Noticings 5: Elections, tech foundations and innovations
Noticings 5: Elections, tech foundations and innovations
Hello! 👋 This is Anna Dent, welcoming you to the fifth edition of Noticings, Careful Trouble’s newsletter.
We’re well into February and there’s still no firm news on when the UK General Election will be. The uncertainty and speculation are unhelpful distractions at a time when there are so many pressing problems, nationally and internationally.
Whenever it happens, the incoming government will need ambitious policy ideas, not least in the tech space. We’re advocating for solutions that are grounded in communities and places other than the Golden Triangle of Oxford, Cambridge and London, and that include a far greater diversity of voices.
This edition of the newsletter showcases three of our recent projects: on digital inclusion, the importance of tech foundations, and stewarding meaningful innovation. These seemingly disparate topics all speak to some common themes: the need to ensure the benefits of technology are evenly distributed, and to understand that innovation is not confined to the ivory towers of academia or the plush offices of tech start-ups.
Tech for Today and Tomorrow
We’re used to the idea that innovation comes from sparks of genius, solo visionaries, high tech science parks and university spin-off start-ups. And you could be forgiven for thinking that every company in the country is feverishly rolling out generative AI and robots, remaking their whole business model.
In fact, plenty of companies have yet to adopt even the most basic of technology, and have no plans to use AI any time soon. We need to adjust our understanding of where and how innovation happens, and who can be involved. It happens in your neighbourhood, in community businesses and charities. It helps people develop new skills, build local resilience and ownership of resources and assets. But it can only do this when we ensure that the ways and means of innovation are available to everyone.
In Tech for Today - and for Tomorrow, we call for urgent attention to ensure our technology foundations are in place, in order to support productivity, build business confidence, increase health and wellbeing, drive sustainability, and power more home-grown innovation.
Digital Inclusion
One of the most fundamental technology foundations is an affordable, reliable connection to the internet. We’ve been working with Impact on Urban Health to explore the health and wellbeing impacts of digital exclusion, and how a community-based broadband service could offer an alternative to unaffordable commercial services.
In the first of a series of publications and events about digital inclusion policy that we’ll be putting out over the course of the Spring, Policy Researcher Tom McGrath sets out some ‘quick fixes’ that a new government could commit to quickly and easily to make a significant impact. These fixes centre on the need to bring digital inclusion policy up to date, and to look to the future, something that we’ll be saying more about later in the series.
Stewarding meaningful innovation
We’ve recently finished a project with the Royal Academy of Engineering, working with them to explore how they might move towards a stewardship model of meaningful innovation. This requires the recognition that innovation is not just a technical pursuit, but also a social, economic and environmental activity, which requires new approaches and cultural change.
Intervening in super wicked problems such as climate change, where time is of the essence, cannot rely on innovator-as-individual-genius, or the endless creation of new technologies. Instead, we propose that pathways to meaningful innovation must be created by values and behaviours rather than through the application of a fixed set of processes, and must often be adaptive and responsive. To do this, institutions must invite others into the work, share power and resources, foster inter-disciplinary working, and strengthen connections between communities. These lessons don’t just apply to this project; we believe they are universal.
Foresight Lead Anna Williams shares more about the project.
What else have we been up to?
Roseanna Dias, inclusion producer on our Community Tech programme, has written a series of insightful and inspiring blogposts reflecting on how community tech can dismantle oppressions and support us all to thrive. The first is out now, and we’ll be releasing all five in the series on a weekly basis.
Opportunities and Events
Dudley CVS are seeking a Community Technologist to support the co-design of a digital archive for a project (Dudley People’s School for Climate Justice) funded through the National Lottery Community Fund’s Climate Action Fund – Nature and Climate.
Community Technologist for Dudley People’s School for Climate Justice
April 2024 – December 2026
Budget: £33,000 inc VAT
(Dudley Borough and remote working)
https://www.dudleycvs.org.uk/invitation-to-tender-community-technologist/
Careful Trouble Executive Director Rachel Coldicutt is speaking at the Scottish AI Summit, taking place on 28 March in Edinburgh. Tickets are available online.
Our friends at Stir to Action are hosting the ABCs of the New Economy festival in Bristol on the 10th and 11th July. It promises workshops, panels and discussions with a range of people and organisations who are transforming their local economies. Tickets, including low-cost options for those less able to pay, are available online.
If you’d like to commission us or partner with us, then get in touch by emailing hello@carefultrouble.net. We’d love to hear from you.
The Careful Trouble team
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