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.

Are we truly addressing the root causes of global issues, or merely tackling symptoms? At Objective Function, we focus on the deeper challenges that drive global crises—exploring how our ideas and systems need to evolve as we approach the second half of the 21st century. We believe that blindly prioritising growth can lead to unintended consequences, and that real progress means creating sustainable change for humanity and the planet.

In this meetup, we’ll discuss a central question: If you could do one thing to have the greatest possible impact on the future, what would it be and why? We’ll evaluate ideas based on their potential to address root causes, scalability, and the ease of creating a minimum viable product (MVP).

Come prepared to share, explore new perspectives, and collaborate with like-minded individuals who want to make a meaningful impact. Let’s envision a future driven by purpose, sustainability, and transformative ideas.

Agenda:

6:30 PM - Casual Chats
8:00 PM - Group Share
8:30 PM - Idea Evaluation
9:00 PM - Conclusions
9:15 PM - Casual Chats till close

Join us to be part of the conversation that aims to redefine progress and explore actionable steps toward a better world.

​​This session is part of the Introduction to Political Technology course at Newspeak House, but is open to the public to attend.

​Schedule

1. Play: Moida Mansion by Lucas Pope. It’s free and takes 10 minutes to play in a browser. (even on your phone!)
2. Discuss: Together we’ll break down the game into it’s components, talk about what makes it feel the way it does, analyse the gameplay.
3. Jam: Using Moida Mansion as a starting point, we’ll create paper prototypes and play them with each other.

​​​Recommended Media

​Teaching to fish by Raph Koster (Video)

Welcome to the lucky thirteenth edition of our London FoC meetup!

​🎄 Festive Pub Quiz Edition ☃️

​​This is a chance for folks who are part of the Future of Coding community (futureofcoding.org) to present their work in progress and talk shop over a few drinks. If you’re new to the space you can learn more on the FoC website, or by listening to the podcast.

For this festive edition we’re doing a pub quiz! Just, not at a pub… We’re meeting at our usual spot; Newspeak House in Shoreditch. You might want to brush up on your computing history and fun programming language facts.

​There will be beer, non-alcoholic drinks, and a holiday food spread provided. Kindly sponsored by Common Magic.

​​We’re not doing demos and lightning talks for this round. We’ll resume regular events after the holidays.

​In between quiz rounds we’ll have ample time to have a few drinks, eat food, and hangout. If you are working on something and want feedback, bring your laptop! You can show people during hangout time.

Rough schedule:

18:00 Arrive, get drinks, meet your team
18:30 First round of quiz starts
19:15 Special demo
19:30 Food & drinks break
20:00 Second round of quiz
20:30 Winners announced! Go be festive for the remainder of the time

Please read and abide by our community Code of Conduct if you plan on attending: github.com/futureofcoding/code-of-conduct

​This session is part of the Introduction to Political Technology course at Newspeak House, open to faculty and fellowship candidates only.

Exploring how institutions work, some difficulties that arise in them, how they change, and how we each can try to participate constructively in them.

Readings:

• Paul Cairney, Tanya Heikkila, and Matthew Wood, Making Policy in a Complex World, Cambridge University Press, 2019, Chs. 5-6
• Felicity Edwards and Michael Gibeau, ‘Engaging people in meaningful problem solving,’ Conservation Biology, 2013
• Patricia Shaw, Changing Conversations in Organizations: A Complexity Approach to Change, Routledge, 2002, Series Preface & Ch. 1
• Charles Lindblom, ‘The science of “muddling through”,’ Public Administration Review, 1959

Join us for our 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 are 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, technology and evidence based campaign innovation on the left. 

Join remotely at https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82959644687?pwd=cG9BdEFha3dmNzVjcFd2RUFTWGVNZz09

​​​​​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.

This session is part of the Introduction to Political Technology course at Newspeak House, open to faculty and fellowship candidates only.

​Most UK citizens will have interacted with a gov.uk website, but few are aware of the massive structural changes that enabled the UK’s service digitisation process.

​The Government Digital Service is one of the most surprising digital success stories of the last twenty years. Often emulated by other national governments, the GDS approach promised to prevent the big IT failures of the past, where third party suppliers overcharged and under-delivered for decades.

​Why and how was the Government Service Standard made in the first place? Did it lead to unintended consequences? And is it still fit for purpose?

​Reading:

• A GDS Story
• A brief history of the Service Standard
• Setting the standard: A short history of the Government Service Standard
• Digital Transformation at Scale: Why the Strategy Is Delivery
• Service Manual
• The Post Office Horizon scandal through a service design lens
• Are there too many generalists in the civil service?

