[okfn-discuss] open knowledge event this autumn: proposal

Tue Jul 4 07:29:03 UTC 2006

hi Rufus,

On Mon, Jul 03, 2006 at 12:35:28PM +0100, Rufus Pollock wrote:
> I really enjoyed this, particularly the chance to talk with people 
> working on a lot of different areas of open knowledge and free 
> infrastructures and I'd really like to run another similar event again 
> this year at around the same time here in the UK.

Yeah, for sure, WSFII was an amazing experience - maybe a bit too big
though! I think it took us all months to recover from it :)

> It probably wouldn't be a WSFII because that is taking place in India 
> this year and it might need to be a more limited as we wouldn't have any 
> budget to transport people over from different countries as we did last 
> time. Nevertheless I think we could still cover a lot of ground and have 
> an interesting and fun time. Perhaps we could entitle it 'Open Knowledge 
> 1.0' ;)

I think it would be worth networking it as a WSFII event though - there
are a nice collection of WSFIIs developing on the site (http://wsfii.org)
and I don't think it's necessary this year to do anything too
time/energy/resource consuming or to attempt to be global.. The idea is
local networks, local issues... but networked globally in terms of
knowledge.

One of the nice things that has been suggested this year for WSFII was
the idea of RCFII (resource centres for free information
infrastructures) - places where information and the kinds of bits you'd
need for developing your FIIs would be available, and where people could
gather.

I think it would be really interesting to do something practical this
year - smaller scale, maybe involving developing a space (Limehouse's
top room, or perhaps another location - or a few locations) in London
for ongoing use for regular discussions and practical development.

> Culture about Content etc. What do people think? Is there anyone who 
> would like to help organize it?

I am helping (a bit) to organize an event about independent online video
distribution techniques and technologies with several activist groups
including Clearerchannel.org, undercurrents and others in October.  It
would make sense to bring that into the picture. That's scheduled for
Limehouse on the weekend of the 13th/14th/15th October..

> Event Outline
> *************
> 
> Duration: 1/2 days
> Date: Sat 30th Sept - Sun 1st Oct
> Where: London (Limehouse? or I might be able to find space somewhere 
> more central)
> 
> Possible Streams (in no specific order)
> =======================================
> 
>   * Civic Information
>   * Geodata
>   * Content
>   * Scientific data
>   * Wireless
>   * Hardware

Looks good to me, but rather than have anything too massive - like last
time, it could make more sense to focus discussion on one thing, then
perhaps bring in more practical workshops in each of these areas...

I was so busy during WSFII that I didn't really get a sense of the
discussions and whether the diversity really worked..

Cheers,

Saul.