Digital Village @ Science Gallery Melbourne

Stressed about what you’re seeing online? All internet users are invited to the Digital Village at Science Gallery Melbourne!

We’re coming together offline to reclaim our digital power in response to fears about rising online hate, AI, the teen social media ban and disinformation. The first theme for Saturday 29th of March is DIGITAL DREAMS; we'll be chatting about utopian and dystopian technology and charting ways to bring about the tech futures we want.

Keep an eye out at @snartclub on Instagram or your digital correspondent @bot.jamesbot on Tiktok for the next session on the 26 th of April, where we’ll build our capacity to resist digital harm in election season.

More info:
Who runs this?
The facilitator is Anastasia, a founder of science art collective Snart Club and advisor for the Dynamic Teen Coalition (DTC), which is the youth branch of the UN’s Internet Governance Forum.

What’s the goal?
These sessions are for building the technical and advocacy skills of ordinary internet users to help protect human rights online, to make a safer offline world. They are held in person to allow for nuanced discussions and build trust.

How do the sessions run?
Each session is a little different depending on the theme, but here's a general outline:

- Warm-up creative activity to introduce us to the topic and help us feel comfortable discussing the big issues together.
- Intro discussion around a prompt (article, video, story) related to this month's theme
- Map out our options for action on personal, community, and structural levels
- Choose one solution to focus on and make a plan
- Commit to one small, achievable step in the plan and choose an accountability partner to get the ball rolling.
- Unwind creative activity; reflect on new questions and next steps

There will be a mix of paper-based and digital resources in this session. You will be able to participate without a device, but if you have internet access in the session you can add your links and articles to the session recap document.

The session recap, including links to sources, space for unanswered questions, and further reading, will be publicly available after the event.