Curricula
The agenda for the Info-Activism Camp was designed to serve a broad and diverse set of participant needs. The agenda was highly interactive, and driven by participant input and contributions. Each participant charted their own course through the sessions, and facilitators and organisers were available at all times to answer questions and provide guidance to participants trying to decide where to place their focus.
A planning meeting to develop the curricula was held in November 2008 in Bangalore, India. During this meeting, Tactical Tech was joined by Gunner from Aspiration, David Taylor from Radical Designs, Petra Timmermans from ICRSE and Himanshu Khatri from Media Shala.
A pre-camp facilitators' meeting was also held in Bangalore from the 15th till the 17th of February 2009. The idea was to bring together the lead facilitation team and discuss and flesh out the agenda for the camp in detail. Apart from Tactical Tech, the following individuals attended this meeting: Petra Timmermans, Ana Keshelashvili, Jessica Dheere, Sokari Ekine, Aliya Rakhmetova, Gunner, Pixel, Namita Singh, A G Ravi, Andrew Lowenthal, Manal Hassan, Joy Olivier, Sally Jean Shackelton, Catalina Farias, Sumiran Pandya, David Taylor, Dina Mehta, Himanshu Khatri, Alaa Abd El Fattah, Cheekay, Chris Michael, Jacob Appelbaum, Michal Mach, Evan and Gaba.
The agenda covered a wide range of topics clustered within the following themes:
Strategy (Developing a deeper understanding of an issue, contexualising it and relating it to other issues; Prioritising allies and opponents in your campaign; Understand process to develop campaign messages; Develop key campaign messages; Understand a range of tactics, evaluation of good and bad tactics, examples of strategic uses of technologies for campaigning; Developing a campaign calendar
Issue Areas (Sex workers, Human Rights, HIV/AIDS, LGBT issues, Burma to Zimbabwe)
Information Acquisition, Analysis and Evaluation (Introduction; Crystalising information needs; Sourcing and verifying data; Alchemizing data: Managing and making sense of it; Reporting and disseminating SMART bytes that meet campaign needs)
Visualisation and Story Telling (Information Design, Mapping, Animation, Digital Story Telling)
Publishing Information and Engaging Audiences (Introduction to Publishing Information and Engaging Audiences; Digital Activism; Blogging; Microblogging and Social Networking; Video; Engaging Offline Audiences; CMS (Content Management Systems
Increasing and Sustaining Participation (Effective Modes of Increasing participation; Identifying & Understanding audiences; Extending visibility and reach; Building community-led campaigns; Online community building)
Cooperation and Collaboration (Communication Strategies With Allies; Networking and collaboration; Effective Group Processes; The Dark Side of Collaborating ; Project Management; Effective Management of Shared Information; CRM and databases)
Telephony and Voice Communications (Introduction To Telephony, SMS and VOIP; Expanded SMS and Mobiles; Expanded Voice Telephony and VOIP; Pirate Telephony; SMS Sending Options; Cheap Phone Calls; Regulation, privacy, and freedom of speech; Geowanking Telephony; Asterisk and IVRs)
Security and Privacy (The security overview; Physical and information security; Anonymity on the net; Privacy on the net; Encryption on the net; Footprints you leave behind; Your real world problems)
What the participants had to say...
"...intense but a lot of freedom at the same time, each one of us had their possibility to make his/her own camp,"
"..was more practical and full of sharing experiences as opposed to just giving us presentation and lectures, I admire the approach/ time keeping and everything."
"It was a good balance, the diversity, variety of the days, I was never bored to the contrary, always wanted to do many things simultaneously."
"I think the schedule was fantastic, we had 3 to 2 hours of rest/ break in between. Of course, there was some exhaustion but it was a good schedule, with a mix of hard work and lots of play. I think this schedule should be maintained for future IAC."
"Its been a fantastic experience. I have learned and gained so much and have had my mind, heart and soul challenged a lot."
"Brilliant idea, excellent execution, well thought open format experimentation, amazing hospitality.. Great first attempt on this scale. Thank you. "
"Thank guys it was creative, responsive, professional, fun."
