Nerd Nite Brighton #7

Event information

Did someone say something about a storm? Hopefully your hats haven’t been blown away and you’re going to come and join us in the cosy warmth of the Caroline of Brunswick once again for some evidence-based entertainment. Bring your non-blown away hats too.

A very very very important message for y’all: this will be a post-Halloween Nerd Nite and in celebration we’d like you to bring a pumpkin carved with a nerdy icon. Perhaps you’d like to chisel out Albert Einstein’s face?

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Our talks this month:

1. Water poverty: A consideration of the global and the local - Ian Hextall from WaterAid

As long as Ian can remember he has been obsessed by rivers, irrigation, floods, valleys, canals, dams and all things watery. Where WaterAid came into his view he can’t exactly recall but it must have been over 20 years ago. After retiring as an academic he became a volunteer for the organisation and was so impressed by its clear direction and mode of working that when he moved to Brighton he helped establish the Brighton and Hove WaterAid Campaign Group which has now been in operation for some 6 years.

WaterAid is one of the key institutions currently engaged in the redefinition of the UN Millenium Development Goals for 2030 under the campaign heading EveryoneEverywhere: a vision for water, sanitation and hygiene post-2015. At the level of the UK there is a growing awareness of the incidence of water poverty amongst vulnerable groups. At its simplest this is generated by the interaction of: low levels of economic activity; the impact of welfare/benefit erosion; new charging models for water provision; specific ‘hazards’ eg., ill health, family size and disability; and secular dynamics such as climate change.

These ‘local’ factors are most likely to impact negatively upon low income families, hence the local articulation with ‘water poverty’. Ian’s talk will briefly focus on these “glocal” features in greater detail and he shall comment on WaterAid’s awareness and campaigning role with specific reference to their work on a local level.

2. Leading social innovation – Toby Moore

Toby has many walks of life, from revolutionising IT leadership to writing recipe books and developing local currencies. Toby is always looking to create things that boast collaboration, fairness and change.

A lot of his work is within the IT Services industry trying to help technologists and their managers better understanding the emerging social values of business and workplace culture. Toby also plays a big part in the local social innovation networks, working with organisations and events such as CityCamp, TEDx Brighton and The Brightoneers to build exciting projects that have meaningful outcomes for Brighton and its people.

In this talk Toby will share his experiences in building up businesses that put people and happiness above profit and what it takes to motivate people to do great things beyond just getting paid.

3. An introduction to hackspaces – Mike Pountney

Mike is a professional nerd and has been for many years so will be well at home at Nerd Nite. He loves learning pretty much anything, especially when it comes to how to do things. For ages he wondered what it would be like if you got enough people together that liked just doing stuff for the pure joy of doing it, and built a clubhouse for them. It turns out lots of other people around the world had the same thought. They are called Hackspaces here in the UK, and they are just wonderful. We’re a lucky bunch because he’s going to tell us a bit about them.

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As always there will be drinks, quizzes, music and of course free cake which we’re informed this month are GBBO Mary Berry’s spice orange cake and the crazy chocolate and beetroot cake.