Collaborative Futures Workshop | How New Technologies Can Support Social Justice Organizations In East Africa.

The Youth Café was invited for a 3-day Collaborative Futures Workshop, which is a hybrid hackathon and fellowship designed to help you, and fellow social justice organizations and leaders envision ways that emerging creative technology can expand your impact, understand how new technologies will shape your work and how we can change these technologies, and learn how to act on this knowledge in partnership with East Africa's boldest creatives and technologists using a Do It Yourself (DIY) ethos and active collaboration.

The goals for the workshop were to break open the black box of emerging tech to understand better the power we have over shaping these technologies, how they impact our work now and in the future, potential dangers surrounding them, and most importantly, what opportunities and solutions they provide to our pressing problems. Participants had the chance to learn about technology as a product and a continuous process. We had a chance to rethink our relationship with technology to apply this framework to both emerging and existing tools that can support our work. The primary focus was on creative technology because it offers a more immediate onramp to understanding and action; however, we will adapt what technologies we explore based on interests and needs.

In East Africa, leading experts in the different domains were selected, including Immersive Media, Data Science and Machine Learning, The DIY and Maker Movement, Sensors and Mapping, GameDevelopment, Podcasts/New Docs/social media, Physical and Virtual Bots and Blockchain and Online Platforms.

 The workshop was meant to take the participants on a creative journey through inspiring regional and global examples of hacking technologies for a good while making connections and strengthening networks with creative technologists and future collaborators. 

On the first day of the workshop, selected participants presented their previous work to give the workshop's theme the basis and identify areas of collaboration. The participants were Ben Kreimer, Gisa Group, and the Mozilla Foundation.

Ben Kreimer is a technologist developing enduring applications for drones, immersive, and other emerging media technologies. He focuses on democratizing access to hardware and software tools, including open-source platforms and low-cost hacks and materials. Ben explained the design of DIY and its importance in solving problems. He presented his ideas on developing drones using available cheap material and collaborations with other partners to disseminate information using drones and cameras. His work has been impactful to society. He also presented 'shout,' an app that can enable users to share information (images) via a text message without using the internet. The app is in the beta-testing process, and it is meant to ease knowledge in areas where there is internet or in cases where there is an internet shutdown, especially during elections.

The Gisa Group & Collaborative futures was represented by Trevor, dedicated to experiments at the intersection of Design, Technology, and Media. He is an experienced leader of diverse teams in challenging environments. He emphasized how technology integration can address the issues of democracy and governance, specifically focusing on social justice development. He demonstrated how researchers, creatives, and technologists could collaborate to address humanity's democracy, governance, and political challenges.

Roselyn Odoyo represented the Mozilla Foundation - Senior Program Officer, Tech + Society Fellowship at Mozilla Foundation, Lawyer, digital activist, and Human Rights practitioner, and Brian Obilo - Mozilla Fellow and Cybersecurity Analyst. They highlighted the issues of disinformation, misinformation, and cyber security and how civil society organizations can factor such matters into their design and implementation of policies and structures within the organizations.

Obilo also talked about secure data management for organizations. He pointed out the Data Archiving mechanism in which inactive information, in any format, is securely stored for long periods. Such information may not be used again in the future but should be held until the end of its retention schedule. He also shed light on the information's credibility and how to ensure the information shared is not disinformation or misinformation. The general public may take advantage of it, leading to unintended conflicts.

On the second day, we learned more about community currency with the speaker, Shaila Agha, a director of Grassroots Economies who developed sarafu. Sarafu is a community inclusion currency that keeps families in informal settlements afloat. As a community-based currency, Sarafu circulates in close geographical areas and individuals who know each other well to create a network of users and traders and a sense of trust. They make vouchers redeemable as payment for community goods and services. These vouchers are encouraged to circulate as a medium of exchange and fill the gaps of missing national currencies.

Another keynote speaker was Gideon Too from Busara Center for Behavioral Economics, who gave an insight into behavioral science. Behavioral Science is an analytical approach that uses contextual research to explain how people make decisions. Establishing motivation & intent is a critical first step, and studying habits, goals, and identity is crucial to a fundamental understanding of the reasons behind the choices we make.

Primoz Kovacic - Geodetic Engineer, Co-Founder, and Director of Spatial Collective was also a keynote speaker. Spatial Collective's model consists of training and supporting communities and organizations on adapting available technologies to collect data that is important to them and then help them store, own and analyze the data to make the most appropriate development solutions. The majority of the work is conducted under challenging environments where there is very little existing data and on issues of significant global importance ranging from environmental management, livelihoods and economic prosperity, formal and informal governance initiatives, safety and security, and property rights.

The participants were later divided into four focus groups: Community Currency, Macho, Spatial Collective, and Virtual Reality. The Youth Café participants went into two separate groups: Community Currency and Macho. The Community Currency discussed how community currency should and could be extended in war zone areas like Sudan for the protestors. This will create a sense of unity and easy exchange of goods and services for easy access, e.g., food and medical assistance during protests. The Macho workshop group was meant to identify how behavior science can ensure successful campaigns and initiatives for civil society organizations. 

Factoring behavior means focusing on what the target audience cares about the most and using it as a tool for staying in alignment with the objectives and accomplishing the project's goal with ease. Spatial Collective shared ideas on using mapping to share crucial information in communities. They are developing an application that will make communication more accessible, especially in communities like those in the informal settlement. The Virtual Reality team shared the ideas on using Virtual Reality in storytelling. A good example shared was on filming people in wheelchairs such that people can watch and have firsthand experience of what it feels like to be in other people's shoes.

On day 3, we had a final speaker, Dannish Odongo, the founder of the wellness tribe. The Wellness Tribe brings diverse, passionate, and creative innovators to build a happy and prosperous nation of thriving, resilient individuals and communities by promoting wellness through research, storytelling, experiences, and capacity building.

Odongo shared the impact of mental health on the population and, to be specific, the Human Rights Defenders(HRDs). They embark on ensuring the people are protected against any injustices. These Human Rights Defenders also face the challenges of mental deterioration, and there are currently no strategies or innovations to help them maintain their mental wellness while fighting injustices against humanity. He proposed creating an online platform that brings together the wellness councilors and those Human Rights Defenders facing mental problems resulting from their work. 

We then had a recap on what we had experienced during the two other days where everyone got a chance to share what they had learned or what technology stood out for them during the workshop. Organizations could network and identify possible collaboration areas if they found common ground.

The Youth Café works with young men and women around Africa as a trailblazer in advancing youth-led approaches toward achieving sustainable development, social equity, innovative solutions, community resilience, and transformative change.

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