Aspiration believes that face-to-face events are the most powerful way to engage our constituencies to facilitate interaction, network building, and collaboration.
We believe that in the nonprofit technology realm, there need to be more "great good places," neutral ground where technology developers and technology users can gather and interact. We believe that these venues for lively interaction are at the heart of a community’s vitality. Our events:
- offer social equality in a field that often features a ‘techno superiority’ by those technically savvy;
- they bring together people who may later go on to develop other forms of association around specific projects; and
- they provide a place for exchanging information and knowledge about effective practices and uses of technologies in organization’s social change work.
Convergences
Convergences bring together a diverse and heterogeneous range of stakeholders and contributors focused on a specific area of nonprofit and activist technology to compare needs, share knowledge and best practices, and brainstorm solutions and collaborations to address gaps. Aspiration has held convergences focused on advocacy applications, ICT in Human Rights organizations, and the use of open source software by nonprofits, among others.
Sprints
In comparison, sprints are more focused and outcome-oriented. Participants work collectively toward specific goals, such as the creation or enhancement of a software code base, or the generation of documentation and specifications. Aspiration has held sprints on architecting open databases, localization of software for NGOs, usability of open source software, and short text messaging (SMS) and voice over Internet (VoIP) in advocacy campaigns, for example.
Why our Events are Different
Convergences and sprints differ significantly from conferences and other more traditional event formats. Our events de-emphasize lectures, panels and presentations, and instead encourage facilitated dialog in small-groups to drive peer-to-peer knowledge sharing.
A key aspect of events facilitated by Aspiration involves the use of collaborative Internet technologies to increase ongoing knowledge transfer. Participants at Aspiration events chronicle the proceedings in real time on a dedicated “wiki” web site. Wikis support collective editing of pages by anyone viewing and wishing to contribute to the project. Aspiration-facilitated wikis have proved to be a focal outcome of our events, serving as a hub to enable ongoing collaboration and documentation.
If you are interested in our event facilitation services [0], please contact us at info@aspirationtech.org.