Tim's Blog

Technology and discussions of technologies were notably absent from the Civicus World Assembly. Even the head of Africa's first mobile phone company speaking in a BBC World Service debate missed speaking about how bringing a mobile phone infrastructure to Africa creates a potentially massive platform for driving, evaluating and improving development.

However, in the packed programme there was one session that took at look at technology. Co-ordinated by Igloo the session was primarily exploring tools for fascilitating communication between dispersed teams of researchers or practioners. A lot of what was said about building network and communities of practioners was really useful - but, it was this slide:

At the Youth Summit last this week Steve Moore from Channel 4/Policy Unplugged injected a hour-long 'Open Space' session into the more formal structure of the event. Open space ideas also heavily influenced the session design I developed for a series of recent dialogue events between young people, DfES officials and the Minister for Children and Families (at that point, Parmjit Dhanda) looking at the Local Offer. This has got me thinking about what 'Open Space Technology' has got to offer to participation practitioners, and what factors we need to be thinking of when exploring its use.

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