Below is a recording of a session from the OPEN 2018 conference about “When communities of practice meet the collaborative economy” featuring Dr Laura James, Mark Walton, Kate Swade, and Wouter Tebbens, presented by the inimitable Bernie from OuishareRadio.
In this session on the second day of OPEN 2018, we ran a Q&A panel on strategies for bringing together the numerous disparate groups within the progressive movement to enable more efficiently streamlined joined up thinking.
Drawing on their experience from many years working with networks, networks coordinators and open knowledge the panel grapple with questions like:
- How do we move away from attempts to consolidate many groups onto one single “platform” to developing schemas and protocols to enable activists to “find the others”?
- How can Communities of practice make best use of online technology and the numerous options of communication tools to enable effective online organising?
The panel includes:
Dr Laura James, an Entrepreneur in Residence at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, catalysing new interdisciplinary research around trustworthy technologies, and Technology Principal at Doteveryone, a think tank fighting for a fairer internet and a more responsible and accountable tech industry.
She is also a co-founding member of the Digital Life Collective, a global member-owned co-operative to research, develop and support technology people can trust.
Laura has worked in technology leadership roles in R&D, startups, civic tech, open source and humanitarian aid contexts.
Laura was COO at CARET, an innovation centre at the University of Cambridge, delivering mission-critical technology to support the university’s research and teaching. Laura co-founded Makespace, a community workshop and inventing shed in Cambridge, and was CEO of Open Knowledge, a civil society organisation using open source tools, training and advocacy to opening up government, scientific and other knowledge for everyone. More recently, she worked on new technology initiatives at Field Ready, an NGO meeting humanitarian needs through local manufacturing.
Mark Walton established Shared Assets in 2012. He has over 20 years experience of working with communities on environmental issues and contributes his expertise across the full range of Shared Assets work, including our policy, research, advocacy, and advice and support services.
He has acted as an advisor to Defra, DCLG, and the Canal and River Trust, on issues such as working with civil society, asset transfer, and community engagement. Mark has a BSc in Biological Sciences from Birmingham University, a Diploma in Public Administration from Warwick Business School and is a 2012 Clore Social Fellow.
He lives on a narrow-boat and is currently traveling the U.K.’s waterways.
Kate Swade is a director at Shared Assets, a ‘think and do’ tank that makes land work for everyone.
Kate has over 10 years experience of supporting community-led regeneration and social enterprise.
She is relishing the opportunities at Shared Assets to grapple with the need for large-scale, systemic change while supporting practical, enterprising, land-based organisations to develop new models of managing land for the common good.
As a 2013 Clore Social Leadership fellow, Kate explored how systems thinking can benefit community groups and organisations with little formal power, as well as working in Los Angeles on the LA River, and supporting the development of an open source hardware project in Ecuador.
Kate is a trustee at Toynbee Hall, a multi-purpose charity in east London, where she was chair of the panel overseeing the complex redevelopment of Toynbee’s historic estate in 2018.
Wouter Tebbens is co-founder and president of the Free Knowledge Institute.
He works on the convergence between commons and social and solidarity economy enabled by free technologies.
He is also in the driving team of The Things Network Catalunya, the consumer and worker cooperative femProcomuns (“we do/make commons” in Catalan) and is coordinating the #CommonsCloud collaborative cloud platform.
With an alliance of actors around FKI and femProcomuns, he works to support platform cooperatives to develop commons-based sustainability models, through support programmes like la Comunificadora and The Things Network Catalonia.
Big Shout to Stocksy a professional photography cooperative who supported the Ouishare Radio / P2P Foundation / OPEN 2018 speaker drinks party at The Studio – the Ouishare London HQ – and to Bernie for presenting. Enjoy!