Category: culture-and-politics

I’m in the Inclusive top 100 #IB100

I’m extremely happy to be announced as one of the top 100 most influential Black, Asian Minority Ethnic (BAME) leaders in the UK tech sector. The list, produced by board appointments firm Inclusive Boards, was released today at the House of Commons as part of the official launch of the Inclusive Tech Alliance.

I have been sitting on this news for quite some time as it was embargoed from publication.

Inclusive Boards Logo

I’m unsure who(m) nominated me (lots of names come to mind) but I am very pleased they did. Maybe it was something to do with my keynote at Afrotech earlier this year? Maybe it might be something to do with Afrofutures a few years ago? Or maybe its a combination of different things and just me and my outlook. Its clear as day I have been fighting for diversity and inclusion at work and everywhere I go, its critical and I’ve become less and tolerant when theres a willful lack of it.

I say tolerant and it might be a strong word, even the wrong word but I do feel very strongly about it and every-time I read the figures of actual levels of racial diversity it just eats me up inside. There’s a real push to increase gender diversity which people keep confusing with actual diversity.

I’m always reminded of this picture when thinking about gender diversity in tech. Like gender, like sexuality, etc (Likewise for Neuro-diversity but thats another story.). Racial diversity needs an equal amount of people pushing for it too. The inclusive tech alliance can help make this a reality. Never underestimate how important this can be for young BAME children living in forgotten parts of the country wondering about their place in the future. I was reminded of this very recently in Macedonia of all places…

The Alliance has been set up in response to new research by Inclusive Boards that will show the sector is significantly lagging behind others on diversity within senior leadership. The founder of the Inclusive Tech Alliance (ITA), Samuel Kasumu, who is also a member of the Prime Minister’s Race Disparity Advisory Board said:

“Technology is increasingly playing an important role in driving our economy and there is a great need to ensure that everyone can fully participate in the jobs and opportunities technology brings. Ian Forrester and others featured in this list today are role models that will inspire the next generation, and hopefully help to improve diversity within the sector.”

I can do better, we can all do better, and being part of the inclusive tech alliance, will help greatly to get the message of diversity and inclusion out there. Especially in the tech sector which seem to shy away from the arts. A sector which dominates so much of our modern lives but fail badly with diversity.

Without technology I would be a very different person and I want to help many others realise there true potential without prejudice and without fear. If I can be a part of this, I will hopefully inspire others to join us as we drive the much needed change…

I won’t be at the event in the house of commons, unfortunately. But look out for the full list of people in newspapers and online.

Thank you!

When Berlin was raw, unresolved and club culture ruled

https://www.flickr.com/photos/cubicgarden/44922507835/

I am quite lucky to have visited Berlin in the 90’s. Ok it was at the very end of the 90’s but only 10 years after the Berlin wall had separating East and West Berlin (1999). It was quite a different place from now, but thats true of most of the cities in the world right?

I happened to have been in Berlin during the nineties.berlin exhibition last week and unlike Helsinki’s Amos Rex, actually got a ticket and visited.

It was quite something, the first room blew me away and taught me things I hadn’t really thought about but Carl (my East Berlin friend) had mentioned a few times. For example the impact of the clash of west and east on the police force and law. It was amazing to see and read about the world famous Tresor, which I never visited partly because I was somewhat musically intimated by such hard techno at the time.

90's Berlin

My dreams of visiting the Love Parade were lifted and then sunk as I read about the parade then heard about the commercial downfall of the parade. A lesson other parades should consider. When I actually planned to go in 2004 but it was cancelled. Always put Burning man and Love parade on my wish list but Love parade was actually do able. At least it was till it was shut down in the late zeros. Missed out on that one.

90's Berlin

I personally found the talking heads really interesting to hear, as there were a variety of them including a artists, swatters, police officer, hooligan, politician, djs, etc. I found Westbam and Danielle De Piccicotto really interesting as they mentioned Dr Motte, who I had heard of but completely forgot about. Also Westbam mentioned Eastbam, which makes sense there would be a Eastbam.

90's Berlin

My only issue I felt was the Berlin wall and the selling of parts of the wall. It felt really strange especially since the whole exhibit felt very critical of the whole gentrification of Berlin. I wasn’t the only one who felt this too.

