Newspeak House is an independent residential college founded in 2015 to study, nurture and inspire emerging communities of practice across civil society and the public sector in the UK. more...
Study with us
Applications for our year-long flagship course Introduction to Political Technology are now open!
This year, in addition to the six residential places, we are pleased to offer six non-residential places on the course.
Course participants spend a year immersed in a wide range of communities working to change society with technology, everything from civil servants, activists, charities, journalists, to researchers.
The course is designed to support mid-career technologists to develop a holistic understanding of the civic landscape in the UK, in order to found groundbreaking new projects or seek strategic positions in key institutions.
The course has run since 2015 and has graduated 76 fellows. 2024-25 is the second year in which the course will include content led by Newspeak House’s faculty, a group with broad experience in branches of political technology practice and theory including political organising, collective behaviour, open source software, and game design.
The course entails a commitment of approximately 16 hours per week and is designed to fit around a day job.
Events
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As part of our research we offer our spaces for civic communities of practice to convene. Since opening in 2015 we have hosted over a thousand events, including lectures, meetups, hackathons, conferences, unconferences, workshops, roundtables, screenings, fundraisers, launches, and exhibitions.
Subscribe to our Event Calendar
If you’d like to host an event in our space, you can hire it outright, or if you’re convening a civic community of practice do get in touch ([email protected]) to see if it could fit into our programme.
What's On
Edward Saperia
Each week the college hosts a community dinner called Ration Club. It's open to anyone who'd like to find out more about the college and its work. To find out more or if you'd like to attend, please register.
Register ↗Interested in understanding the differences between the various ways open source (and non-open-source) software is licensed? Great! Come to this event!
There has recently (eg. Elasticsearch and Redis cases) been a resurgence of discussion on how we license and how we can fairly license software we create — which is people’s work.
We’ll talk about the cases of Elasticsearch and Redis but also we’ll explore the history of licenses and compare the most popular licenses, eg. MIT, Apache, GPL family, et al.
Come to learn and reflect, to think and discuss!
- 6:30 Hellos
- 7:00 Presentation
- 7:30 Q&A and Discussion
- 8:30 Goodbyes
Join us for a bi-weekly Campaign Lab Hack Night - a regular session to work on your tech side projects to help the progressive left campaign more effectively. You can either bring your own project or help out on one of our ongoing ones.
Snacks and drinks provided, all you need is to bring yourself and a laptop!
All technologists, activists, organisers and campaigners, are welcome. We also welcome any new people who are interested in politics and technology and evidence based campaign innovation on the left. Everyone welcome!
You can join us remotely at this link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82959644687?pwd=cG9BdEFha3dmNzVjcFd2RUFTWGVNZz09
What is Campaign Lab?
Campaign Lab is a community of politically-minded progressive data scientists, researchers and activists who are working together to build new election tools and change the way we analyse and understand political election campaigning.
Any questions, thoughts or ideas - do get in touch and say hi! [email protected]
Register ↗Join us for an evening of semi-organised discussion around the present and future of AI in Government, hosted by Evidence House, the No10 Data Science team, the Civic AI Observatory, and the Incubator for AI.
Open to existing civil servants and anyone with an interest in AI for good in government and beyond, we’ll look at recent example of how government has made use of AI, through the Evidence House community and beyond.
Then, in a semi-facilitated “unconference”, we’ll think about the future, and where government AI goes from here!
To ensure a broad mix of participants and facilitate meaningful discussion, we’ll confirm your place in the run-up to the event - especially if you’re from outside government, make sure to tell us your affiliation and why you care about government AI for good when you sign-up! If you’re not sure, reach out to the organisers.
About the Incubator for AI: The Government is establishing an elite team of highly empowered technical experts at the heart of government. Their mission is to help departments harness the potential of AI to improve lives and the delivery of public services.
