Tech for Community Futures

In this talk, Bath Cooperative Alliance will explore the idea that “Community Tech” is a response to sociodigital transformation. Everyday we are bombarded by news of the advances of “Big Tech”, from digital innovations such as AI, to problems circulating around social media and online harm, to ever faster broadband connections and the Internet of Things. Sometimes, advances in technology seem to progress without our involvement or consent, appearing in our lives, taking centre stage, and dominating the ways that we live and work.

But what are the alternatives and where might these tech alternatives emerge from? Are communities the answer, and if they are what are the alternatives that they can propose? What of tech that is focussed on sharing, care, networks, conversation, and need? What kind of future does this kind of tech help us to imagine? How might we, through cooperative models of ownership and design ensure…