Open Tech Calendar

mySociety & friends meet-up, Bristol

A meet-up for those interested in discussing and hearing about inspiring 'civic technology' projects in Bristol and beyond.

Speakers include Paul Wilson and Professor Dimitra Simeonidou from Bristol Is Open, Mike Dunn from Sift Digital, Ben Fowkes from Delib and Ben Nickolls from mySociety Services.

http://lanyrd.com/2015/mysociety-friends-meet-up/

http://lanyrd.com/2015/mysociety-friends-meet-up/

Thu 23rd Jul 2015 7:00pm (Europe/London)

Thu 23rd Jul 2015 10:00pm (Europe/London)

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mySociety Cambridge Meet-up

Fancy an evening of hearing and talking about civic technology, digital democracy and innovative online projects?

If so, then you should definitely come along to mySociety’s Cambridge meet-up on the 4th of November 2014.

There will be an opportunity to meet those working on mySociety’s projects which include TheyWorkForYou.com, FixMyStreet.com and WhatDoTheyKnow.com

Three Sessions:

6:15pm The Content Mine: Liberating 100,000,000 facts from the scientific literature presented by Peter Murray-Rust
7:15pm What are mySociety up to? TheyWorkForYou voting records presented by Richard Taylor
8:00pm An insight into Cambridgeshire Insight presented by Mike Soper and Hendrik Grothuis

The event is free and open to all but do add your name to the Lanyrd page: http://lanyrd.com/2014/mysocial-2-november/ so we know you’re coming. Drinks and snacks will be offered.

This talk is part of the mySociety Meetups series.

http://lanyrd.com/2014/mysocial-2-november/

http://lanyrd.com/2014/mysocial-2-november/

Tue 4th Nov 2014 6:00pm (Europe/London)

Tue 4th Nov 2014 9:00pm (Europe/London)

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mySociety Liverpool Meetup

Fancy an evening of hearing and talking about civic technology, digital democracy and innovative online projects?

If so, then you should definitely come along to mySociety's meet-up next Wednesday 1st October 6pm-9pm at DoES Liverpool.

As a remote organisation with staff based all around the UK (and the world), we regularly organise meet-ups around the country to get together face to face, and to meet and hear from others who are also working on civic technology and cool online projects.

This time it's Liverpool's turn.

We're really chuffed to be joined by speakers Julian Todd, Paul Furley, the guys from Fruitful, and our very own Matthew Somerville for an evening of talks, beers, pizza and getting to know each other.

Yes, that's right, *free* pizza and beer will be available - what more could you want?

For more info and to sign up to show you're coming, visit our Lanyrd page: http://lanyrd.com/ccbxty

Hope to see you there!

http://lanyrd.com/ccbxty

http://lanyrd.com/ccbxty

Wed 1st Oct 2014 6:00pm (Europe/London)

Wed 1st Oct 2014 9:00pm (Europe/London)

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mySociety Meetup: Freedom of Information Night

The next mySociety meet-up, on 3rd September, will focus on Freedom of Information (FOI). We really care about FOI at mySociety, which is why we created the FOI request filer WhatDoTheyKnow for UK citizens back in 2008, and Alaveteli thereafter for international use.

So, we thought, why not host a meet-up to discuss FOI technologies, research and legislation in the UK and beyond?

We’re delighted to be joined at this meet-up by the following guest speakers:-

Maurice Frankel: Maurice is director of the UK Campaign for Freedom of Information. He has worked with them since it was set up in 1984, and has been its director since 1987.

Maurice will talk about the possible government restrictions on the right of access to information in the UK; the problems caused by the Freedom of Information Act’s poor approach to public service contracts and the surprising limitations which the courts have imposed on the ministerial veto.

Marietta Le: Marietta is from the Hungarian investigative journalism NGO Atlatszo.

Atlatzso is a watchdog NGO and online news site for investigative journalism to promote transparency and freedom of information (FOI) in Hungary. They run various websites including KiMitTud, a freedom of information request generator for the general public, which runs using the Alaveteli platform.

They also run the Tor-based anonymous whistleblowing platform Magyarleaks and a crowdsourced platform to anonymously report everyday corruption called Fizettem.

Marietta will join us to speak about setting up an FOI site in Hungary using Alaveteli and the current threats to freedom of information in Hungary, following recent amendments to the FOI law.

