Unconferencing in Kathmandu; Call for Leads, volunteers and ideas

[juanpedro.maestre]

Dear Community and GOSH Kathmandu participants,

Thanks to all of you who have shared thoughts about the unconference sessions (see program). As in every Gathering, the unconference discussions will come from the community, and we want to start organizing the session that makes that happen.

How we’ve done it before

In past Gatherings, Jenny and Greg led the Main Unconference session, which is where all the other unconference discussions come from. The process was simple and worked well:

1. Idea generation: everyone wrote topics, questions, and challenges on post-it notes.
2. Clustering: as a group, we sorted the notes into themes.
3. Topic emergence: the clusters became the final discussion topics.
4. Scheduling: the topics were distributed across the unconference session slots.

The best part was that nobody set the agenda ahead of time. It came from the people in the room.

Volunteers: help lead the session

This year we don’t have anyone leading this activity yet, so we’re asking for volunteers. We’re looking for people with experience facilitating group sessions who can guide a large room, keep the energy up, and help the group reach clear topics. We’d love a small team of 2 or 3 people so the work is shared.

We especially encourage local participants to join the leading team. You know the local context, and that knowledge will strengthen how the session is led.

Ideas: tell us what you want to discuss

You don’t have to wait for the post-its. Share any topics, questions, or challenges you already have in mind. If you know a facilitation method that could work better than ours, please share that too.

How to get involved

Reply to this thread to:

• offer to co-lead the Main Unconference session
• help with logistics (preparing materials, taking notes, supporting on the day)
• post the topics you’d like to see discussed

Thanks, everyone. We’re looking forward to building this together!

JP in behalf of the Organizing Working Group

[utkrix]

Hi, I am a local participant! I am interested in co-leading the main unconference session but as its my first time attending GoSH, I am not exactly sure as to what are the things that I will have to do? I’d be happy to hop on a quick call to get me up to speed and checkout if its something that I can do?

[Harold]

Hi @utkrix , all that will be sorted out at the start of the gathering, but what you can do now is figure out what topic(s) you have expertise in that you would like to lead

[gaudi]

Thank you @juanpedro.maestre for starting this. Thanks @utkrix for your support. I am happy to help too and would like to share some thoughts and questions here.

The un-conference format – undoing the conventional conference format – is very close to the values of GOSH (GOSH Manifesto). It fosters diversity and inclusiveness and allows everyone to equally share their unique skills, experiences, and perspectives, and to raise topics that are relevant to them.

Let’s start collecting ideas here to get a sense of the range of topics. However, this is not where the agenda gets created – that happens at the event itself.

Break-out sessions can have many different formats, for example:

• Interactive presentation

• Group discussion

• Big (or Little) Question – you do not have to be an expert; others in the group might help you answer it

• Show and tell – bring your prototype

• Learn how to do X

• Hands-on session or experiment

Some common principles of an un-conference are:

• Whoever shows up are the right people

• Whatever happens is fine

• Whenever it starts is the right time

• It is over when it’s over

• The Law of Two Feet says that if you become uninterested or feel you are no longer learning or contributing, you are encouraged to leave and join another session.

Here are some pages that I think are good to read more about the format:

Preparing to attend an unconference!

- How to Run an Un-Conference

Some things we might want to think about – or share information about if anyone already knows:

• We now have three un-conference sessions in the program. How many break-outs (spaces/rooms) should run in parallel during each session? With around 70 people, I guess about 10 could work well, as bigger groups are generally less effective for this kind of format.

• What should the overall scope be? Of course, we are all interested in Open Source Hardware for Science, but given that there are also people who are new to GOSH, with different backgrounds and strong local perspectives, perhaps the scope could be a little broader and more open.

• For people who are new to un-conferencing, should we share some information about the format before the gathering, for example in the WhatsApp group?

Please share your thoughts and ideas. I am looking forward to a vibrant and diverse un-conference!

