Penshaw Monument by jonoy24/7 on Flickr
*Book your place now Local by Social: North East Edition*
Last month we announced Local by Social is coming to the North East and North West in March. With just under three weeks to go until the first event in Sunderland we are pleased to be able to tell you who will be speaking at the event.
Sunderland City Council will play host to Local by Social: North East Edition over two days on Friday 4th and Saturday 5th March. The venue for both days is Southwick Community Primary School.
Local by Social events bring local government practitioners, social innovators and the voluntary sector together to share innovation and explore how technology can be used to improve local public services.
Each event has its own theme. At Sunderland we will be looking at how social media, apps and other new technology can be used to tackle social exclusion and promote opportunity. In particular we want you to ‘think family’ and consider how technology can support families as well as individuals.
We’ve lined up a range of expert and engaging speakers with experience in the field of technology and promoting opportunity. Speakers confirmed for Friday 4th March include:
- Councillor Florence Anderson, Deputy Leader of Sunderland City Council and Chair of Sunderland Child Poverty Action Group
- Carla Ross, Innovation Programmes Manager at NESTA. Carla heads up the Reboot Britain programme, which is looking at the challenges we face as a country and the new possibilities that a networked, digital world offers to overcome them.
- Herb Kim, Chief Executive of Codeworks, which facilitates connection and collaboration between digital innovators within North East England and throughout the world. Herb was recently featured in the MediaGuardian 100 2010, an annual guide to the most powerful people in media.
An agenda for Friday is set out at the bottom of this post.
Friday will also offer the chance to explore how technology can be used to make a practical difference to local communities. Working together in groups, we will focus on identifying ideas for using technology in innovative ways.
For those of you who can make the second leg of Local by Social: North East Edition on Saturday 5th March, we will be hosting a development or hack day. We will be looking at how we can build practical solutions based on the ideas from Friday.
And remember, you don’t have to be a techie to benefit from Local by Social. As with previous events, we will be bringing along technical people to help you understand how the technology works.
Registration for Local by Social is FREE. To book your place, click on the link below:
Local by Social: North East Edition
Please note: although Local by Social: North East Edition takes place over two days, you are free to choose which of the days you attend. For example, should you wish to attend the Saturday but not the Friday, please select a Saturday ticket only.
Agenda for Local by Social North East edition
Day One – Friday 4th March, Southwick Community Primary School, Sunderland
9.30 – 10.00: Registration and coffee
1000 – 10.10: Sunderland’s Vision for Digital Inclusion – Cllr David Allen, Portfolio Holder for Resources, Sunderland City Council
10.10 – 10.20: Sunderland’s approach to Digital Inclusion – Tom Baker, Head of ICT
10.20 – 10.30: Hopes for the day – Trish Stoker, Head Teacher of Southwick Community Primary School (TBC)
1030 – 10.45: Introduction to Local by Social and LG Groups’ Knowledge Hub -Ingrid Koehler, Improvement Strategist, Local Government Improvement and Development (LGID)
10.45 – 10.55: Gov 2.0 – Carrie Bishop, FutureGov
Questions and comments
11.05 – 11.20: Coffee break
11.20 – 11.35: Reboot Britain – Carla Ross, Innovation Programmes Manager, National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA)
Questions and comments
11.45 – 12.15: Generating and filtering ideas for afternoon workshops
12.15 – 1.00: Lunch
1.00 – 2.15: Afternoon speakers
- Herb Kim, Chief Executive of Codeworks, which facilitates connection and collaboration between digital innovators within North East England and throughout the world.
- Jeremiah Alexander, Ideas Architect/Director of Ideonic, an ideas-driven serious games studio based in Newcastle.
- Mahmoud Elsaid, Managing Director of LamasaTech, which develops multi-touch technologies such as interactive walls.
2.15 – 2.30: Introduction to afternoon workshop sessions
2.30 – 3.30: Afternoon workshops
3.30 – 4.15: Workshop feedback
4.15 – 4.25: Review of workshop presentations
4.25 – 4.30: Closing Remarks
Day Two – Saturday 5th March, Southwick Community Primary School, Sunderland
On Day two we’ll be working with developers, citizens and public sector practitioner to design and build things which can be used not just in that neighbourhood in the North East, but maybe in a neighbourhood near you. Neighbourhoods are both happy and unhappy in their own unique ways, but we’ll be sharing lessons about ways of thinking about addressing these issues which are the same everywhere.
1000 – 1030: Registration and coffee
1030 – 1100: Introductions and summary of Day 1
1100 – 1245: Group work
1245 – 1300: Progress update and opportunity to swap groups/share skills
1300 – 1330: Lunch
1330 – 1500: Group work
1500 – 1600: Presentations
You can get a better idea of how Day two will work by reading our blog from Local by Social: South West earlier this year.
