The Design Research Lab is a network of people, organisations, and non-human agents engaged at the intersection of technologies, materials, and social practices. Our aim is to design socially and ecologically sustainable tools, spaces, and knowledge that support people’s participation in a digital society – based on common principles of inclusiveness and respect for the planet. This puts the basic democratic right to take part in the digital sphere into practice. We start our research from individual lifeworlds and the needs of minoritized groups, beyond consumer majorities.
We are an interdisciplinary team of designers, researchers, tech-enthusiasts and critical thinkers from Berlin University of the Arts, German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society, as well as Einsteincenter Digital Future (ECDF).
We are joined by Jo Broadwood, OBE this week as part of the Virtual Colloquium on Thursday, July 2nd at 8:00 am UK-time / 9:00 am Berlin-time online on Zoom for a presentation titled “Cultivating Radical Kindness”. During the COVID-19 pandemic two UK NGOs collected and collated stories of ‘radical kindness’ that were emerging from places and communities across the UK. In this presentation Jo Broadwood, the former CEO of the Belong Network, one of the NGOs involved, will discuss the concept of ‘radical kindness’, what it is, why it matters and why it is important in helping to tackle some of the current fractures and divisions in social relations. She will share the learning and conclusions from the Radical Kindness project including what can create the conditions for radical kindness to flourish.
Jo is a senior UK civil society leader and an experienced practitioner in conflict resolution, mediation and peace building. She was an advisor for the UK govt for 10 years working in local areas where there were challenges to social cohesion and social peace. She is currently the Managing Director of the UK youth and conflict specialist charity, Coram Leap Confronting Conflict, and is a co-investigator on an ESRC funded research project – Parallel Lives, examining what factors drive people to engage in intergroup contact ( a form of radical kindness). She has a background in theatre making, research, writing and facilitation. She was awarded an OBE in the King’s Birthday Honours in 2024 in recognition of services to Social Cohesion.
Please find below the Zoom link to join, which will be the same for all online sessions this semester:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82954605489?pwd=VP3XBDzVogeuQtLWaXbWEFpm9ObxiQ.1
Meeting-ID: 829 5460 5489
Kenncode: 079532