[gaudi]

Here some ideas of sessions I would be happy to co-host:

• Hands’On: Disassemble a qPocketPCR and share how GaudiLabs makes open science hardware that can be produced in small volume and run as a business
• Lab: Test an open source luminometer prototype for measuring bacterial contamination in water
• Sharing experiences with hacking/open sourcing comercial science equipement
• Together with @Rachel : Water sampling in local river, R-cards and PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction), a fast laboratory method used to make millions or billions of copies of a specific DNA
• Group discussion: Global activities in Open Science (eg: Open Science Institute and hackerspace in Switzerland)

And what I already saw on the forum:

@Duran

• Offers a Hat making workshop
• And a Vibe Coding workshop

@ajinkya Maybe you want to do an Introduction to FreeCAD?

@dusjagr Maybe could share experiences from FOSSasia he just attended

[Rachel]

as always, Urs, all of great interest.

Sadly we will have only a few R-cards, and it we want to do PCR too, we should inoculate already the 2nd (the day I arrive) or 3rd & make sure there is a gel rig to use there… hmmm Will be a little iffy to bring mastermix already made up. (would be more confident if we hear of molbio options more locally and I just bring primers…)

Even without the PCR, I am excited for the sampling there (Bagmati R.)…

For the luminometer idea - super cool!

(could be great to compare with R-card’s chromogenic results)

Additionally in that regard, would there be interest for a couple of the mycelia plates also, for biolum P.stipticus and the F. fomentarius (for bees, with no light), or that or your old photon counter?

[Weiweiweiwear]

Heyyyy I just have booked my ticket now, I can help too (if I am anything useful)! I will just join one abstract but don’t know the date yet…

[utkrix]

Thank you @gaudi! Your answer really helped me get the core idea about un-conference!

I think sharing information about the format , beforehand would be really helpful as well.

I don’t have much open source hardware projects @Harold . My projects consist of work that I did to build something that I needed at the moment or something that seemed cool : )

I have mostly worked with ESP32 / 8266s. I recently worked with the OBD2 port on a car to get the information that the car sends but isn’t displayed in the instrument cluster like the Engine manifold pressure, boost, coolant temperature etc and it was inspired by racing movies like the fast and furious series where they had really cool gauges

For topics focusing in context of Nepal, I think working towards a solution for an Early Warning System(EWS) for natural disasters such as floods and landslides would be good, even though this domain is already explored quite a lot including myself, that could be a starting point?

Other topic would be for interactive learning in any form for kids in rural areas of Nepal? Maybe @Duran could help out with both of these?

[SitaramKarki]

offer to co-lead the Main Unconference session

[dusjagr]

We should also pick up the discussions we had 2 years ago, in the earlier phase of preparing for this decennial GOSH coming up…

Together with @laola and others, we hosted a small event on the topic of “Why Do We Gather”, inspired by book that came to my hands recently, by https://www.priyaparker.com/book-art-of-gathering

Towards "Why Do We Gather?"

We gather because meeting IRL is much different than a virtual meeting. There is much more out-of-band communication, more opportunity to let the discussion meander naturally, more space and time for serendipity. It also encourages small groups and in depth discourse without a predetermined end time. Virtual meetings tend to favour the opposite, such as one-to-many communication. Gatherings also permit groups to discuss during a low key activity, traditionally chores, but could be anything …

[saadcaffeine]

Link to the book is corrected here: THE ART OF GATHERING — Priya Parker

[dusjagr]

Thanks already for some offers to co-lead the unconferencing activities!
@SitaramKarki @utkrix and all others…

Tomorrow evening, we will put our hands and heads together to create a fruitful environment for the unconferencing, which also means sorting out space, chairs, infra, rooms, etc…

if you are interested in the pre-unconf meta discussions, we will be there in the venue from 20h onwards.

[gaudi]

For who wants to co-lead the un-conferencing, @utkrix @SitaramKarki, there is a preparatory meeting tomorrow Saturday 4pm in Karkhana Samuha 4th floor office. Join.

[utkrix]

I would love to join but I am still at my Uni in Dhulikhel (which is about 1.5 hour drive from Kathmandu) for another event happening here. I am unsure if i can make it today @gaudi