Savita Bailur and Tom Longley: Earlier this year mySociety instigated a research project to look at the place that Alaveteli and other FOI online technologies might have in creating cultures of transparency and accountability.

We want to address this top level question: “In what circumstances, if any, can tools like Alaveteli be shown to have measurable impacts on the ability of citizens to exert power over underperforming institutions?”

To address this, researchers Savita and Tom have focused on three areas: a literature review to see what research is already out there, in-depth interviews with people who have installed FOI technologies in many different countries, and the compilation of a list of critical success factors. Read more about their research here: https://www.mysociety.org/2014/08/11/interim-report-researching-the-international-impact-of-foi-technologies/

Savita and Tom are more than halfway through their research, and we’re delighted that they’ll present their preliminary findings at this meet-up.

We’ll also discuss the latest developments on WhatDoTheyKnow, and Alaveteli developers (as well as other mySociety team members) will be around to answer any questions.

There’ll be plenty of pizza and beer to go around too, so what could be better?

Hope to see you there!

When: Wednesday 3rd September, 6pm – 9pm
Where: Mozilla Space London
How: Add your name to the Lanyrd page (http://lanyrd.com/ccbfgx), so we know you’re coming.
Who: Anyone who fancies it.

https://www.mysociety.org/2014/08/20/join-us-for-a-special-freedom-of-information-meet-up/

http://lanyrd.com/ccbfgx

Wed 3rd Sep 2014 6:00pm (Europe/London)

Wed 3rd Sep 2014 9:00pm (Europe/London)

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Europe/London

No

Yes

mySociety Meetup: Freedom of Information Night

The next mySociety meet-up, on 3rd September, will focus on Freedom of Information (FOI). We really care about FOI at mySociety, which is why we created the FOI request filer WhatDoTheyKnow for UK citizens back in 2008, and Alaveteli thereafter for international use.

So, we thought, why not host a meet-up to discuss FOI technologies, research and legislation in the UK and beyond?

We’re delighted to be joined at this meet-up by the following guest speakers:-

Maurice Frankel: Maurice is director of the UK Campaign for Freedom of Information. He has worked with them since it was set up in 1984, and has been its director since 1987.

Maurice will talk about the possible government restrictions on the right of access to information in the UK; the problems caused by the Freedom of Information Act’s poor approach to public service contracts and the surprising limitations which the courts have imposed on the ministerial veto.

Marietta Le: Marietta is from the Hungarian investigative journalism NGO Atlatszo.

Atlatzso is a watchdog NGO and online news site for investigative journalism to promote transparency and freedom of information (FOI) in Hungary. They run various websites including KiMitTud, a freedom of information request generator for the general public, which runs using the Alaveteli platform.

They also run the Tor-based anonymous whistleblowing platform Magyarleaks and a crowdsourced platform to anonymously report everyday corruption called Fizettem.

Marietta will join us to speak about setting up an FOI site in Hungary using Alaveteli and the current threats to freedom of information in Hungary, following recent amendments to the FOI law.

Savita Bailur and Tom Longley: Earlier this year mySociety instigated a research project to look at the place that Alaveteli and other FOI online technologies might have in creating cultures of transparency and accountability.

We want to address this top level question: “In what circumstances, if any, can tools like Alaveteli be shown to have measurable impacts on the ability of citizens to exert power over underperforming institutions?”

To address this, researchers Savita and Tom have focused on three areas: a literature review to see what research is already out there, in-depth interviews with people who have installed FOI technologies in many different countries, and the compilation of a list of critical success factors. Read more about their research here: https://www.mysociety.org/2014/08/11/interim-report-researching-the-international-impact-of-foi-technologies/

Savita and Tom are more than halfway through their research, and we’re delighted that they’ll present their preliminary findings at this meet-up.

We’ll also discuss the latest developments on WhatDoTheyKnow, and Alaveteli developers (as well as other mySociety team members) will be around to answer any questions.

There’ll be plenty of pizza and beer to go around too, so what could be better?

Hope to see you there!

When: Wednesday 3rd September, 6pm – 9pm
Where: Mozilla Space London
How: Add your name to the Lanyrd page (http://lanyrd.com/ccbfgx), so we know you’re coming.
Who: Anyone who fancies it.

Wed 3rd Sep 2014 6:00pm (Europe/London)

Wed 3rd Sep 2014 8:00pm (Europe/London)

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No

Yes

If you're interested in digital democracy, open data, civic hacking, transparency and more, then come along to the mySociety meet-up in Bristol.