90's Berlin

As a whole the exhibit is mind blowing and well worth the money to go visit. I would like to spend more time there next time as I got rushed through the last part due to the exhibit closing. The bot info system worked good and beats downloading some app or relying on QR codes.

It certainly captured some of the rawness of Berlin in the 90’s and made me realise how unresolved everything was back then. Still love Berlin.

A spy under the tree for the holidays?

The Observer on IOT and spying

Quite enjoyed Guardian’s piece about the raff of home iot devices coming to the home these holidays.

If you’ve so far withstood the temptation to install a smart speaker in your home, worried about the potential privacy pitfalls and a bit embarrassed about the notion of chatting aimlessly to an inanimate object, brace yourselves. This Christmas, the world’s biggest tech giants, including Amazon, Google and Facebook, are making another bid for your living room, announcing a range of new devices that resemble tablets you can talk to.

It was a real welcome surprise to read/hear Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino too. Her new book Smarter Homes: How Technology Will Change Your Home Life is pretty much on the money.

“It’s very clear what they’re trying to do: sell you more stuff through third-party use of your own information,”

The fear about whether or not such devices are actually always on causes some users to relegate their smart speakers to corridors. “Think about where in the home you want to use these things, particularly if you think they might be listening all the time,”

I had the joy of capturing some of Alexandra’s early thoughts while putting together the ethics of personal data video interviews back in 2015.

I think the only thing missing from the article is a link to Mozilla’s buyers guide, which charts in a friendly consumer fashion whats actually going on underneath the surface of the iot devices we may get over the holiday period.

50 years since the Olympics Black Power salute

John Carlos and Tommie Smith made headlines across the world when they raised the black power salute on the podium after winning in the 1968 Olympics

The 1968 Olympics Black Power Salute was a political demonstration conducted by African-American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos during their medal ceremony on October 16, 1968, at the 1968 Summer Olympics in the Olympic Stadium in Mexico City. After Smith and Carlos won gold and bronze medals, respectively, in the 200-meter running event, they turned on the podium to face their flags, and to hear the American national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner”. Each athlete raised a black-gloved fist, and kept them raised until the anthem had finished. In addition, Smith, Carlos, and Australian silver medalist Peter Norman all wore human rights badges on their jackets. In his autobiography, Silent Gesture, Smith stated that the gesture was not a “Black Power” salute, but a “human rights salute”. The event is regarded as one of the most overtly political statements in the history of the modern Olympic Games.

One of the most powerful statements in history and its so weirdly ironic looking at the NFL players taking the knee at the same national anthem.

Actually… in the same article

John Carlos and Tommie Smith made headlines across the world when they raised the black power salute on the podium after winning in the 1968 Olympics. That protest brought them death threats, and they were expelled from the games.

Lot to take away and think about…

Its time to regulate Airbnb…

No Tourists allowed - thanks for your collaboration

There has been a lot said about Airbnb in the media and to be fair I have talked about it myself a few times. But I keep on reading them anyway. Then I read the comment is free piece in the Guardian, right before I go to Barcelona too.

Barcelona is a city-break destination practically all year round, which means it’s struggling with more than just a surfeit of drunken stag parties and queues outside tapas bars. Landlords have realised they can make more money out of short lets to well-off Airbnb users than from renting to conventional tenants who live and work in the city year round, so when contracts come up for renewal it’s not uncommon to find the rent suddenly shooting up to levels that young Spaniards can’t pay. Once they’re forced out of the neighbourhood, the empty flat promptly disappears into what’s still sometimes euphemistically known as the “sharing economy”, although what happens next sounds like the antithesis of sharing. Those lucky enough to own a desirable property get steadily luckier, by pimping it out to the highest bidders. Meanwhile, those who don’t have such an asset become ever less likely to get one, as property prices are pushed up across the city. Thus does inequality harden, and resentment deepen, while the failure of mainstream parties to solve the problem drives the young and frustrated ever closer to the political fringes.

All the stuff mentioned in others but then, but then the killer to my hippyish ideas for Airbnb.