​Newspeak House welcomes Nuño Sempere, a researcher and top forecaster. He currently leads Sentinel, a team aiming to foresee and mitigate large-scale catastrophes.

​He is interested in discussing the “grain of truth” problem, i.e., whether and how one can make forecasts in domains where you might not be able to think about the correct hypothesis beforehand.

​Nuño is also open to discussion other forecasting topics, like forecasting software, Fermi estimation, the forecasting industry, etc. according to audience preference.

​This session is part of the Introduction to Political Technology course at Newspeak House, open to faculty and fellowship candidates only.

A workshop for developing your network development and field building practice.

Class Wargames will be hosting a collective play of the tabletop war game One Page Rules “Grimdark Future Firefight”.

Background Reading

• Edwin Evans-Thirlwell, Why play a fascist? Unpacking the hideousness of the Space Marine.
• ​“Pillage is the natural response to the affluent society: the affluence, however, is by no means natural or human — it is simply abundance of goods. Pilllage, moreover, which instantly destroys commodities as such, discloses the ultima ratio of commodities, namely, the army, the police and the other specialized detachments which have the monopoly of armed force within the State. What is a policeman? He is the active servant of commodities, the man in complete submission to commodities, whose job is to ensure that a given product of human labour remains a commodity with the magical property of having to be paid for instead of becoming a mere fridge or rifle — a mute, passive insensible thing, itself in submission to the first comer to make use of it.” – Situationist International, Decline and Fall of the Spectacular Commodity Society.
• Andrew Ruddick (BBC interview), Why Warhammer 40,000 is still popular after 25 years.

Class Wargames
puts on participatory performances of Guy Debord’s The Game of War and other subversive politico-military games;
investigates gaming as a metaphor for social relations under repressive neoliberalism;
celebrates the craft skills of gamers as artistic expression;
creates a social space where lefties can meet & play with each other;
re-enacts the proletarian struggles of the past in ludic form;
trains the militants of the cybernetic communist revolution to come.

​For more information about Class Wargames, see our website or join our Facebook Group to join the discussion.

​This session is part of the Introduction to Political Technology course at Newspeak House, open to faculty and fellowship candidates only.

Exploring how institutions work, some difficulties that arise in them, how they change, and how we each can try to participate constructively in them.

Readings:

• Paul Cairney, Tanya Heikkila, and Matthew Wood, Making Policy in a Complex World, Cambridge University Press, 2019, Chs. 5-6
• Felicity Edwards and Michael Gibeau, ‘Engaging people in meaningful problem solving,’ Conservation Biology, 2013
• Patricia Shaw, Changing Conversations in Organizations: A Complexity Approach to Change, Routledge, 2002, Series Preface & Ch. 1
• Charles Lindblom, ‘The science of “muddling through”,’ Public Administration Review, 1959

​This session is part of the Introduction to Political Technology course at Newspeak House, open to faculty and fellowship candidates only.

​What does it mean to “work in the open”? What are digital and knowledge commons? How does co-production collide with personal preferences and design affordances?

​In this session we’ll attempt to kickstart knowledge co-production within the cohort and beyond.

​This session is part of the Introduction to Political Technology course at Newspeak House, open to faculty and fellowship candidates only.

​Join us for an interactive session where we’ll explore and map the UK’s political landscape. This workshop will cover key actors, data sources, mechanisms, and points of influence within the UK political system. Participants will also gain insights into available data sources that shape political dynamics.

​This session is part of the Introduction to Political Technology course at Newspeak House, open to faculty and fellowship candidates only.

A facilitated session to help the 2024 Cohort reflect on the progress of their group governance activities so far, and make plans for how they can be improved going forwards.

​This session is part of the Introduction to Political Technology course at Newspeak House, open to faculty and fellowship candidates only.

Exploring how institutions work, some difficulties that arise in them, how they change, and how we each can try to participate constructively in them.

Readings:

• Paul Cairney, Tanya Heikkila, and Matthew Wood, Making Policy in a Complex World, Cambridge University Press, 2019, Chs. 3-4
• Elinor Ostrom, ‘Beyond markets and states: polycentric governance of complex economic systems,’ American Economic Review, 2010
• Sarah Schulman, Conflict Is Not Abuse, Arsenal Pulp Press, 2016, Introduction & Ch. 1
• Edward Hallowell, ‘The human moment at work’, Harvard Business Review, 1999

Join us for our 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 are 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, technology and evidence based campaign innovation on the left. 

Join remotely at https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82959644687?pwd=cG9BdEFha3dmNzVjcFd2RUFTWGVNZz09

​​​​​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.

​Join us for the launch of ‘The Digital Skills Shortfall: Grassroots trade union digital training divide.’ a new report by Andy Twelves of Organise Lab.

