Jenni Rowley and Selina Okunnu of the Northfield Young People’s Forum talk to us about how power is shifting towards the young in Birmingham. From April 2007 the forum, run by 11 to 19 year olds, will have up to £80,000 to offer as grants to the young people of this south [...]

 

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More proof that citizens journalism is finding it’s feet here in the West Midlands comes with  the campaign to protect Black Patch Park in Sandwell. Simon Baddeley has written about the park for the independent website The Stirrer, keeps this wiki page up to date and now adds this to youtube:

technorati tags: nptechuk youtube black patch [...]

I was working yesterday with the Northfield Young People’s Forum (no website yet) here in Birmingham, looking at ways they can use online social networking to widen the conversation and attract more interest for what they do.

We explored youtube – citing the number of comments attracted by this Birmingham councillor for his film on graffiti [...]

Beth Kanter of the Sharing Foundation explains how they used the internet to raise $100,000 for children in Cambodia. I’ve known Beth through blogging for a few months now, but finally met her in Birmingham earlier this month.

She is an expert on the internet and non-profit organisations and in this podcast she [...]

 

 Beth Kanter on Online Fundraising [9:06m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

They have barely got their first life started and already children are being offered a second. The BBC has announced plans to create a Second Life style environment where children can play and create and communicate. The beeb says CBBC world will have an emphasis on safety and responsibility with
no chatrooms or facilities [...]

The BBC The Guardian and others (here, here, here) have written about research at Duke Medical Centre which suggests researchers have found the part of the brain responsible for altruism. I just want to digest this with two things in mind: other ways to understand the research and why these things might [...]

As you probably know a theme of this week’s meeting will be web 2.0 and how it contributes to shifting power relationships. Keep tabs in a number of places including:

BBC: Richard Sambrook and others.

WE Forum Homepage

Davos Conversation

Commondreams usually as an alternative take

Speakers will include Bill Gates, Tony Blair, King Abdullah of Jordan, [...]

Pete Ashton (a fine brummie blogger) pointed me to a wonderful post from George Dvorsky on Must Know Terms for the 21st Century Intellectual.

The list has some gems, from the increasingly familiar Moore’s Law and Open Source through to Noosphere, the freakily possible Participatory Panopticon and the onrush of the Technological Singularity.

I consider most of [...]