Women in Technology – OpenTech 2009
Here’s the last of my video sequences from the OpenTech 2009 Conference, which I was pleased to both attend and speak at.
Women In Technology was a fascinating and useful consciousness-raising session that more men should have stayed for! It was a follow-up to this year’s Ada Lovelace Day.
Chaired by Zoe Margolis, the panel consisted of Sue Black, Janet Parkinson, Suw Charman-Anderson and Kathryn Korrick (right to left as you look at the screen). Each gave a short presentation and the session ended with questions from the floor.
The vast majority of most of the presentations is covered in this video, with the exception of Kathryn Corrick’s mini-workshop (which I participated in and thus couldn’t easily shoot) and a slight hiccup when the battery ran out – subsequent sections are hand-held as Sanyo thoughtfully placed the power input connector for my camcorder so as to obscure the tripod socket. Hmph.
However there is enough here to appreciate the majority of the content.
Women In Technology — OpenTech 2009 from Richard Elen on Vimeo.
July 10, 2009 Comments Off on Women in Technology – OpenTech 2009
Sir Bonar Neville-Kingdom at OpenTech 2009
Rather unexpectedly, I was able to be present at, and to capture the majority of, this address to the attendees at OpenTech 2009 by Sir Bonar Nevill-Kingdom, self-described as “Her Majesty’s most senior civil servant concerned with Information and Communication Technologies (or “ICTs”) [and] the Prime Minister’s data-sharing czar.”
He discussed “The Three Pillars of Digital Britain” and the majority of the text of his address may be found here.
Due to the unexpected nature of this event, I regret that the very front of the presentation is missing and the video is hand-held. The Open Rights Group, with a level of foresight that has to be seen to be believed, has published a rather better recording of this event, and I am pleased to direct you to their version on blip.tv. Or you can watch my wobbly version below.
Sir Bonar Neville-Kingdom — OpenTech 2009 from Richard Elen on Vimeo.
July 8, 2009 Comments Off on Sir Bonar Neville-Kingdom at OpenTech 2009
Ben Goldacre at OpenTech 2009
Ben Goldacre is a medical doctor and best-selling author of the (highly recommended) book Bad Science, which was shortlisted for the BBC’s Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction recently. The book shows how you can simply apply the scientific method to successfully guard yourself against both mainstream and “alternative” medical scams, and debunk non-demonstrable claims, with some fairly scary examples.
In this somewhat impromptu talk delivered at OpenTech 2009, Ben looks at how we could take some of the ideas in the book a good deal further. Ben’s talk was part of the after-lunch session in the main hall, and he is seen with Bill Thompson (you can see Bill’s talk here) and chair Zoe Margolis.
Ben Goldacre: “Beyond Bad Science”, OpenTech 2009 from Richard Elen on Vimeo.
July 7, 2009 Comments Off on Ben Goldacre at OpenTech 2009
OpenTech 2009 materials online
Here’s the current list of OpenTech 2009 material I’ve been able to locate online, organised by session number. If I’ve missed anyone, please add a comment with details (Updated 14:00, 24 July):
Session 1
- Main Hall Session 1 audio Community and Democracy in Hijacked Space (Space Hijackers); Does FoI work? You Bet! (Heather Brooke)
- Room 3E Session 1 audio Radio Drama at a distance (Richard Elen); Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974–1994 (Steve Goodwin); How can open video become the new TV? (Hamish Campbell)
Richard Elen on Radio Drama at a Distance (slidecast with audio)
Session 2
- Main Hall Session 2 audio Making things happen: Going beyond ideas to implementation. With Tom Steinberg (mySociety), Tom Loosemore (4iP and more) and Louise Ferguson (OpenRightsGroup and more).
- Upper Hall Session 2 audio Digital Engagement — Richard Stirling (Cabinet Office); Open Government Data — John Sheridan (OPSI); Opening Up Government Data: Give it to us Raw, Give it to us Now — Rufus Pollock (Open Knowledge Foundation)
Session 3
- Main Hall, Session 3
Bill Thompson on The 10 (2) Cultures Problem (video)
Ben Goldacre, Beyond Bad Science (video) - Room 3E Session 3
Phil Whitehouse, How to build Developer Communities (slide presentation)
Session 4
- Main Hall Session 4 audio Women In Technology
Women In Technology panel session (video)
Kathryn Corrick’s writeup of Finding Ada at OpenTech 2009 (blog)
Commentary on Women in Technology session by Judith Townend (blog) - Upper Hall Session 4 audio Web of Power — Richard Pope & Rob McKinnon
Session 5
- Main Hall Session 5 audio Ephemerality? Real time web vs persistence (Gavin Bell); Location and Privacy (Gary Gale); Your Energy Identity (Gavin Sparks)
Gary Gale on Location, Privacy and Opting Out (slide presentation) - Upper Hall Session 5 audio Spread the Web (Fran Sainsbury); Local web beyond the hype (William Perrin). Slides for both talks.