So much for the earnestly hippyish vibe of the original Airbnb model, which was supposed to be all about creating a cosy-sounding “global community” by linking up adventurous strangers in search of more authentic, home-from-home travel experiences. And so much, too, for the idea of democratising the travel industry by letting the little guy make a buck on the side. In some tourist hotspots Airbnb is now morphing from an amateur operation into a slick professional one, with landlords amassing multiple properties just as they once did with buy-to-let, and using agencies to manage their burgeoning empires.

The romantic, if sometimes risky, fantasy of swapping lives with a local for a few nights and seeing the city through their eyes is being replaced with a more corporate, impersonal experience. Sign here for the keys; check out promptly in time for the next guest to arrive. Too bad that what could have been a young couple’s starter flat is now just another asset to be sweated, and one that probably stands empty half the time.

As the piece says and I am somewhat in agreement about regulation in this sense, as things have gotten out of hand. But the pressure needs to come from both sides and I don’t know if people care to do the right thing? For example there are still a lot of listings on Airbnb for Barcelona which don’t have the LUT number which is required for Barcolona Airbnbs now.

it’s uncomfortable knowing that your cheap getaway comes at such a hidden cost, guilt seems unlikely to put many travellers off

It would make sense if Airbnb would check this somehow or even more fundamentally, provide a space to input this info and highlight it to potential Airbnb guests. Right now you have to tack it on the end of the description which isn’t ideal.

When looking for somewhere, I asked a few Airbnb hosts for their LUT number and one all but laughed in the message back. If Airbnb really gave a crap about whats happening to these cities and locations its the least they would do.

What is the Public service internet?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/cubicgarden/14702809615

Its been thrown around a lot and if you search for the term public service internet you will click on something from Adrian Hon or Dan Hon. You will see stuff from others like chromatrope and even my own posts in searches. Or good searches will reveal related terms like Digital public space from newspapers like the Guardian and of course straight from Tony Ageh.

But not much from the BBC, so its quite exciting to finally see something more official.

BBC R&D researching the public service internet and looking for partners who share similar values.

My Edinburgh Fringe festival 2018

https://www.flickr.com/photos/drewm/6314194635/

Its been 11 years since I really went to the Edinburgh festival. Back then I was running BBC Backstage and via some smart people decided to put on the Edinburgh TV Unfestival. I got to a few events but never really got going. So 11 years later, with my partner I was back.

The comedians make a living from word of mouth, I felt it would be wrong not to write a quick summary of what I thought of each one.

Friday 3 Aug

  • Abigoliah Schamaun: Do You Know Who I Think I Am?!  – Underbelly Cowgate at 21:00
    She was great, very funny and the smart deconstruction of comedy was just awesome. Well worth it
  • Werewolf: Live – Underbelly Cowgate at 22:50
    I saw this and just had to be there, werewolf has so much potential to be funny and this 8 person game with the audience was hysterical. Hate getting voted off first and there was a weird sense of something going on. So I raised the stakes with black lives matter which really got things going. If you love werewolf, you will love this. Good stuff!
  • Hate ‘n’ Live – Laughing Horse @ The Free Sisters at 0015
    People put topics in a hat for the 4 comics to hate on, what could go wrong? Well ask Chris McGlade, who took it too far and had to be told not to sexually attack the audience. It was uncomfortable to say the least and I did notice some people leave. Luckily Leo Kearse and Nick Elleray kept things enjoyable. Sure Hate’n’live could be fun but that night was so-so, even with jokes about who pays on the first date… Wonder who put that one in the hat? (my partner said laughing to herself)

Saturday 4th Aug

  • Robin Morgan: Honeymoon – laughing horse at 1600
    Recommended from one of my partners friends, it was enjoyable mainstream comedy, nothing edgy, just nice. Well told too.
  • Kevin Quantum: Vanishing Point – Cow Barn in Underbelly Bristo Square at 18:45.
    This was likely one of the worst things I saw the long weekend. Kevin was good but not a derren brown or penn & teller. The magic was further spoiled by sitting in the front row. But it could have been worst I guess.
  • Chris Henry: Around the World in 80 Dates – Clover in Underbelly Bristo Square at 20:10
    Ok Chris was funny his comedy did strike home with me but it wasn’t as good as some of the other acts on the other days.
  • 2 Girls, 1 Cup… of Comedy – Just the Tonic at The Mash House at 23:15
    It was another good comedy stand up from two women.. Things were going well for the second one till someone threw up at the back. The already hot room started to smell badly. Good fun regardless

