Tag: nesta

Making digital things should be as common for young people as making food, doing art or making music.

This is an offer to fund work with  young people (from 5 to 18) to encourage them to make digital things.  I’m told that the Midlands didn’t grab it’s fair share of this fund the last time it was offered so go for it.  (You’ve missed the Midlands day explaining it but there is an online one in November) – here’s lots more info that Amy at Nesta has just sent me:

The best link would be www.nesta.org.uk/digitalmakersfund

www.nesta.org.uk/digitalmakersfund

Nesta and Nominet Trust (proud supporters of Make Things Do Stuff) are pleased to announce a second open call for ideas to significantly increase the number of young people who participate in digital making activities.

We want digital making to go mainstream. We want making with technology to become as accessible an activity as making music or making food. Ubiquity is a long way off, but we want to support initiatives that can take us closer to that goal.

The second call is backed by a fund of £250,000 and we expect to make a small number of grants between £20,000 and £50,000. Alongside the grant a package of tailored support will be offered; this includes expert advice and mentoring and access to Nesta and Nominet Trust’s expertise, networks and event space.

 

1. What we’re looking to support

We expect successful initiatives will use young people’s existing interests, passions and pastimes as a gateway to digital making, inspiring young people to become creators, not just users of digital technologies. We’re looking for applications from organisations, or partnerships between organisations, that have the capacity to engage thousands of young people in digital making activities.

  • Use different interests and content to reach new audiences –how can digital making tie in with music, fashion, sport, film or brands that will inspire young people to participate?
  • The ‘making’ element is important. We want ideas that lead participants to the creation of a digital product that they can show to and share with others.
  • We’re interested in reaching different networks and communities for learning – youth clubs, libraries, after school clubs, interest groups and social networks speak to thousands of young people every day. How can they integrate digital making into their activities?

·         We take a broad view of digital making that encompasses 3D printing and physical computing, as well as coding and programming, and want to work with partners who are noisy advocates for the importance of digital making; who will use all the channels available to them to shout about and promote their projects.

2.If you’re interested in applying?

You can find out more about the fund’s aims and how it works by enrolling on one of our workshops or webchats (dates below).  Anyone who hopes to submit an application must attend one of these or if you’re interested in knowing more about the programme and networking with others we’d be happy to see you too.

 

#Opendata, cities, civic tools and Make it Local 10 things to make opendata work in local government – some links from #tal12 in Birmingham

I have a collection of half baked thoughts following the truly excellent Talk About Local unconference in Birmingham on Saturday.

Whilst they stew into something edible I just wanted to quickly share some very useful links plus a list of ideas generated as part of Make it Local – the work done by Nesta on opendata and local government.

First the links – all mentioned by Jon Kingsbury  (twitter) – who’s driving the Nesta Destination local programme.

  • http://civiccommons.org/  is a us website which “is a marketplace for open innovation in government, tracking 585 apps in 199 cities. ”  As Jon said – son’t re-invent the wheel, check ideas against this site.
  • http://www.listpoint.co.uk/  Jon described as “an open platform for code lists standards”collates a lot of work on data standards, what they means and saves time and energy for opendata work.
Make it Local - opendata and local governement programme from Nesta
Make it Local - opendata and local government programme from Nesta

Make it Local –  was a project that Jon helped run for Nesta which  supported local authorities to work with local developers on open and data tools.   One of  the projects – for example – was Birmingham’s Civic Dashboard.  Nesta created this make it local toolkit. – (download as a pdf ) which gives from very practical thoughts on how to make data work in government more successful.  I cite the whole thing below, simply because i think it’s worth sharing:

Ten tips for creating online local public services using open data

nesta.org.uk/areas_of_work/public_services_lab/make_it_local

1 Generate the idea

Focus on the needs of the Read more

Creative Councils, Podnosh and a partnership in Brighton.

I’m delighted to say the the Brighton and Hove Council proposal to the Nesta Creative Councils challenge has made it to the final 17 long list of 137 applications.

Why so?  Well Podnosh is one of the partner organisations in the Brighton bid along with Demsoc and Public-i.

Creative councils:

ambition over the next two years is to work with a small group of pioneering local authorities across England and Wales and their partners to develop, implement and spread transformational new approaches to meeting some of the biggest medium and long-term challenges facing communities and local services.

