Don't panic
Blimey. What started as an idea in a cafe has turned into quite a phenomenon. Social Innovation Camp is roaring along.
Now we’ve chosen the ideas we need to build teams around them that can really accelerate their development. So this is a call for fantastic designers and coders to come and have some fun for a weekend.
You can sign up here — but be quick, there’s only so much room in the building!
The word is out. We’ve chosen the ideas that will be developed at the Social Innovation Camp, 4th-6th April 2008. We had a great time on Friday last week going through the 70 or so ideas with the advisory board and thanks to them for helping us decide on the six that will be developed at the event.
The ideas are:
A site for storing user-generated information – such as carbon footprint, manufacturing conditions and reviews — against a product, identified by its barcode number.
A resource for anyone looking to make adjustments to their lives, be it as a result of disability, injury or impairment.
– Personal development reports
An online system that supports young people to identify their personal skills and qualities.
A tool to support the families of prisoners coping with the experience of being apart from a loved one.
A site for helping jobseekers using Web 2.0 tools, with a special focus on the needs of migrant workers.
Freecycle meets Street Car: a stuff club.
Can you help develop any of these ideas? Sign up to come along.
So we’ve just launched the Social Innovation Camp call for ideas. The Camp itself (no tents required) will be 4–6th April in Bethnal Green and will bring together people with ideas with people who can help turn them into viable projects.
What we’re really looking for at this stage are itches to scratch. Little irritations that you think a bit of geek power could help solve and, in so doing, make the world a better place.
Great existing examples would be PlanningAlerts.com (born from a frustration with planning notices being hidden away in filing cabinets in basements of local authorities) or FreeCycle (how do I get rid of this stuff without taking it to the tip?) or for that matter School of Everything (born in part from our frustration with 19th century ways of organising education).
It’s been a great project to be involved in and I’m really looking forward to seeing how it all works out. Massive thanks to Nesta and the Young Foundation for their support and Anna, Christian, Dan and Jon for all their hard work in getting it off the ground.
But now we really want as wide a range of ideas as possible. So go on, what’s your itch?