Aspiration Blog

In early May, a few of us ventured down to Los Angeles to host a Social Justice Technology Skillshare. In one of the sessions, we explored what people learned while doing communications in service of community organizing efforts. We invited people to gather around a big piece of blank paper and populate it with their tips, challenges, and ambitions in applying online communications to on-the-ground efforts. The question that guided the conversation was:

• How can online communications move beyond one-way broadcasting, and instead support conversations and relationship-building in service of organizing efforts?

The Humanitarian Technology Festival on May 9 and 10 is Aspiration's first foray of participatory event methodologies into the digital response space. We hope that this event supports creative dialogues and capacity building in humanitarian aid and disaster response efforts. In a recent blog on Civic Media, Willow explains the framing of this program and event:

"The very way we deliver aid perpetuates the need for more aid... When people need lodging after a hurricane, they're either told to evacuate and/or they're put into temporary homes, away from neighbors and family. There is little impetus to return and rebuild both social and tangible structures. People are uprooted, and must start from scratch. When, instead, we see that people don't just need lodging but in fact need social fabric, responders (and the technologies used for response) can focus on how to maintain family and neighborhood ties."