090 #aletsdat

The previous post outlined a rebase of foundations, and hinted at the set up of a new operating structure. In this draft I am trying to figure out how much structure is actually necessary, sharing my thoughts and ideas on how you could help. But first, let me share an invitation:

We are kicking off on May 4 in Basel with a new format - Hack:Org:X, a founding meeting and a new roundtable series (or Stammtisch, as we say around here) for people who take part in, organize, or just want to improve the scene around hackathons. Sign up for our in-person or virtual events here 🔜 may4basel.dribdat.cc - a place to share your ideas and prompts for the scene.

Beyond that, my plan looks like this:

Opendata.ch is the Swiss chapter (Gemeinnütziger Verein) of Open Knowledge. It is a privilege to serve you on the new board. My base challenge here is to provide a service to the community: through platforms, workshops, accelerators, hackdays. We are interested in other formats and new strategies to broadly include people in data industries and digital policy, and to respond to global issues. But, we also know there is a TON of room for improvement in the formats we have. I would like to see us pour even more open data fuel into the furnace of next-generation tools for civic participation. We will have our annual meeting together with OKFN leads in June.

DRIBD@ (dri·b·dət) is a virtual tech group building on dribdat, which extends the wikis and other collaborative tools at Opendata.ch, ONIA, and elsewhere. We aim to improve and provide guidance on platforms, support a wide variety of hackathons, as well as other time-limited collaborative, educational formats. Today we create value through code maintenance, and the caring archival of the outputs of artist, activist, and student communities. The long term vision of this data cooperative may be to establish our collective, mandated, perceived, collaborative time as a new data class. The proposed next step is to start an Open Collective in July, from which, together the Hack:Org:X crowd, a cooperative (Genossenschaft) could be further developed.

Aletsdat (alĕtsdä′t) is a legal entity (GmbH) anchored in sustainable values, governed by the cooperative, supporting the proactive dissemination of prototypes, code and data that leverages design-by-community. It builds on a decade of freelance work rebooted as a fully employee-owned company. A founding mission of Aletsdat would be to build digital experiences to support DRIBD@ and Opendata.ch. By creating a working environment and coordinating development projects, by instrumenting hackathons, we will create opportunities for the marginalised and committed. Less talk, more make! Post here or write me a note if you would like to get on board, or have things for us to work on from August.