A talk by Peter Anderson from Co-Sy introduced by Joshua Malkin.

Community wealth building is not simply about municipal procurement, it is about liberating the hidden socio-economic potential of our communities.

Just as a person’s health depends on factors that are invisible, so too does the health of our communities. Every crisis that communities face - climate, health, food, the economy - lands somewhere local: a flooded street, a stretched surgery, a heatwave in a school. The communities that come through these challenges best will be the ones that can see clearly and act together.

Yet many things a community needs to be pro-active are invisible: live data about its own air, water and wellbeing; neighbours who share the same concerns but have never met; empty halls and unspent funds; public money decided out of sight. Meanwhile, the digital tools we'd naturally reach for are increasingly owned by the world's richest men, on their terms.

This talk makes the case for a different path - open civic infrastructure combining physical meeting spaces, hyper-local publications and a shared digital platform, co-owned by the communities that use it - and shows how any neighbourhood can start this month with three to ten people. Hundreds of communities that can see each other become a movement, capable of waves of coordinated action.

More information:
https://co-sy.org . https://about.co-sy.org . peter@co-sy.org . 07971 219 848

Biodata:
Peter Anderson is the founder of Co-Sy (Cooperating System) - https://co-sy.org, a civic infrastructure platform helping communities see the true state of their place, find each other, decide together and act together.
He has spent more than a decade building participatory democracy and community engagement tools, with earlier platforms used by councils and UNICEF and recognised by No.10 and NESTA. He is based in Swansea, where Co-Sy is building open, community-owned alternatives to the platforms being built to own us.

Joshua Malkin was one of the originators of a version of Community Wealth Building that he developed with the Commons Equity Society. He has a life-time track record of initiating and collaborating on socially innovative projects. Originally from Leeds he co-founded Interplay Community Arts in Armley, was co-convenor at the Civil Society Forum in London, was co-initiator of the Leeds Festival of Kindness Compassion & Wellbeing and is now a non executive director of Co-Sy.