​​This report will be presenting the conclusions drawn from the consultation of almost 114 shop stewards, health & safety representatives, and industrial representatives across a range of trade unions and sectors, about the shortfalls of digital training in the grassroots of the trade union movement. ​This is the second piece of research in a three paper series, with the first being about existing digital skills.

​​This event will include a brief talk, starting at 18:30, by the paper’s author, and a panel discussion with other relevant stakeholders across the labour movement:

• Toby James - Organiser at Equity, and former Prospect NEC member & workplace representative.
• Claddagh Ní Maoilseachlainn - Director of Parliamentary & Public Affairs at the Institute for the Future of Work, and Fellowship Candidate at Newspeak House.
• Peyman Owladi - Board Member of Campaign Lab, and MD of Poteris.
• Andy Twelves - Author of the report, and Founder of Organise Lab.

​​There will be an opportunity for networking and mingling afterwards. Refreshments will be provided.

What is Organise Lab?

​A new advocacy group & community making the case for a digital transformation, and innovation across all levels of the UK trade union movement.

​Ever wondered why some messages cut through, while others fall flat? The answer might lie in the fact that the messenger matters as much as the message itself. Relational organising harnesses our most powerful asset - our personal connections. Put simply, when someone you know asks you to take an action, you are more likely to listen and you are more likely to do it.

​The evidence is clear: research from Columbia University’s Data Science Institute revealed that a simple text from a friend boosted voter turnout in the 2018 US midterms by an extraordinary 8.3 percentage points.

​So how can we use friend-to-friend tactics to build progressive political power?

​Join us for an illuminating evening with a panel discussion with two experts in this field:

​Evie Monnington-Taylor, Director of Research at Vote Rev, will share her frontline insights on how Vote Rev designed, tested and mainstreamed relational tactics to get out the vote in the US Presidential Election. Evie will be speaking in a personal capacity. Views will be her own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Vote Rev.

​Alongside Evie, we will hear from Lennard Metson, a PhD candidate in Political Science at the London School of Economics and Research Advisor at Campaign Lab, on the state of relational organising research in the UK.

Newspeak House: home of political technologists, rogue researchers, dissident ethicists, activist hackers, democracy builders, governance geeks, policy nerds, algorithmic justice warriors, data journalists, radical librarians, and infrastructure philosophers.

​Join us for one last uprising before the year is out.

Science Futures is for anyone passionate about the future of research and its societal impact, a series of events uniting artists, philosophers, engineers, & scientists exploring future directions of science.

18:00: Doors open
18:30: Introduction
19.00: Dr Caspar Addyman: “Why I rage quit the cutest job in science & what I did next”
21:30: Mingling and planning futures
22:00: Close

Dr. Caspar Addyman is a child psychologist who has studied how babies learn for two decades, focusing on language, concepts, and their sense of time. Since 2011 he had studied why babies laugh and why it matters. He authored the popular science book “The Laughing Baby” and collaborated with Grammy winner Imogen Heap to create “The Happy Song.”

In March 2022 Caspar resigned his job at Goldsmiths. escaping a toxic work environment at a financially troubled university, but in the process losing his identity as a scientist and academic.

This is the story of what happened next. A serendipitous tale of becoming a children’s author and an research nomad applying machine learning methods to problems to parenting and early childhood. Topics covered include the Sustainable Development Goals, neurodiversity, mental health, freelancing, science communication and AI ethics. With a little bit of zen and magick to unsettle the rationalists.

Caspar is an extraordinary lecturer at the Institute for Life Course Health Research, Stellenbosch University and researcher with the Global Parenting Initiative. He is Chief Insight Officer at http://playtandem.com and his “Babies Laugh” picture books are published by Campbell Books. Discover more at https://babies.lol.

​This session is part of the Introduction to Political Technology course at Newspeak House, open to faculty and fellowship candidates only.

​In this session we will discuss results from the previous session, including challenges of interacting with others’ systems and benefits of networked knowledge discovery.

​This session is part of the Introduction to Political Technology course at Newspeak House, open to faculty and fellowship candidates only.

In this hack night, we’ll explore the inner workings of an MP’s office, focusing on how its processes operate and identifying opportunities where technology can streamline and improve efficiency. This session will provide practical insights into the daily functions of an MP’s office, with a forward-looking view on innovation.

​This session is part of the Introduction to Political Technology course at Newspeak House, open to faculty and fellowship candidates only.

​In this session, we’ll dive into the world of political technology, exploring what makes certain tools effective. We’ll examine three key campaign technologies, discussing their successes and weaknesses and the reasons behind them. We’ll also cover how to identify opportunities for innovation within campaign processes. This is a great opportunity to understand what works in political tech and how innovation shapes the future of campaigning.