three steps.
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Part I & II: Micro-presentations & discussion
Length: 2 x 45 minutes
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In this workshop session we bring together different perspectives on technology policy-making. If possible, it would be great to learn about how tech policy impacts on you and what you do.
You can sit back and listen to different people tell you about who they are and how they use technology for their work or everyday life, or even better, do a presentation yourself!
Length: Max. 7 minutes /presentation
Example presentation:
www.slideshare.net/haiku66/technology-policy-and-me
Send me your material by tuesday: nnegash@gmail.com
Confirmed presenters are:
Amelia Andersdotter; MEP candidate for Piratpartiet.
www.ameliatillbryssel.se/om-mig
Elvira Berlingieri; Legal consultant.
www.linkedin.com/in/berlingieri
Robin Chase; Transportation innovator
www.robinchase.org/
Alberto Cottica; Economist and musician.
www.linkedin.com/in/albertocottica
Gianluca Dettori; Venture Capital investor.
www.linkedin.com/in/dpixel
Nadia EL-Imam; Uxd, IxD, IAD strategist and designer.
www.linkedin.com/in/nadiaelimam
David Osimo; Researcher and project manager on e-gov.
www.linkedin.com/in/osimod
Freek Van Krevel; Seconded National Expert at
the European Commission.
www.linkedin.com/in/freekvankrevel
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PART 3: Wikicrats Knowledge-café
Length: 45 minutes
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Knowledge café format session where we intensively generate ideas for concrete projectsto start realising during and after Reboot11.
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Tag: wikicrats
Twitter hashtag: #wikicrats
Livestream URL:
www.ustream.tv/channel/wikicrats-at-reboot11
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Please read this ahead of the workshop!
6 comments
Tools for Thinking by doing
David O made the same point when we discussed this a few days ago. I hear you. Let´s go with that instead. Now the question is where do we begin and what should the outcome of this be? Do you think a good place to begin is by identifying some strends and thinking about their effects on big stuff like security, health care, politics....or maybe the other way around? Maybe even collect alot of interesting material and use it as a point of departure for discussions...see where they lead us? What do you think?
Material like this video I came across today:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFCGuv1B_yo
Guidelines?
Picking on Ton's point: after disposing of "best practice", even "guidelines" may or may not be the best way to go about this. The advantage: they are a boiled-down version of the policy implications of a whole world view, so useful for people who have no time. But maybe there are ways in which (some) new MEPs can be gotten involved into the real discussion of the real thing, and they can draw their own policy implications. Hackups in Brussels and Strasbourg, anyone? :-)
Perhaps it's connected to this..
There's another proposal on how to get to action:
www.reboot.dk/page/23109/en
Perhaps the two proposals are connected, especially when looking at what workable spheres of influence are (as I commented at the other proposal)
More questions than answers
With all due respect to the other proposal, I would find this workshop more unique if it tried to pull together different people representing differents stakes on technology (the entrepreneur, the hacker, the civil servant, the housewife or college kid who just use Facebook...) and gave them a chance to tell about themselves to each other. We really risk a Balkanization of the technology policy discourse, with everybody trying to outlaw everybody else, and it would be nice to learn a little more about what people actually do before we go out telling the Europarliament what they should do. To be honest, I don't feel like I have that many answers to supply just yet.
About entrepreneurship in the high tech sector
Which policies can improve our ability to nurture innovation and startup activity? In order for things to work there must be several pieces of the eco-system all well connected and collaborating:
- education/research institutions;
- cultural factors: success stories, openess to the new, entrepreneurial spirit;
- a well structured venture capital and financial industry;
- well thought out and implemented public policy.
Being my venture capital activity focused specifically on Internet startups, all of this should be in a contest of more forward looking policies regarding issues such as: digital broadband networks, rights, access&interoperability of technologies/information/contents.
Best Practice?
Let's start with not wanting to create 'best practice' guidelines. There is no such thing as best practice, unless a situation is completely predictable and context is irrelevant. The type of problems we're talking about here are very complex, which by definition throws predictability out of the window. Talking about good and bad practices is workable I think, but let's not imply there is any such thing as a simple recipe, aka best practice, for complex problems.