About the Civic AI Observatory: The Civic AI Observatory is an initiative by Nesta and Newspeak House to support civic organisations’ plans and adapt to the rapidly evolving field of Generative AI. We focus on immediate practical insights on AI for digital leads – case studies of civic applications, examples of digital strategies and organisational policies, and the impact on the job market – as well as developing communities of practice for specific domains.
About Evidence House: Evidence House is a Downing Street-led initiative, working with collaborators including ONS Data Science Campus, Evaluation Task Force, and National Situation Centre. It aims up-skill civil servants in technical skills whilst spinning out innovative solutions to government priority issues.
Register ↗Come to meet people and work on open source stuff! We hold an open space for people interesting in exploring software and making things for everyone. Bring your own projects or join existing ones.
See here for inspiration: https://chaitinschool.org/projects
This event series is also part of the Newspeak House course on Political Technology.
Event Notes
- Come with your laptop, we provide AC electricity and WiFi
- This event is for people who feel comfortable working/coding on their own
- There are no lectures or presentations, just coding and questions and conversations about coding, building, making
- Feel free to bring snacks and drinks to share!
We are beginners. We figure things as we go — we don’t have all the answers and we don’t expect anyone to :)
Schedule
- 6:30 Introductions
- 7:00 Kick-off
- 9:00 Goodbyes
In this session, we’ll look at what makes an effective political system. From feudalism and authoritarianism to direct and representative democracy.
Participants are invited to bring their own ideas as to how society should be organised and we’ll discuss the virtues and failings of each.
This event takes as its premise the evident failure of our political system. We’ve inherited a medieval democracy, too inefficient and corrupt to organise our complex reality. Bound by bureaucracy, we don’t build anything, or believe anything. We squander our collective potential and look to the gutter, not the stars.
What will succeed this failed state?
Register ↗Join us for an evening dedicated to unpacking the essence of transformative campaigning in these dark political times. As we navigate the challenges resulting from the era of “junk politics,” this discussion will be centered around strategic insights and practical solutions outlined in our new ebook. Engage directly with author Ned Howey, Ecanvasser’s Brendan Finucane, and Tectonica’s Kendall Bendheim as they share the book’s vision for a healthier democracy through genuine connection and purposeful action. This event promises not only to celebrate the launch of our book but also to spark a meaningful dialogue on reclaiming and innovating transformational practice in the Age of Junk Politics. Refreshments will be provided—reserve your spot today!
Register ↗Calling all Campaigners! 📢📢
Are you passionate about making a difference in progressive campaigns? Do you want to level up your tech skills?
Join us for a special hack night to learn the basics of some low and no code tools! From phone banking apps that run off google sheets to learning how to set up a basic twilio chat flow - we’ll be spending the evening working through some low code example workflows together with pizza! 🍕
We’ll have some challenges prepared for you to work on or you can bring your own! And we’ll have plenty of technologists on hand to answer any questions.
All you need is to bring yourself and a laptop!
No coding experience? No problem! All you need to bring is your laptop and your ideas.
What is Campaign Lab?
Campaign Lab is a community of politically-minded progressive data scientists, researchers and activists who are working together to build new election tools and change the way we analyse and understand political election campaigning.
Register ↗Come to meet people and work on open source stuff! We hold an open space for people interesting in exploring software and making things for everyone. Bring your own projects or join existing ones.
See here for inspiration: https://chaitinschool.org/projects
This event series is also part of the Newspeak House course on Political Technology.
Event Notes
- Come with your laptop, we provide AC electricity and WiFi
- This event is for people who feel comfortable working/coding on their own
- There are no lectures or presentations, just coding and questions and conversations about coding, building, making
- Feel free to bring snacks and drinks to share!
We are beginners. We figure things as we go — we don’t have all the answers and we don’t expect anyone to :)
Schedule
- 6:30 Introductions
- 7:00 Kick-off
- 9:00 Goodbyes
Election technologies have had their first big test of 2024: the local elections.
What did we learn? What do we need to build for the upcoming general election?
