The stakeholders we interviewed widely agreed that taking a forward-looking and proactive approach to human rights technology would better enable modeling of future states of play.
The Humanitarian Technology Festival session list will be co-developed with participants, facilitators, and partners in the time leading up and during the Festival.
The agenda will be designed and facilitated using Aspiration's unique participatory model, in an environment where powerpoint slides are discouraged and dialog and collaboration drive the learning.
Sessions likely to be on the agenda include...
The following is the agenda for the Humanitarian TechFest 2016 happening on June 4th and 5th in Cambridge, MA.
9:30 - Coffee and light breakfast
10:00 - Opening Circle
The event will start with introductions and welcomes, an overview of the agenda and guidelines, and announcements.
10:30 - Interactive Plenary
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."
Gunner and the Aspiration team have been an incredible inspiration and resource for us at OpenNews. Their guidance and feedback have shaped everything from how support relationship building amongst cohorts to planning goal-oriented meetings where participants leave with a feeling of accomplishment and a sense of purpose.
