Sunderland City Council will play host to Local by Social: North East Edition over on Friday 4th at Southwick Community Primary School.

Local by Social events bring local government practitioners, social innovators and the voluntary sector together to share innovation and explore how technology can be used to improve local public services.

Each event has its own theme. At Sunderland we will be looking at how social media, apps and other new technology can be used to tackle social exclusion and promote opportunity. In particular we want you to ‘think family’ and consider how technology can support families as well as individuals.

An agenda for Local by Social is set out at the bottom of this post.

The event will also offer the chance to explore how technology can be used to make a practical difference to local communities. Working together in groups, we will focus on identifying ideas for using technology in innovative ways.

Additionally, on Saturday 5th March, Sunderland Community IT will be holding a development day at the school. Aimed primarily at software developers, the day will focus on building technology solutions for community benefit. You can book for Saturday's development via the Local by Social eventbrite page. For more information about the day, please contact:

Conn Crawford

Strategic Projects Officer

Sunderland City Council ICT

T: 0191 5614235

M: 07775703064

Agenda for Local by Social North East edition

Day One - Friday 4th March, Southwick Community Primary School, Sunderland

09.00 - 09.30:        Registration and coffee

09.30 - 09.40:   Sunderland's Vision for Digital Inclusion - Cllr David Allen,

     Portfolio Holder for Resources, Sunderland City Council.

09.40 – 09.50:  Sunderland’s approach to Digital Inclusion - Tom Baker, Head of ICT

09.50 – 10.05:  Introduction to Southwick  – Trish Stoker, Head Teacher,

     Southwick Community Primary School

10.05 – 10.20:  Introduction to Local by Social and LG Groups’ Knowledge Hub, 

     Ingrid Koehler, Improvement Strategist, Local

     Government Improvement and Development (LGID)

10.20 – 10.30:  Gov 2.0 - Dominic Campbell, FutureGov

(Questions and comments)

10.40 - 11.00:   Coffee break

11.00 – 11.45:  Quick fire presentations speakers

• Bernie Callaghan, Chief Executive Officer, Sunderland Software City, growing the software industry in the North East of England
• Saul Cozens, Technical Director, Technophobia Ltd, a web application development company based in Sheffield
• Jeremiah Alexander, Ideas Architect/Director of Ideonic, an ideas-driven serious games studio based in Newcastle
• Mahmoud Elsaid, Managing Director of LamasaTech, which develops multi-touch technologies such as interactive walls

11.45 – 12.15:  Generating and filtering ideas for afternoon workshops

12.15 – 1.00:    Lunch (Provided - including vegetarian options)

1.00 – 1.30:      Reboot Britain - Carla Ross, Innovation Programmes Manager,

     National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA)

     (Questions and comments)

1.30 – 1.45:      Introduction to afternoon workshop sessions

1.45 – 3.30:      Afternoon workshops

3.30 – 4.15:      Workshop feedback

4.15 – 4.25:      Review of workshop presentations

4.25 – 4.30:      Closing Remarks