Share Fair at the FAO

Mike Powell and Sarah Cummings of IKM Emergent both participated in the Share Fair at the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) which took place on 20-22 January 2009.

The Share Fair was an event with a difference. It was buzzing, informal, sometimes chaotic and always dynamic, with more than 900 visitors from a huge variety of different development organisations. IKM Emergent took place in the Share Fair in a number of different ways:

• A booth on indigenous knowledge with members of an FAO network on indigenous knowledge
• Mike Powell took part in a Panel on knowledge management strategies with Geoff Parcell, Manuel Flury and others, chaired by Peter Ballantyne
• IKM organised a Rountable ‘What does this all mean?’ on the implications of the Share Fair for the development knowledge system
• Facilitation of a session on indigenous knowledge.

The photographs feature the Indgenous knowledge booth, some participants in the IKM Rountable, and group discussions in the session on Indigenous knowledge.

Chain Reaction

Michael David and Dan Baron of IKM Working Group 1 were among a group of IKM Emergent programme members who attended the Chain Reaction event in London, UK, on 17-18 November 2008.

Chain Reaction brought together social leaders, community activists, policy makers, business leaders, and young people from around the globe to share learning and to generate new ideas for social change, locally, nationally and globally. This was a high profile event attended by over 1000 people, from 16 countries, at least 200 aged under 21, community organisations and artists from Brazil, the Philippines, Croatia, Canada, Iceland and Kenya, Social Entreprenuers, bloggers and techies with new tools to try out, business leaders (among others, CEOs from Royal Mail, BBC, IBM, CBI, BITC, Accenture) and a roll call of Ministers, including the British Prime Minister.

Michael David led a session on Story telling in social action which used stories  from young people in building social awareness and youth networks with examples from Sri Lanka, Iceland, Croatia, Brazil, Kenya and the UK.

Ralph Borland, the artist responsible for developing, together with a team at the disruptive design team at Trinity College Dublin, the IKM Emergent installation was interviewed by the social reporter, David Wilcox. See the video here.

Below you can see the part of the address by Dan Baron Cohen as President of the International Drama and Theatre Education Association (IDEA). as part of the arts and social change session.

The photostream of the whole event can be accessed here.