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.

This session is open to faculty and fellowship candidates only.

​Inspired by “shut up & write” - this is a focus hour to advance your creative content work (e.g. fellowship prototypes) - writing up research insights, shaping blog posts or explainers, polishing decks, scripting demos, editing videos, drafting updates, designing visuals… any artifact that helps you share what you’re building with the world.

​This is weekly momentum toward shipping your ideas publicly!

​How it works

• ​We’ll start with a goal-setting round.
• ​You can decide your mode - focus mode or collaborative (brainstorming or feedback)
• At the end, we’ll do a tiny check-in to share what moved forward!
• ​If you need gentle or strong accountability to publish, we’re happy to support!

​​This session is open to Newspeak House faculty and fellowship candidates only.

​Some time to get together and progress with work on the Network Development module - developing a political technology network.

​This will be a time to co-work and progress the project. At the beginning we will gather and share updates. We will then decide for some goals for the session and split into groups to achieve those goals.

​If you missed any sessions so far, then I recommend reading the exercise document and catching up ahead of time.

​Ideas for things we could work on:

• Identify a clear purpose and a definition for the boundaries of the network
• Creating a seed list of political technology organisations in the UK and building an automated way to filter potential organisations
• Identify key stakeholders in the space and organise initial meetings with them to build buy in for the network

​​This session is part of the How to Think about Tech? The Case of ‘AI Safety’ study group initiated by some of the fellowship candidates of the 2025/2026 Introduction to Political Technology course. It is open only to Newspeak House faculty and fellowship candidates.

​Despite the more restricted sense of governmental control of economic behaviour, regulation is a broader matter of rules that can come from various sources, take various forms, and operate at various levels. This session examines AI regulation as a socio-technical and political process, analysing how governance emerges through a fragmented ecology of laws, codes, expert discourse, corporate influence and civil society resistance. By reading regulatory texts alongside critiques of economies of influence and industry-led governance, we will explore how AI regulation is enacted, negotiated, and contested across global and national arenas. 

​Recommended readings

Approaches to regulation

• ​Michael Vale et. al -  AI and Global Governance: Modalities, Rationales, Tensions 
• Julia Black - Decentred regulation 
• Lawrence Lessing - Code Is Law
• Ada Lovelace Institute - Safe before sale 

Economies of influence

• Lawrence Lessing- Protected Democracy 
• Article 19 - EU: Code of Practice on General Purpose AI – a masterclass in corporate compromise 
• Minwoo Ki et al - Project 14: Beyond Code - The Battle for Influence in AI’s Global Rulebook or Civil society open letter demands to ensure fundamental rights protections in the Council position on the AI Act - AlgorithmWatch
• Kewin Wei at al - How Do AI Companies “Fine-Tune” Policy? Examining Regulatory Capture in AI Governance
• Katie Mcque et al - The global struggle over how to regulate AI - Rest of World 

Regulatory Acts

• EU AI Act or EU AI Act Chapter 5 or EU General-Purpose AI Code of Practice
• California Legislative SB-53 Artificial intelligence models: large developers
• Ensuring a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence – The White House
• Ada Lovelace Institute - Will the UK AI Bill protect people and society?

Podcasts

• Dean Ball on how AI is a huge deal — but we shouldn’t regulate it yet (80,000 Hours)
• Markus Anderljung on how to regulate cutting-edge AI models - 80,000 Hours  

Something to have fun with

• Commission seeks feedback on draft implementing act to establish AI regulatory sandboxes under the AI Act (Shaping Europe’s digital future)

​You are invited to analyse EU consultation as a governance instrument, i.e. a device that shapes who can speak, what counts as expertise, and which futures for AI become legible to regulators. Review the Commission’s draft on establishing AI regulatory sandboxes by focusing on: Who is this consultation written for? What problems does the consultation make visible and what does it obscure? How is ‘innovation’ balanced against protection? What kinds of influence does the format invite? What would meaningful feedback look like from a public-interest perspective? 

​To have a fruitful discussion, please read at least one article from each main category of readings.

