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We have an internal Shuttleworth Foundation IRC channel which mainly consists of comments, banter, understanding where people are, soliciting opinions and, most importantly, links to interesting things we are reading. These readings inform our current thinking and shape our ideas. To share them at large, we have tagged them in deli.icio.us under SFreads (what the Shuttleworth Foundation reads). The RSS feed is to the left of this post, and will be on the front page of our website.
At the Foundation, we want to drive innovation in education and technology. How we get there is not such a simple statement. We work in removing barriers (internet that is too expensive, IP regimes that are too restrictive), accelerating great ideas (the Freedom Toaster, Open licences, OER’s), and investing in clever people (our fellows and friends).
The most important thing we do, however, is share. Our monthly reports are now blogged rather than circulated to a small internal audience, we are creating a ‘How we work’ series, sharing what we do and why, where we have struggled, where we have succeeded and where we are winning. We are not there yet, but we are trying.
There have been many times when I have thought it would be wonderful if John Thole from Edunova (who works directly with schools) could meet Palesa, Rina and Selaelo from the DoE as they have to much to share. So yesterday, we tried something new (not new to the world, but new to us). We asked lots of people that we are working with, from all projects and sectors, to come to lunch, meet, talk and listen.
We got people standing, chatting, presenting, searching for their counter-parts who had the same coloured dots (come to the next one for an explanation!) and it was magical. People working on producing educational resources were forging new ideas with others working in telecommunications infrastructure about how to delivery them. Freedom Toasters in schools as a ‘Teachers Toolbox’s’, benchmarking the ICT readiness of Universities across the region, using the LPI to help FOSS policy turn to practice in government were some of the ideas discussed.
The really exciting thing: the people who are needed to make it happen were the ones talking to each other!
We will put up a wiki to discuss how we can keep this going. What we should call it (Eugene suggested FaceFace instead of Facebook!), how the format can be improved etc… The main thing is, we all gained from not thinking in our silos and reaching out across the sector. Knowing that you are not working alone, even if you tackle the problem in a different way, can be very comforting and energising. Thanks to all who attended and we really look forward to seeing you all again soon!
