Online Conference Part II

Today I am going to continue my report on the Insight, Impacts and Innovation Conference hosted by Simpson house and streamed live by onlinevents.


The afternoon started with a short presentation stressing the importance of training. But most of the afternoon would be taken up with workshops. There were 3 workshops at the same time and the delegates in the room could chose which to attend. For the online delegates it was the workshop that takes place in the main conference room. It takes a long time to set up the camera's and the rest of the equipment but this was a good deal, the workhops I saw were interesting.


Workshop 1 was all about understanding addiction. Thanks to John Wilson from Onlinevents who typed the questions into the chatroom we could fully participate. And soon we were listing what we depended on: chocolate, nature, music etc. A very confronting question was, would you give up what you depend on if it became illegal tomorrow? I think almost everybody said or typed no! Everybody depends on something to get them through hard days. Not all these dependencies are harmful. But I must say that this workshop did help me to look at dependencies and addiction in another light and created more understanding for 'addicts'. Lots of food for thought, this one.


The second workshop was about a local Edinburgh innitiative: Make it happen. [see screenshot] This project works with young people who are at risk of offending. The recent riots in Britain clearly show the need for such programs and the fact that more funding is needed, not less! 

The important facts that I took away from this workshop are:

• Almost all the coverage about young people at the moment is negative
• It is important for young people to have role models and attainable goals
• Respect goes both ways! Older people demand respect from young people, but that respect should be earned.

After this the day drew a close and I turned my computer off feeling very satisfied and stuffed with new information.