[Dfey-nw-discuss] Idea for slaughter: techweek

[Tim Dobson]

Hey everyone,

DISCLAIMER: This is simply an idea I've had that I'd like to bounce
around a bit.. Not a plan. Not a promise. Not any form of commitment to
the idea. This is just an idea that I'd like to throw out there for
comments and suggestions.

Please please tell me what you think, especially if you think I'm wrong
or something could done better.
Feel free to point out difficulties (and possible solutions if you have
them), though lets try and look at improving the idea than getting hung
up on the obstacles.

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You are used to the idea of during the summer holidays (or other
holidays) of working parents being eager to "get rid" of their children
as much as possible. So you may have been to things like summer camps or
scout camps or basically going out into the outdoors and doing all sorts
outdoor pursuits with some sort of community group, away from your parents.

Usually these kind of things are residential where you go and stay
somewhere and then have people minding you however sometimes these are
simply early morning to late afternoon things.

For instance, there was a "kids week" at a sailing club I used to go to,
was a voleenteer run thing - it charged something like £12/day for 5
days or something but essentially the parents dropped you off as they
left for work at about 8.30am and then picked you up at like 8.30pm. All
food, equipment, clothing etc was included in the cost. You'd basically
be taught to sail better during the day, have lunch, do more sailing etc
etc and then in the evening learn more about the theory of sailing.
Over the course of the week you'd get to know the people on "kids week"
quite well, you'd learn some new skills and on the last day, there'd
usually be some sort of special event - a race perhaps, or a *really
fun* game or something.
Finally parents would be invited to a final event where the young people
would be presented with any prizes or qualifications for the progress
they'd made during the week.

It was a really fun and enjoyable way of learning to sail better, not
just because (dinghy) sailing is fun(!), but because you were doing it
with a group of like minded people at your level, had good teachers and
it was something you were interested in.

>From a parents point of view, it rocked. For *only* £12 a day (cheaper
than Alton Towers/childcare/spending money to go into $nearest-city)
they got rid of their child to a place where they were certain that
their child wouldn't be vandalising bus shelters, playing Grand Theft
Auto a playstation all day or mugging old ladies. For parents, I now see
what bargin it was.

-----------

I want to try and apply the same sort of concept to technology and young
people, especially (but not exclusively) free technologies and see if we
can come up with an version that could work.

Whether it would be residential or simply "all day" is largely
irrelevant at this stage, there are advantages & disadvataes to both,
but we can weigh these up later.

So I feel it's important to learn about the advantages of that free (as
in freedom) technologies give to one, however I also feel that everyone
should make their own decision to use free technologies in their own
time, therefore I feel actively banning non-free technologies or
stigmatising those who use them out of ignorance is counter productive.
I would like to make it very clear that I think free technologies have a
key role to play in how it would be run.

## The event itself ##

Rather ironically, this is the bit where I have the largest blank space
in this idea, however I see it more as an empty canvas for other people
to fill rather than an issue.

I was thinking of suggesting that "techweek" as I have named the event
for the time being, should be 5 days long or possibly 5 with somesort of
awards ceremony or event on the 6th day.

It could,possibly be a bit like Young Rewired State where everyone
chooses areas of interest, self organises into groups and hacks on a
project, it could be different.

It could be more skills orientated with different workshops each day
aimed to teach everyone a set group of skills. We need to beware with
this of it feeling too much like a lesson.

It could be cool to have a *short* talk and discussion with an inspiring
(freedom-aware) person whose done something noteworthy & relevant each
evening.

I'm not sure whether it would be practical or not, but I was thinking it
could be cool to structure the week a bit like Scrum
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_%28development%29 )

I'm not really sure how this bit could or should work at all, so ideas
of all kinds would be appreciated!

## Mentoring ##

There should be experienced and friendly advice always to hand whatever
the event is centered around.

I'm not sure it matters whether the mentors are outspoken advocates of
free technologies so long as the event and what the mentors are
mentoring about is focused in the right direction.
Ie. If a mac centric, iphone developer can help someone write & compile
C on KDE, and if they aren't outspoken against free technologies, I
would suggest there is no issue with them providingg mentoring.

I think that if we asked reasonable things, the technology community
would rise to the challenge and volenteer their time.

## Marketing ##

It's crucial that it sounds attractive to parents AND young people. Both
of these groups have different ideas of what sounds attractive.

If we were to assume that the parents had no concept of what free
technologies were and indeed, did not NEED to know, but still wanted to
send their technologically minded daughter or son, then we would be on a
winner.

It's perhaps unlikely that the yooung people I was thinking of targeting
have a *good* idea of what free technologies are either, so it has to
sound fun and exciting from a youth perspective, (not just from a free
software "its good that we do this, just no-one turns up" perspective).

## Logistics & finance ##

Worry about these later. We can deal with these problems when it comes
to them.
Until we know what we need to get, there's no point wasting time looking.

## Health & Safety ##

I'm passing over this for the time being - it's a matter of making sure
you can tick all the boxes. Once we know what we're doing we look at
what boxes we need to tick and how we can tick them.

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I do apologise for this email not being laid out in the most logical
coherent manner, it's a shame I don't have thoughts that present
themselves in logical, coherent manners.

I'd just like to re-iterate again, this is simply an idea in progress -
not a commitment to try and make whatever we come up with happen at all
so I'd really appreciate it if people didn't suggest that I might be
running an event like this or circulate this email to other lists. :)

All and any feedback appreciated. :)

Tim