Is This For Everyone

About

MSL Discover, in a new partnership with the RSA, will be exploring connectivity, localism and culture in a one-day conference with three digital art commissions in Hastings on 23 September.

Is This For Everyone? is an open invitation to interested parties to begin to identify areas of interest and to open out the connectivity discussion from the point of view of local, rural and regional Britain. Taking place at the historic St Mary in the Castle it will mix sessions with invited speakers together with an 'un-conference', non-hierarchical approach in the round. Similar to a 'town hall' meeting in format it will be a chance to engage with experts and national agencies in talking about how digital connectivity can help placemaking and potentially assist deprived communities in accessing digital space.

Confirmed speakers include Professor Gillian Youngs, author of 'The Internet of Place'; Ira Bolychevsky, founder and Director of Redecentralize.org; Caroline Bassett, Professor of Digital Humanities, University of Sussex, co-ordinator of the Communities and Culture Network project (2015); and Iain Bennett, Creative Industries and connectivity consultant.

Strands of discussion include:

– Do we need 5G when we already have free town WiFi?
– Can our town broadband network help build our local economy?
– It's a climate emergency. Can a network help us monitor energy use?
– Can we signpost history and heritage better for visitors?

Our invited speakers will begin these topics, but we expect everyone attending to organise, collect views, listen and respond.