Sunday 5th Aug

  • Mark Thomas – Check Up: Our NHS at 70 –  Traverse Theatre at 10:00
    I hated waking up early and I was cursing Mark Thomas for a 10am start especially after 2 girls 1 cup less than 10 hours before. But Mark Thomas was incredible and likely the best of my weekend. Thoughtful, funny and something to take away from the 90mins.
  • Brexit stage left – Cannons gait at 1610
    Reasonable free gig with some good laughs, nothing about brexit however. Wasn’t bad but nothing noteworthy for me
  • Good Grief – Tolbooth Market at 1730
    Such a good stand up story with a audience of me, my partner and a stranger. The storytelling was told very well and really took us for a ride around her life. Deserves a watch for sure!
  • Holt and Talbot: Mansplaining Feminism – City Cafe at 2000
    Oh boy, this was funny and I get the whole point. It was like the guilty feminist’s opening played out over a series of comically role play. Fun and interesting.
  • Terrible Sex Tips: Live and Uncut – Grassmarket 4 at 21:10
    Remember when I won 2nd prize at Smutslam? Well the host Cameron took to the stage with her sex tips or rather a deconstruction of the sex tips you get in magazines and other places. It was a rallying cry for diversity of thought, communication and emotional intelligence. Next to Mark Thomas, I think it was one of my highlights from the fridge. Lots to take away for anybody.
  • Kitchen Party Action – Laughing horse Espionage at 2245
    In a cramp almost bunker like room only saved by the massive fans, was some good standup comedy. Nothing too much, just standup which makes you chuckle and laugh even when its so late. Glad we saw the 6ft 5inch comic on a stage which gave him about 1-2 inches of headroom. Good show lots of and smiler
  • Best of the Fest – Assembly Hall at 0000
    Things on Sunday were going great, so I decided to pay for the best of the festival and see 5 acts on a big stage. Didnt enjoy the MC (Charlie Baker) but the acts got better and better. Here’s who was on stage… Felicity Ward, Lloyd Langford, Catherine Bohart, Christ Kent, Fin Taylor. You can see why they were chosen the best for the day.
  • Late nights LOLs – Laughing Horse at 0130
    I thought after coming out the Assembly hall I should do one more before heading back to the Airbnb. So on the way back I went to the laughing horse for some free but not great comedy. The 5 comedians tried but to be fair it was late and lots fell flat. Heck  it was 2am by that point

Monday 6th Aug

  • Eat sleep shit shag – City Cafe at 1345
    Certainly a fun show in a very hot and busy venue. She was relentless with the jokes and comedy, I think in a cooler room she may have more of the audience clapping and laughing. It was good but I wouldn’t seek it out especially.
  • Sara Barron: for worst, Just the tonic at 1540
    This was great comedy, a bit for everyone and really refreshing to before the train ride back to Manchester. Highly recommended for those endless laughs. Another one of my best from the weekend.

Its the Tamagotchi where the future went wrong?

My Tamagotchi is everything that went wrong with our future

Is one of those articles you read and shake your head realising the hard truth and how right it is…

The Tamagotchi offers the option to turn off the sound. But if I turn it off, I’ll miss the notifications and accidentally kill my hateful son. At this point, I’ve kept him alive for so long, I’d feel too guilty to pull the plug on my virtual spawn.

And anyway, what’s one more beeping annoyance in my life? The Tamagotchi is just another red dot for me to clear off yet another screen. At least this one doesn’t monetize my engagement through targeted advertising.

My smartphone, I’ve realized, is also a Tamagotchi. My laptop is a Tamagotchi. My tablet is a Tamagotchi. These new Tamagotchis have nicer screens and more than three buttons, but more importantly, they’re hooked into much more elaborate guilt trips. Now it‘s not just a virtual pet at stake; it’s my friends, my family, and my work being held hostage in order to keep me pressing these stupid buttons.

My favorite new development in our terrible Tamagotchi future? The “digital well-being” trend to “fix” smartphone “addiction.” More Tamagotchi buttons, so my Tamagotchis can stay alive longer.

Terrifying vision of the future, by looking at the past… no idea why it persisted in its different forms honestly…