On 21 August, SilverStripe will be sponsoring the Engage Your Community unConference, a free learning event hosted by the Wellington Region 2020 Communications Trust (WICT). The free event, styled in the manner of BarCamp, is being held to help community organisations use information technology and the web to engage people in their community.
This will be WICT's first unConference. Traditional conferences tend to be one-way processes where people come and just absorb the information. However, the unConference model encourages sharing and collaboration. At the event, attendees can ask questions, talk to experts about the challenges they face in their workplace. They can even suggest topics, or run a session.
Most attendees will likely be from the IT industry and from community organisations and charities in Wellington.
WICT decided to hold an unConference after getting feedback from attendees of their more traditional yearly conference. Community organisations suggested that what they needed was an opportunity to do a collaborative event for free. Most of WICT's audience is in the volunteer sector, and they have little budget for training or capacity building.
If all goes well, skills and expertise from the IT industry will meet with the needs of various community groups.
WICT also runs monthly workshops for community groups. These workshops are designed to give community groups the background and information they need to take advantage of free web-based tools that can help them with organisation or fundraising.
You can register for attendance at the WICT site, here.