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

​This session marks the start of the spring term and is intended to help everyone reboot after the winter break.

​We will introduce the Political Technology Awards project that you’ll be working on together this term: what is involved, how it connects to the broader goals of the programme, and discuss strategies for completing it successfully.

​We will also start talking about the Prototype Module: what we mean by prototypes, how you’ll be supported to develop yours, and how they’ll be assessed at the end of the year.

​If you’re unable to attend this session, please let the Dean know as soon as possible so that a follow-up can be arranged to go through things with you at another time.

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

What’s the point of a manager?

• Group brainstorming
• Consideration of organisation vs authority in management
• EAFP vs LBYL - proposals not problems

Do we need clarity?

• RACI, and how you’d apply it in practice
• KPIs/OKRs

Do we need documentation?

• What’s documentation for, and how long does it last?
• Minimum viable documentation
• ADRs

Reading

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_assignment_matrix
• “Reinventing Organisations” by Laloux
• https://hbr.org/2005/04/seven-transformations-of-leadership

Hi - this is an event by Orta Therox and Peter Steinberger. Two well respected technologists who have a strong appreciation for using Claude Code as a tool for writing production-grade software. We’re not associated with Anthropic.

​We wanted to create a space for people to be able to talk through their experiences, and understand that for some it’s hard to speak publicly about using AI / LLM tooling. Talks are not recorded, nor is there a live-stream.

This meetup will be structured as a series of lightning talks, 5-15m long with talks which start along the lines of: “I was X when Claude Code Y”

​So, “I was impressed when Claude Code figured out a bug I had been…”, “I was disappointed when Claude Code deleted my production database” etc.

​We’re looking for grounded talks about the trade-offs, places where you’ve seen usage thrive, ways you’ve helped others use it, insights from unexpected outcomes and how it has changed your perspective.

​The timing plan:

• 19:00 - People arrive
• 19:30 - Intro, COC, and talks
• 20:30 - We wrap up talks, open chat
• 22:00 - We get kicked out

Welcome to the 16th edition of the London Feeling of Computing meetup! ​formerly known as Future of Coding

​New year, new computer.

​Can you imagine a world with kinder computing, more human and more humane?

​Let’s get together and share some demos, works in progress, research and ideas.

​We’re meeting on Thursday, 22nd January at Newspeak House in Shoreditch. There will be pizza! And a sausage dog maybe!

​We still have space for more demos! If you have something you’d like to show other people fill out this form immediately. Especially if it’s your first time.

​If you’re new to FoC you can learn more about the history and ideas on the website and podcast.

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

Now we’ve all got a basic understanding of what an evaluation looks like, and how you design an intervention, let’s take a look at a group project - can we build an experiment around Ration Club?

We’ll discuss the ideas you’ve already come up with, and brainstorm some new ones, then think about how we could design an evaluation to test whether they actually work.

​Andreas Varotsis is a data scientist and AI engineer who works to improve operational delivery and services across government using technology, data, and evidence. He’s spent the previous decade in various roles in central government and front-line delivery, including the Metropolitan Police Service, the data-science team of 10 Downing Street, and the Incubator for AI.

​He works to support a range of cross-government communities, including Evidence House, which works to improve the use of data and IT in government, and the Society of Evidence Based Policing, which champions research to enhance policing practices and reduce crime.

Join us to connect and explore ideas supporting a Second Renaissance - our name for a potential a new cultural paradigm of interconnectedness, wisdom and inner growth.

​You can think of this as a local, in-person version of the online Oasis Community Calls. ​As in the online calls, we’ll use break-out groups and relational exercises to deepen connection and facilitate dialogue - though there’ll be plenty of unstructured socialising too.

​​Who is it for: Anyone who is intrigued by the idea of a second renaissance and wants to learn more, get more involved and build connections with like-minded people.

​This week’s theme is the Game B community created by Jim Rutt and others.

​Suggested listening/watching in advance is the Jim Rutt Show and especially this recent episode of Win-Win.

