While at the coop development event at Space4 today, me and Finn from Agile decided to run a CoTech event in early in the new year focused specifically on persuading people in privately owned tech development companies to convert to be cooperatively owned.
We’ll work on a pithy title and the other details over the next week or two - the idea is to get the date etc confirmed by Christmas, so we can go out and do some targeted invitations to sympathetic/interested companies we know of early in the new year, when they’ve had a rest and are feeling altruistic/ambitious.
Agile have offered to host in Oxford, so we’ll target locally based private tech development companies in the first instance, before those further afield, and opening it up to public tickets. Obviously we also want lots of CoTech people there showing how great it is to be a tech coop - this post is really just to first look for any offers of help in making it happen, suggestions for the agenda etc.
Definitely if this is a success we’d be looking to roll it out to other places and settings - maybe then ask for a slot at different mainstream tech events and conferences.
Anyway, let us know what you think, and if you can help make it happen!
Good idea @dansmallaxe and @finn.
NB .coop are based in Oxford & could be up for support in some way. If you’d like me to ask/inform/suggest, shout - GS is doing the .coop marketing
hi all, I started a company in sustainable IT a year ago, lots of ideas and interest but not much revenue yet. We have some grant funding and looking for investment/loan from someone who supports our mission and ethics. I am keen to convert it into a workers controlled co-op asap, before we get locked into model that I’m not happy with,
please put me down on the list for your Oxford event!
It was an exciting discussion and I’m keen to get some momentum going this side of Christmas, but right now I’ve got so many other things to do that I’ll just leave it there. Back in touch soon with more thoughts.
Thanks for posting this @dansmallaxe!
Sounds like fun. It might be good to see if Impact Hub would be up for hosting some workshops/talks along these lines. Those places are stuffed with tech start-ups who are trying to do something good but usually are going down a more classic company structure. There’s not one in Oxford, but there are loads in London and one in Brum. Obvs lmk if you ever want to host at Space4.
Greetings from Australia! Very sad to have missed Wortley Hall this year,
but heard it was ace. You’re probably aware that Louise (Media Coop,
Glasgow) ran a similar event a few months ago? They had great posters and
might be able to share ideas about the event format.