Put simply our proposal will work on taking online and offline civic conversation and digitally connecting that into local public service decision making in a concrete way.

Thanks very much to Anthony Zacharzewski, Catherine Howe and Paul Brewer for getting things to this stage.

What next?  More work will be done on the final 17, with the hope of much more significant investment in 5 of the ideas.

The other 16 on the long list are:

  • Bristol
  • Cambridgeshire
  • Cornwall
  • Derbyshire
  • Essex
  • London Borough of Havering
  • London Borough of Islington
  • Leicester
  • Monmouthshire
  • Reading
  • Rossendale
  • Rotherham
  • Stoke on Trent
  • Westminster
  • Wigan
  • York

You can find and engage will all 137 ideas on simpl.

Things I've spotted December 4th from 22:11 to 22:41

Here are some of the things I’ve been reading December 4th from 22:11 to 22:41:

  • The challenge of pledges | Created in Birmingham – Pledges to support local theatre/culture. Could they be adapted to strengthen local community?

    "# Attend 12 theatre shows in the next 12 months, 4 by West Midlands writers/artists/companies you haven’t seen before, 1 in a West Midlands Venue you’ve never been to before.
    # Take 12 people who have never been, rarely go, or don’t ‘do’ Independent Theatre to a show. Share transport.
    # Host a meal/party for 8 people 4 of which you barely know.
    # Write 12 comments/reviews/blog entries about theatre on other people’s sites.
    # Attend 1 mid*point or return to the next Open Space event."

  • Another day, another report « Chief Inspector Mark Payne’s Blog – How did it stop being like this? "In West Midlands Police we have been one of the pilot forces for ‘community resolutions’. This effectively allows officers to use their judgement to make decisions at the scene of some lower level crimes, and together with the victim agree on a suitable remedy. So if a gang of kids break your window, you can ask them to apologise and pay for it, rather than enter into the criminal justice system. So far we have carried out 8000 of these types of resolutions, and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Police officers are allowed to use their professional judgement (or common sense as it is more commonly known,) based on the full circumstances of the case, not on narrow performance objectives."
  • Idiot English: Vorsprung durch Biscuit – This is blogging to warm the cockles of my heart: "My wife likes Bahlsen's Choco Leibniz biscuits, so we often have some in the pantry. But their presence weighs heavy on my pedantic mind. There it is, in my home, the yellow box with its (in)famous slogan:
    More chocolate than a biscuit
    Eh? It should be "More chocolate than biscuit"! (They're about two-thirds choc.) I can only imagine that this slogan was the victim of hypercorrection in the seminar room"
  • A quick start guide to Twitter – "The guide takes absolute beginners to Twitter right from the start – explaining what Twitter is, and how to sign up – right through to replying, retweeting, hashtagging and using tools to measure success." Dave Briggs knows his stuff – and he can be funny.
  • Pulitzer or community – daddy or chips? | Joanna Geary – "It reminded me of a hypothetical situation someone put to me the other day:

    You are the editor of a newspaper. You are allowed to employ one more person. You can choose either a writer that has won a Pulitzer prize or a writer that has built an online community of 40,000 highly committed readers and contributors. Which do you choose?

    I know nothing is ever that clear cut, of course. This is a real “daddy or chips” question. Yet, I guess how you answer it gives a good indication of how you think we should train our journalists of the future."

    I'd choose both.

  • Thriving too: Making Openness Work – The 'Open100' competition is a celebration of the power of openness and mass collaboration. You can be part of the competition by nominating the company you think is the best open innovator. The competition will be open until 12th February while the winners will be announced on 24thFebruary. The winners are those who will be included in the list of the world's top 100 open companies
  • Official Google Research Blog: Automatic Captioning in YouTube – Google experimenting wiht automatically captioning video: "The auto alignment features is available for all new video uploads, however the scope is limited to English material. The auto captioning feature is initially rolled out to a set of educational partners only. Although this is very limited in scope, the early launch makes the results of the system available to the viewers of this material instantly and it allows us to gauge early feedback which can aid in improving the features. We will release automatic captions more widely as quickly as possible." via @pigsonthewing