You'll meet some of the mySociety team and other like minded people, as well as have a few drinks and some snacks.

You'll also hear some awesome talks by the following guest speakers:

- Matt Jukes, Head of Digital Transformation at Office for National Statistics: Matt will talk about trying to build a government website to Government Digital Service (GDS) standards at the Office for National Statistics without the benefits of their team, while trying not to break procurement rules.

- Sarah Prag: Sarah worked, until recently, at the Government Digital Service (GDS), where she was the Product Manager for the launch of GOV.UK. Sarah will chat about developing and launching GOV.UK, and her latest work exploring what it takes to digitally transform a public service.

- The Delib team: Ben Fowkes and the Delib guys will chat about what projects are exciting them at the moment in the world of digital democracy, policy crowd-sourcing, public consultation, participative governance and open source.

They'll focus particularly on a local project they've been running with the Mayor of Bristol, George Ferguson, called 'George's Ideas Lab'.

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mySociety Bristol Meet-Up: With speakers Matt Jukes, Sarah Prag and the Delib Team

If you're interested in digital democracy, open data, civic hacking, transparency and more, then come along to the mySociety meet-up in Bristol.

You'll meet some of the mySociety team and other like minded people, as well as have a few drinks and some snacks.

We'll also be joined by the following guest speakers:

- Matt Jukes, Head of Digital Transformation at Office for National Statistics: Matt will talk about trying to build a government website to Government Digital Service (GDS) standards at the Office for National Statistics without the benefits of their team, while trying not to break procurement rules.

- Sarah Prag: Sarah worked, until recently, at the Government Digital Service (GDS), where she was the Product Manager for the launch of GOV.UK. Sarah will chat about developing and launching GOV.UK, and her latest work exploring what it takes to digitally transform a public service.

- The Delib team: Ben Fowkes and the Delib guys will chat about what projects are exciting them at the moment in the world of digital democracy, policy crowd-sourcing, public consultation, participative governance and open source.

They'll focus particularly on a local project they've been running with the Mayor of Bristol, George Ferguson, called 'George's Ideas Lab'.

http://lanyrd.com/2014/mysocial-2-july/

Wed 2nd Jul 2014 6:00pm (Europe/London)

Wed 2nd Jul 2014 9:00pm (Europe/London)

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mySociety Meet-Up: Civic and democratic coding, with added conversation and snacks

Interested in civic coding, open data and eDemocracy?

Then come and join mySociety for a chat, beer and pizza at the TechCube in Edinburgh on Wednesday 4th June.

We’ll be joined by guest speakers:

Andy Wightman: Writer, researcher, analyst, commentator and activist on issues of land, power, governance, democracy and money. Andy is author of ‘Who Owns Scotland’ and 'The Poor Had No Lawyers' and, in an attempt to make landownership information more transparent, runs www.whoownsscotland.org.uk. We are delighted that Andy will join us at this mySociety meet-up to talk about landownership, community land rights and open democracy in Scotland.

We'll also be joined by:

Aaron Crane and James Mackenzie from Cutbot: In June 2012 Cutbot began the process of challenging the Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA)’s licensing regime around media monitoring, specifically concerning the fees paid by charitable and other not-for-profit clients, and also the fees and other conditions to which they were subject.

The NLA currently charges small companies like Cutbot (with a turnover in the tens of thousands) just over £5k for a licence to scan content for their clients, while the largest companies, with turnovers in the millions, pay £10k. Google pay no equivalent licence for carrying out the same activities: they’re treated as non-commercial.

In March of this year, the Copyright Tribunal endorsed this fee structure, despite claims by Cutbot and others that it’s extremely unfair.

Come along to hear Cutbot’s Aaron Crane and James MacKenzie talk about their fight to get the NLA’s rules changed. They’ll also talk about the UK Supreme Court’s ruling against the NLA’s claim that the act of viewing freely-provided public content on the publishers’ own websites requires a licence. This has now been referred up to the European courts.

There'll also be plenty of time to chat with some of mySociety's developers about mySociety's websites and other open source projects.

http://lanyrd.com/cyyct

Wed 4th Jun 2014 6:00pm (Europe/London)

Wed 4th Jun 2014 9:00pm (Europe/London)

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Europe/London

No

Yes