Practical Design for Social Action - First workshop
Are you shaping the tools or techniques that help other people shape their world?
There is no job description for what you do. You mix dedication to social change, confidence with people and organisations, and technical knowledge or skills. You are part of a growing number of committed people using innovation and ICT to help others work on social and political issues.
PRADSA is a project funded to provide a series of workshops around the UK to share best practice amongst people with your hybrid interests and skills. In particular, this offers the opportunity:
* To meet and work with other people engaged in the same pursuit
as you
* To reflect on what you do, share your insights and package them for wider circulation
* To consider future directions and explore the social and
technical challenges these might raise
* To contribute to the store of knowledge and tools that exist
about how to support people trying to improve their corner of the world
* To choose the topics that the series of workshops will address,
in consultation with other initial workshop attendees
The first workshop will take as its theme "Designing the Techniques that Shape the Future - Social and Technical Challenges", and will focus upon the main issues with working to support communities or organisations concerned to effect change, either in the voluntary, political or not-for-profit arena. As mentioned, subsequent workshops will take their cue from the outcome of this initial meeting.
We also have money to pay expenses and a limited budget to cover your absence if you wish to attend this series.
The first event is scheduled for May 15/16th 2007, with further workshops following every two-three months till the end of 2008. There will be six in all, and each will be held over two days, starting late and finishing early to permit travel. The evening of the workshop is intended to allow for a more casual style of engagement. It is hoped that most people will be able to attend several of the series - further dates will be provided in May, for September onwards.
If you are working, however informally, in this area (what we have called 'technology and social action'), if you can bring some experience to share and if you find the sound of these events interesting, we would like to hear from you. Please contact Kutoma by email: k.j.wakunuma@shu.ac.uk
About PRADSA
PRADSA stands for "Practical Design for Social Action". The PRADSA project's goal is to develop and extend the capability of social action organisations to creatively design new practices by appropriating and adapting ICTs. There are three strands to the project, of which the workshop series is one. The other two are:
* To develop a new understanding of designing in social action
settings grounded in detailed contextual studies of design in practice.
* To create a collection of practical resources to support the
work of practitioners (and others) including workshop materials and easy-to-use (open-source) on-line community communications systems.
PRADSA is a project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) as part of its Designing for the 21st Century programme.
If you would like to know more about the PRADSA project, please see:
http://www.technologyandsocialaction.org.
