[Working out loud] Why anyone can lead a session at #Futurespotters event, including you!


Photos from past Edgeryders event sessions: informal, collaborative, un-intimidating.

With only one month to go until the gathering in Tbilisi, June 24-26, we’re taking this week to launch an open call for everyone in the community to come forward and tell others what they want to see happen at the event, what they are willing to lead.

You don’t need to have it all figured out or have experience in public speaking to put yourself forward and lead a session. We’re all here to learn, and the work of developing your idea will be done in collaboration in the upcoming weeks.

A session at the event can be:

  • a presentation about a project you are involved in
  • a workshop to teach others in the community skills that they might need to move forward with their own initiative (@Grupo Cooperativo de las Indias have already a session on Market Activism)
  • a work session to build together project proposals (example for EU funding tbc), replicate existing models (example unMonastery tbc),
  • anything you want to explore with people coming from Georgia, Armenia, Egypt, Germany, UK, Italy, Sweden, Romania etc.; answer a burning question together (example @hexayurt's session)

HOW TO PROPOSE A SESSION?

Upload here a short description of what theme or project you want to present or work on at the event. (Below the editor, assign it to a platform group that you are part of).

What challenge does it answer? Who’s it for? What do you need help with?

Once uploaded and saved, share it via your social media profiles to get more people involved! Do you know of someone in Armenia, Georgia, Egypt working to affect change who needs to be in the room? Ping them on facebook, twitter etc and invite them to join.

WHAT IF I REALLY WANT IN, BUT CAN’T LEAD A SESSION?

There’s plenty of other things you can help with in event organizing: logistical arrangements, party planning, social media outreach. Choose a task and go for it!

THE PERKS

We have already booked 20 spots at a local hostel in Tbilisi and are waiting to fill them with names of those community members who show commitment to make our gathering memorable. You sign up to lead, you could end up with paid trip and lodging in Tbilisi. It’s that simple, we’re giving it a week, two max to give everyone a chance to benefit from it.

WHAT ABOUT THIS FUTURESPOTTERS EVENT AND WHY IS IT DIFFERENT?

The event is engineered by Edgeryders, a global community turned social enterprise to support the work of its over 2000 members. The Spot the Future project is supported by the United Nations Development Programme, our first official client!

If you missed it: all Edgeryders events are built entirely based on what participants want to get out of them. We’re not fans of sit-and-listen conferences with top down built agendas where people register only to hear others speak. We want to learn from each other, to work together, as this for us is a healthy way to build genuine collaboration; it goes beyond networking for one’s organisation.

We’re asking you to register for an event that has no predefined agenda, but a big story behind it: over the last months educators, communicators, open data enthusiasts, environmental activists and more in Georgia, Armenia, Egypt have met and joined the global Edgeryders community. We all have stories to share and burning questions we want to answer, but can’t do it alone. So we are meeting this June to continue the online conversation and find spots where we can help each other.

That’s why we aim to have a shared agenda and shared expectations – we want everyone to walk out of the room with the feeling that it’s worthwhile. Collaboration starts there, as we each have already made a time investment and stand ready to take it up a notch in the follow up of the event.

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Sessions

@Boris proposed during the bi-weekly Georgia Futurespotters meeting to host a session. he’s now really busy with exams this week, but will upload something when he has time again.

Maybe @ericnbarrett, @Cristina_Maza, @Alberto and me can do one on Horizon2020/project proposal? 

Great idea

I am definitely in. However, I would insist it is led by one of you guys on the Georgian side.

Building a skeleton agenda

@Boris hi, sounds great, can I ask what would the session be about, roughly?

The reason I’m asking is because I’m trying to put together a skeleton for the agenda, see how many slots we can check and also try to match people’s interests.

Depending on the scope of your session you might wanna pair up with someone in Armenia or Egypt and prepare it together to take less of your time? Let me know, the sooner the better :slight_smile:

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Trying to register a seminar

Hi, I am trying to register a seminar but I don’t think it’s working out very well for me :slight_smile:

This is the short description for my project, Looking forward to feedback:

Couple of weeks ago Switzerland voted against the highest minimum wage law with an overwhelming majority in the referendum, thus saving hundreds of thousands of current and future jobs which would slow down the economic growth with close to 1%. 

In seminar about economic and financial literacy and its importance to the economic growth and development in the country I will argue that basic economic literacy brings about better understanding of economic issues in the country, thus influencing the electoral decision in the long run which finally result in healthy economic environment and higher degree of prosperity in the country. 

Besides theoretical analysis of economic literacy and its influence on effective decision-making, I will be conducting a small experiment to demonstrate how knowledge of basic economics that anyone can comprehend will influence the decisions that people make and how they engage the general public in a healthy, well-argumented discussion which leads to a better future prospects for economic prosperity, high investment and employment rate and an attractive business environment. 

I hope to see all the civil activists, interested parties, educators and people who are interested in a better future for their country on the seminar where we can discuss about the prospects of influencing the development of civil society and creating a better environment for generations to come. 

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Great!

It sounds like an interesting session Tamar! What most important is, I think, is to - besides your knowledge on the topic! - focus on what the participants think. Many of the people participating might shed an interesting light on this issue as well. After you introduce the topic, and talk about your ideas, and the ideas and stories of the participants have collected, it would be great to see how we, all from different countries and backgrounds, could bring it to the next level: how can we increase the economic literacy in our perspective countries and how can we internationally help each other to achieve this. If you could create an event on this page here: https://edgeryders.eu/node/add/event?destination=events people will know it’ll take place and already brainstorm on ideas how to contribute. I am here for you whenever you need to support you.

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Super interesting

Tamara, I love economics and practical experiments. I also hope for a better present and future. I register!

Thank you Inge

Thanks for your input, Inge!

I will make sure to make the adjustments

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I will be able to host one session.

Detailed info and agenda will be posted latter.

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Great writeup, we should repurpose it for LOTE too

Hi @Noemi and @KiraVde, just came across this writeup from a while back which very much applies to LOTE. Thought I’d ping you in case you needed it.