Brighton Digital Festival May 16, 2007

First planning meeting to discuss the Brighton Digital Festival.

Invite is:
Hello all

It’s time to start working on this year’s digital festival and web awards and we’re kicking things off with a meeting at 7.30pm at the Earth and Stars on Wednesday 16 May 2007.

As in the past few years SCIP and Wired Sussex are working together on the Festival – covering the usuals such as DScape and the Web Awards, plus any new ideas we can develop that fit under the Digital Festival umbrella. This covers any ideas that will showcase the best of what Brighton is doing, as well as supporting or helping to run events and activities that educate and inform local people about all things digital.

Brighton & Hove Web Awards is now in its seventh year and we have a dozen categories, some voted on by the general public, some with specialist judges providing their view of what is ‘best’.

This year we’re keen to build on the success of the Brighton FARM award, which was started last year. This was selected by an existing network of specialist freelancers in the City, which not only provided additional credibility to the Awards but created an interesting point of debate within the group itself.

We could look again at any of the categories to see whether the selection process can be enhanced – how about the SCIP list choosing the best Community site? Or a new Award for the Brighton New Media email list? Or a site selected by the readers of the Argus Forums?

Given that there is so much going on at any one time – meetings, networks, events, new websites - we’re not looking to reinvent the wheel, just to provide a connection between things and enhance the profile of the city. We also want to continue to tap into local expertise and creativity – such as futurlab’s work on text voting for the Web Awards.

We’re meeting upstairs at the Earth and Stars on Weds 8.00pm and welcome anyone with ideas or activities that you think would fit into the Digital Festival.

Let me know if you’re interested, and/or what ideas you think could work, or bring your ideas along and we can talk about how best to support them.

Thanks

Mark Walker, SCIP

Tara Solesbury. Wired Sussex

Official Website: http://www.brightondigitalfestival.co.uk