Lightning talks followed by an unconference.
This event is brought to you by The Election Tech Handbook, a collectively-made and maintained resource for technologists, designers and campaigners working on projects around the upcoming UK General Election 2024.
Register ↗Would you like to participate in the AI, Animals, and Digital Minds Conference sort of in person?
Join others at Newspeak House for a livestreaming of the conference and stay for dinner with the in-person attendees who will come over an join around 7pm.
- 10:00 - 10:30: Arrival
- 10:30 - 10:45: Welcome and Introduction
- 12:15 - 13:15: Lunch on your own
- 19:00 - 21:00: Dinner provided and casual networking
See speaker information.
Drinks and food will not be provided until dinner. There are many restaurants and shops in walking distance.
This will be followed by a retreat the following 2 days at Newspeak House.
Interested in getting more involved with the animal advocacy movement? Join the Hive Slack.
Register ↗Network with others who are interested in advancing the field of how to steer AI to benefit Animals and Digital Minds.
Join us at Newspeak House for 2 days of an unconference. Participants will be able to create their own topics of discussion or do freeform networking throughout the event.
Many of the speakers from the conference the day before will be in attendance to further discuss their work.
Light drinks and snacks will be provided throughout the day. There are many restaurants and shops in walking distance for meals.
See the more detailed guide here.
Interested in getting more involved with the animal advocacy movement? Join the Hive Slack.
Register ↗Packed full of sesssions sharing campaigning best practice, learnings from elections in the UK and around the world, as well as bold creative inspiration and opportunities for open conversations, this day is aimed at bringing people from across the sector together to ensure we’re all maximising the chance for progressive change this election year.
Sessions will run 9.45-4.45, after which those who would like to can stick around for refreshments and more chats on the roof terrace.
Register ↗Come to meet people and work on open source stuff! We hold an open space for people interesting in exploring software and making things for everyone. Bring your own projects or join existing ones.
See here for inspiration: https://chaitinschool.org/projects
This event series is also part of the Newspeak House course on Political Technology.
Event Notes
- Come with your laptop, we provide AC electricity and WiFi
- This event is for people who feel comfortable working/coding on their own
- There are no lectures or presentations, just coding and questions and conversations about coding, building, making
- Feel free to bring snacks and drinks to share!
We are beginners. We figure things as we go — we don’t have all the answers and we don’t expect anyone to :)
Schedule
- 6:30 Introductions
- 7:00 Kick-off
- 9:00 Goodbyes
Join us for an evening of semi-organised discussion around the present and future of AI in Government, hosted by Evidence House, the No10 Data Science team, the Civic AI Observatory, and the Incubator for AI.
Open to existing civil servants and anyone with an interest in AI for good in government and beyond, we’ll look at recent example of how government has made use of AI, through the Evidence House community and beyond.
Then, in a semi-facilitated “unconference”, we’ll think about the future, and where government AI goes from here!
To ensure a broad mix of participants and facilitate meaningful discussion, we’ll confirm your place in the run-up to the event - especially if you’re from outside government, make sure to tell us your affiliation and why you care about government AI for good when you sign-up! If you’re not sure, reach out to the organisers.
About the Incubator for AI: The Government is establishing an elite team of highly empowered technical experts at the heart of government. Their mission is to help departments harness the potential of AI to improve lives and the delivery of public services.
About the Civic AI Observatory: The Civic AI Observatory is an initiative by Nesta and Newspeak House to support civic organisations’ plans and adapt to the rapidly evolving field of Generative AI. We focus on immediate practical insights on AI for digital leads – case studies of civic applications, examples of digital strategies and organisational policies, and the impact on the job market – as well as developing communities of practice for specific domains.
About Evidence House: Evidence House is a Downing Street-led initiative, working with collaborators including ONS Data Science Campus, Evaluation Task Force, and National Situation Centre. It aims up-skill civil servants in technical skills whilst spinning out innovative solutions to government priority issues.
Register ↗