What's on our radar?

As the Catalyst Producers prepare for a two-day intensive review-planning phase at the end of this month (optimistically termed a ‘retreat’!), we’ve been reviewing Catalyst’s current internal structures and models, such as the Initiative Leads circles, governance structures and working group experiments from last year. 

We know it’s every bit as important to keep looking externally too for inspiration and good/emerging practice, so here are the top ten things that have been on our radar this month:

1. The Sideways Dictionary has become our favourite tech glossary tool
2. I attended the launch of the awesome #JustTech platform, and have a blog brewing about it!
3. Siana discovered Rooted by Design - a Social Design House centring the experiences, needs and futures of UK Black communities
4. We collated decolonial approaches to research and impact measurement for an impact workshop last week with - stay tuned for a write-up coming soon
5. Our friends at We Are Open launched a website of free workshop templates, courses and resources for social impact orgs, a good complement to CAST’s Digital Toolkit
6. We’ve been exploring lots around digital feminism, including this upcoming Digital Policy event from Superrr Lab, taking inspiration from DiSCOs (Distributed Cooperative Organisations); these Feminist Principles for the Internet shared by Nominet’s Amy O’Donnell, and this feminist lecture programme from Siana’s pals at the London Drawing Group
7. While not explicitly feminist, Careful Industries’ report on ‘possible, plausible and just futures for civil society’ centres imaginaries of Belonging, Care and Repair, which certainly resonates
8. And on the subject of future systems, Nesta’s Suraj Vadgama shared this intriguingly-titled Patterns of Possibility paper from the System Innovation Initiative
9. Our lovely freelance colleague Debby Mulling is starting a new role at the 5rights Foundation, a very cool organisation that established the age-appropriate Children’s Code that, according to Wired last year, ‘tamed big tech’
10. I just finished I Am A GIrl From Africa, Elizabeth Nyamayaro’s incredible memoir of her journey to found the UN’s #HeForShe movement. Totally inspiring and it makes a compelling case for the power of ubuntu, “I am because we are”. Had a total fangirl moment when she replied to me on Twitter!

If you have a resource of any kind that you think we should have on our radar, please share it with us! We would love for the wider community to influence our work and provide creative input. Drop us a line at hello@thecatalyst.org.uk Or tweet us @wethecatalysts.

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Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

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