​Planned timings:

19:00 Arrive and general socialising
​19.30 Structured discussion
20:10 Authentic relating practice
20.45 Move to the pub for further socialising

Join us for a meetup and social mixer - an evening of casual conversations, new connections, and plenty of curiosity about all things cellular agriculture.

Whether you’re a researcher, entrepreneur, student, or simply fascinated by cultivated meat, precision fermentation, and the future of sustainable protein, this is your chance to meet others in the field.

​Cell Ag UK is a non-profit that aims to cultivate a larger, more diverse and more engaged cellular agriculture community in the UK. ​

​Some snacks and drinks will be provided, so please do RSVP.

For more information on Cellular Agriculture or Cell Ag UK, visit our website: https://cellag.uk/

​Curious about how Bluesky is different from other social network websites? Interested in building cool stuff using ATProto, the underlying technology powering the Bluesky social network? Want to learn how to use this cutting-edge decentralised platform to launch the next generation of online applications? You’ve come to the right place!

ATProto.London is open to anyone with an interest in this technology or decentralised social media more generally. It’s meant less to be a developer meetup and more a space to discuss this emergent sphere of online interaction. Regardless of whether you’ve written a few lexicons or just created a Bluesky account, we’d love to have you!

• Alex (@alex.bsky.team) will be discussing and demoing a wide range of ATProto-related stuff coming up from the Bluesky team
• Mihailiк ᵖᵒ⁶ᵒᵐᵃ (@oyin.bo) will be demoing a few ATProto-based data visualisation projects
• We’ll have an open show-and-tell to start the evening; if you’re working on something you want to show off but don’t feel like doing an entire talk, this could be a good opportunity!

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

This foundational lecture explores how groups of humans can exhibit emergent behaviors and intelligence that transcend what any individual could achieve alone. Drawing from neuroscience, complexity science, and social psychology, we’ll examine the mechanisms that enable collective action and decision-making. We will cover:

• ​Why the collective? going beyond the individual brain
• ​Emergence in social systems: The scientific principles behind how simple interactions between individuals give rise to complex collective behaviors - from flocking patterns to social movements
• ​Collective Intelligence: When and why groups outperform individuals, exploring the conditions that foster collective problem-solving versus groupthink and social contagion
• ​Social Technologies as Cognitive Extensions: How tools, rituals, institutions, and digital platforms extend our collective cognitive capacity and enable coordination at scale

​Key Question: What transforms a collection of individuals into a genuinely collective intelligence capable of solving problems no individual could tackle alone?

We’re on the path to a new kind of web, with an uncertain future: AI-based user agents are fast-becoming a core interface to the internet for over half-a-billion active users per week. Platforms have increasingly seized control of the publisher-reader relationship: search engines are squeezing out web publishers to juice ad revenue, while social platforms have captured audiences with algorithmic reach and paid promotion. The rise of new AI super-apps, in place of traditional browsers, is set to make this dynamic exponentially worse.

How can publishers engage in this platform shift beyond being a dataset to be scraped? How can we avoid being trapped by a new wave of mega-platforms? And how can publishers on the web reach real users, build lasting relationships, and continue to have a equitable business model?

We believe now is a critical time to get technologists & publishers working together to explore—and define—real answers to these questions.

This summit is an invite-only full day of focused conversations. We’ll rotate through small-group discussions on real-world challenges, share new protocol capabilities, and work through the strategic landscape to identify opportunities to leverage for a better future for the web publishing ecosystem.

Build relationships creative and knowledgeable people from both the publishing and technology domains. Chatham House Rules are to be observed, ensuring everyone has a safe space for deep discussion.

Provisional Agenda

​09:30 - Doors open, morning tea/coffee and light breakfast
10:00 - Strategic landscape and discussion sessions focused on AI-intermediation
12:00 - Lunch
13:30 - Laurens Hof of Connected Places gives an analysis of the open social landscape
14:00 - Discussion sessions focused on open social
15:00 - Tea/coffee break
15:15 - Discussion sessions focused on open social
16:00 - Closing