What this General Election needs is an "Election Hackspace"
News of a great London initiative for those who are 1) technologists, and 2) want to shape and affect this infernal snap UK General Election before June 7th...
Newspeak House - proprietor: Edward Saperia, at 133 Bethnal Green Road (location) - is opening its doors and inviting people to create an "Election Hackspace". According to the blurb:
A free coworking space to let all the “tech-oriented” pro-democracy people/organisations work together to coordinate and share resources, expertise, coffee, strategy, camaraderie. Particular focus on open source & non-partisan efforts: voter advice, voter registration, etc.
If you want to express interest, scroll to the bottom of this Google Docs page and fill the form.
Edward is also pointing people towards two online resources for this kind of activity. The first is a GE2017 "tech handbook":
This document is for people who are building things to influence the 2017 General Election, or thinking about doing so. It’s a collection of resources, datasets, volunteers, existing projects and proposed projects. There is a lot here - take time to sit and read through it - you may find a great collaborator, or resources that make your project much easier to build.
The second is a parallel effort from Democracy Club, which is their Plan for The General Election.
As we saw from the Observer yesterday - Carole Cadwalladr's piece on how right-wing elites are using data and systems to do advanced "psy-ops" on national electorates - the relationship of technology and democracy is an urgent matter. Come join this community to see if you can generate some alternatives to Cambridge Analytica...