Participation Camp is a two-day conference in New York focused on improving citizen participation in government. Since the means to making a truly participatory democracy are not obvious or well-defined, we’re focusing on making the event fun and exploratory. Here’s some text from ParticipationCamp.org.
Democracy is a game in which we all make the rules. How do we make this serious game more inclusive, more fair, and more fun?
Participation Camp will provide the spark for an explosion of sharing, experimentation, and collaboration around this question. Participants may attend a wide range of physical and virtual presentations (or deliver one themselves), compete in a conference-wide participation game, or roll up their sleeves in a hands-on workshop.
PCamp will be hosted by ITP@NYU. There is no cost to attend. Register now.
Thanks to our partner Radical Inclusion, we’ll have a virtual conference running simultaeously with the physical event. Some virtual presenters will even be beamed into the physical space. This means that you can participate no matter where in the globe you happen to be.
Other notable events:
COLLABORATIVE SCULPTURE
The centerpiece of PCamp will be a sculpture designed entirely by our participants:
We’ll supply the ping pong balls, the glue, and a space. The rest is up to you. What will emerge?
NOMIC
Gameplay helps us think differently about participation. Since we’re focused on democracy, we thought that Nomic would be a good fit:
Nomic is a game in which changing the rules is a move. In that respect it differs from almost every other game. The primary activity of Nomic is proposing changes in the rules, debating the wisdom of changing them in that way, voting on the changes, deciding what can and cannot be done afterwards, and doing it. Even this core of the game, of course, can be changed.
—Peter Suber, the creator of Nomic, The Paradox of Self-Amendment, Appendix 3, p. 362.
You can learn more about the many variations of Nomic on Wikipedia. We’re designing a version that will fit the timetable of the conference, and will equally engage physical and virtual participants. To get involved with the design process, visit the PCamp Game page on the wiki.
CODE JAM
We’re inviting civic-minded technologists to join us for a collaborative coding session. We’ve got some exiting projects lined up and some soon-to-be announced partners that will help make them a success. More details soon.