- Room 3E Session 5
Adewale Oshineye on Federated Microblogging (slide presentation)
Session 6
- Upper Hall Session 6 audio (No2ID and Open Rights Group: Intercept Modernisation Programme (IMP), preceded by Sir Bonor Neville Kingdom)
Sir Bonor Neville-Kingdom on The Three Pillars of Digital Britain (text) or watch the video - Room 3E, Session 6
Tom Loosemore on 4ip (slide presentation)
General
- Lunchtime slides say ‘Thank You’ to people who made the event possible (PDF)
- Flickr OpenTech images
- Review of OpenTech by Dr Ian McDonald, Development Producer at BBC Learning, including some useful links
- Official OpenTech 2009 site
- The OpenTech 2009 Schedule page now links to audio recordings and presentations where available.
- OpenTech 2009 feedback form
- Sam’s notes on the event
July 6, 2009 Comments Off on OpenTech 2009 materials online
Bill Thompson on the “Two Cultures Problem”
One of the high points of my attendance at OpenTech 2009 on Saturday was the after-lunch talk by Bill Thompson, whom I would rate as one of the UK’s leading technology commentators. He writes and broadcasts frequently (such as on BBC World Service’s weekly technology show Digital Planet, which I also recommend highly), and is well worth following.
He took as his theme an updated take on the “Two Cultures Problem”, after CP Snow’s famous lecture of 50 years ago.
From the notes for OpenTech: “It’s fifty years since CP Snow’s famous lecture on the Two Cultures – science and literature. We seem to have a different divide these days, between ‘people like us’ and the rest. What might be done about this?”
Here’s the video I took of Bill’s talk – which is the short version of one he gave last month in Cambridge, for which a recording is currently unavailable.
Bill Thompson on “The Two Cultures Problem”: OpenTech 2009 from Richard Elen on Vimeo.
Read more of Bill’s work at http://www.andfinally.com/ - and you may also find his BBC News | Technology article, A nation of programmers? of interest.
July 6, 2009 Comments Off on Bill Thompson on the “Two Cultures Problem”
“Radio Drama At A Distance” OpenTech presentation
On 4 July I was pleased to be able to give a presentation at OpenTech, held at the University of London Union, Malet St, on how to create radio drama when the participants are geographically separated. The technique employs VoIP technology (Skype in this case) and the presentation includes an overview of technology choices, how to get the best results, and planning, performance and production tips. Hopefully it will be useful to others interested in developing new approaches to the wonderful field of radio drama.
The presentation is informed by my experiences working with the Radio Riel Players, a group based in the virtual world of Second Life around the radio station Radio Riel.
This presentation is now a Slidecast, including not only the slides but also the audio of my presentation, courtesy of Sam and David at OpenTech. Yes, there are some minor sync issues, but not disruptive ones!
For a more detailed description of the presentation, please see this page.
July 5, 2009 Comments Off on “Radio Drama At A Distance” OpenTech presentation
Two weeks to OpenTech 2009
Happily, I’ve completed my presentation on Radio Drama At A Distance (aka VoIP Radio Drama) that I’ll be giving at OpenTech 2009 in just a couple of weeks’ time on July 4 in London. You can read about it here.
It’s only a 15-minute slot but it should be fun, and if you’ve wondered how to get a bunch of people who are geographically separated together to create radio drama, it will hopefully give you some ideas.
After the event, I’ll publish some kind of paper on the content and hopefully put the presentation slides up somewhere accessible. However, at the time of writing you can still get in to the event itself, and there are plenty of interesting presentations and discussions throughout the day — here’s the schedule as it currently stands. So you might like to try and get there in person.
In particular, I draw your attention to presentations by Bill Thompson and Ben Goldacre, in the first session of Stream A.
June 23, 2009 Comments Off on Two weeks to OpenTech 2009