The Community Sessions - EP 1 'Community Collaboration'

Welcome to the first edition of the ‘Community Sessions’. This event is created by the tech community for the tech community.

The aim of Community Sessions is to keep the conversation going throughout the technology focused communities in Birmingham.

It creates an opportunity for wider community discussion on topics, raise profile for user groups and will be a great platform to talk about new cool stuff happening in Brum.

Over the course of five sessions we will be discussing the following topics;

• Community Collaboration

• Inclusion and diversity

• Funding

• Retaining talent within the region

• What's next?

On July 15th, we are talking about 'Community Collaboration'. The first session will be hosted by Mike Elsmore and we have a panel of 5 guests joining us for the evening.

We want YOU to play an active part and have an influence on what is discussed and the topics that are raised at these events. Throughout the evening there will be a live Q&A for attendees/viewers to take part in the conversation, but if you have any questions you wold like to ensure are included in the evening, please get in touch

If you would like to sit on the panel for future events, or have a specific topic you would like covered that you feel passionate about, please get in touch.

@hannah_fusion

So lets meet our first panel!

Stuart Langridge - Owner at Kryogenix Consulting

Stuart has spoken at meetups and conferences in the city (Fusion, BrumJS, BrumPHP, Brum Tech Tapas, Guadec, Worcester Sauce, Wolves LUG and more!) and has helped organise a bunch of them in one way or another.

Stuart was one of the originating group helping to set up Birmingham.io (https://talk.birmingham.io/) and played a key part building the tech events calendar.

Daniel Alcorn - Director at Birmingham Design Festival and Birmingham Design

https://birminghamdesignfestival.org.uk/

https://birminghamdesign.co.uk/

Keji Adedeji - Head of Product at Talis

Founder and former curator of ProductTank Birmingham, (one of the very first ProductTank events started outside London in what is now a community of over 200 ProductTank cities worldwide).

Keji is passionate about helping product people find community, share and learn best practice. In addition, she dedicates some of her personal time to mentoring product managers early in their career.

Pauline Roche - Digital Literacy Coordinator, Northfield Community Partnership - + Freelance journalist & Editor, Digital WM News/Producer & Co-Presenter Dr Tech Show/Presenter Tech Talk, Relationship broker/Amplifier.

Pauline increases the confidence of people, primarily in smaller community-led organisations, to use tech for better lives, NED Birmingham Tech, Member West Midlands Coalition for Digital Inclusion, Chair, West Midlands Open Data Forum, Co-founder, UK Tech for Good Organisers Network, VCSSCamp for infrastructure orgs, Open Data Camp, Chair, WM Funders Network & Trustee, Small Charities Coalition, active on Twitter as @paulineroche @DigitalWM News and @DigiInclusionWM; previously: CEO of an infrastructure/grant-giving charity, 7 yrs w Birmingham City Council, also various regional & national third sector equalities- and anti-poverty- based VCSE organisations

Indy Pahal - IT Director/Eurofins Food Testing UK

Indy is a regular attendee and contributor of multiple meetups in and around the region. He is passionate about collaboration and continued learning.

See you there?

This will be an online event, however we do hope to return to in person events when things feel a little safer to do so.

So get comfy, grab your favourite snacks and beverage and join in the conversation!