Too Many Sessions? Come Unconference! Breaking Down Structure for Climate Action
Join us for a unique session that addresses one of the biggest challenges in Disaster Risk Management—the compartmentalization of experts into sectors, disciplines, hazards, and countries. Our goal is to foster effective collaboration among multi-disciplinary teams, harnessing expertise from scientific modelling to risk communication through art, from geospatial analysis to crowd-sourced participatory mapping, and from developing disaster early warning systems to creating serious games. We will be exploring the innovative “un-conference” format, a unique approach designed to encourage collaboration and co-creation of problem-solving strategies. The session will draw on the experiences of the Understanding Risk (UR) Field Labs, events that have focused on tackling specific issues through radically open and co-creative processes. For instance, the 2019 Field Lab in Chiang Mai, Thailand, tackled Urban Flooding with a month-long “un-conference” that put participants in charge of many decisions. Similarly, in May 2024, a Field Lab in Kathmandu, Nepal will focus on Climate Data with over 30 participants from a diverse range of backgrounds. This focus day session at UR24 aims to expose participants to the potential of the “un-conference” format, sparking creative thinking, fostering network creation, and promoting real-world focused problem-solving. Attend our session to experience this innovative approach, spread the idea, and engage in dialogue to inform improvements for future Field Labs. The session will begin with a short panel on the concept of the un-conference, how this concept resulted in innovative outputs, and how we can design future Field Labs. We’ll then break out into our own mini un-conference here at UR. Finally, we’ll close with a short gallery walk and happy hour to explore the art from the 2019 and 2024 Field Labs.
Organized by: Understanding Risk Field Lab Organizers