Fragments from UnConference
Last week the Accelerator hosted its fourth annual UnConference. To give you a sense of how the day unfolded, here are some fragments of the many rich discussions throughout the day.
The rules of the UnConference.
Each year, our UnConference brings together a range of people from policy, business and culture. The setup is unique: participants use Open Space Technology to set the day's agenda themselves – self-organizing a conference that interrogates how we can leverage new networks, collaborations and approaches in order to address our challenging reality.
We're busy digesting the rich discussions from the day, so keep an eye on our microsite and mailing list for a more comprehensive summary of key takeaways, but in the meantime here's some participant quotes, pictures and session titles from the day to give you a flavour...
Coming across novel concepts
UnConference attendees explored and shared new concepts, frameworks and ideas that informed their work building sustainable futures, from their diverse vantage points across industries and geographies. Topics that people brought to the table included:
“The idea of knowledge activism.”
“The concept of rematriation – it was a big hit.”
“Sociocracy - a model of deliberation that is based on Quaker traditions.”
A participant holds up detailed notes from a session on 'Demanding the impossible.'
Sessions that explored new ideas included:
- Raising self and intrinsic value
- New models for activism
- Perception and sensing: interplanetary world health
Raising ambition
Participants reflected on their assumptions about what is possible – and what might be achieved if they dream beyond the realm of possibility. Conversations were filled with ideas of renewing ambition, thinking big and at a systems-level on sustainability.
“I talk a lot in my work about things being winnable – the session prompted me to think: what if we don't focus so much on things being winnable and try and do the things that don't seem winnable? What happens then?”
“If you set an unrealistic goal that doesn’t seem possible, you might not achieve it, but you could overshoot the goal you thought was realistic.”
A group pondering the potential of green populism.
Sessions themed around raising ambition included:
- Big bets
- Ambition loop: COP negotiations and procedural reform
- What is “sustainable” and is that enough?
Forming new collaborations
A key theme of the day centred around how the emergence of new coalitions and collaborations across sectors and communities could accelerate climate action. Discussions explored this, whilst the make-up of the room demonstrated it...
“We’ve all met in this middle point, and I’ve enjoyed understanding the range of perspectives and disciplines we’ve all come to this point from.”
“Today has inspired me to focus on broader, national and international perspectives as well as individual perspectives in the work that I do.”
Chatham House's conference hall was transformed for the event.
Session titles - promoting new collaborations:
- New forms of collaboration, types of governance that can work with conflicting interests
- Mobilising youth to advance new ideas for sustainability
- Institutional gossip collection
- Patriotism & populism: how they can accelerate the transition
Some snippets from the day.
So, there you have it, just some small fragments from a day full of creativity, collaboration and rich-thinking. Subscribe to our mailer and keep an eye out here on our microsite for a follow-up article picking apart some of the key themes and emerging ideas which surfaced during the day.