Civic Geek Catalog

Activities For The Civic Geek: Teaching And Workshops

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Chances are any geek has a pretty valuable skillset others would like to learn from or use – so why not get educational and teach people.

If you’re a geek you’re enthused about something, and quite likely you do something with it.  From fanfic to coding games, from cosplaying to running cons, from historical enthusiasms to your extensive film library you have developed quite a set of skills.

Of course you may also be good at stuff that may not seem particularly geeky that’s still valuable.  Your writing skills that forge both fanfic and video game reviews may also be useful for your technical writing career.  You might be well organized which is why you run your club and game clan.  Maybe you just have skills you share in a geeky setting (such as the way I talk job skills in geekdom).

You and your crew are smart and skilled in things both geeky and not. Start sharing it.

  • Teach geeky skills to people who don’t have them – how many folks would like to be a bit better at computers, use your cosplay knowledge to sew better, or enjoy learning about Japanese cooking (that you learned due to your love of anime).
  • Teach geeky skills to your fellow geeks.  I mean, we all have to start somewhere.
  • Teach skills that your fellow geeks need.  Sure there’s many budding authors and artists, but your work in PR could be what they need to know how to sell themselves.

You also have plenty of venues to do this in:

  • You could take your skills to any community center, school, or what have you.  This is great for all those geek skills others may need.
  • You can hold events at conventions or other geek events.  They’re always looking for panels and features.
  • You can do workshops and get people hands-on.  After all hands-on is one of the best ways to learn.

Best of all when you do these things, alone or as part of a team, you learn how to teach and instruct.  As you do more of it, you get better at it.  This can open up new options in lives and careers, just be useful overall – or be something you eventually do panels and training on for others . . .

  • Steve

 

 

 

Activities For the Civic Geek: Fix-It-Ups

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Rally your geeky friends and cohorts to help others out by applying your technical, creative, and constructive skills for repair.

It’s easy to take for granted how we can buy stuff to replace broken stuff – though it’s a bit wasteful to just throw things away (and some like electronics are a bit hard to recycle).

It’s also easy to take for granted the skills that let us repair things so we don’t have to throw stuff out.  I imagine you’ve got a few friends or even a whole club very good at making and fixing things, from cosplay to computers.

So, hold a Fix-It-Up Event.

Maybe at a convention or a hackerspace or a church or what have you, go and hold an event where you repair things for people.  You don’t just help them save and reuse things, you might teach people valuable skills:

  • Cosplayer?  Do clothes repair for people or charities.
  • Technical?  Computer repair and reuse or repurposing might be your bag.  If nothing else dead systems can yield parts for others.
  • Handy?  Repair appliances, furniture, and more.
  • Gamer?  Help people repair or clean their treasured old systems.

There’s also many ways you can combine this.  A clothing repair shop can reuse cosplay scraps.  Handy geeks who help out with basic repair can also use their skills to do convention setup.  Combine electronic repair with good recycling practices and education.

Plus, when you team up, you can combine tools, though you’ll probably get very territorial about who owns what.

So go ahead and try and do some fix-ups.

Activities For the Civic Geek: Diversity In Geekdom

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Geekdom is about enthusiasm, intelligent, and imagination.  Those things are better when we have a broad community that supports different people – and it’s the right thing to do.

Geekdom, that grand celebration of enthusiasm and brains and inspiration, is a wonderful place.  However there are times – let us be honest – it has been to narrowly defined.  It’s been defined by race, gender, even sexual preference and economic strata.  The image of the white, nerdy, straight guy still haunt us – even those of us who are white nerdy straight guys.  People in geek history get forgotten because they didn’t fit the mold – or shut out because they don’t.

So it’s up to we geeks to make sure this is a place for everyone.  Otherwise we really can’t call ourselves geeks, can we?

Here’s a few things you can try:

  • There’s many good causes.  Again, simply donate or raise money for them.
  • Donate equipment.  A lot of good geeky causes involve IT skills and training, so maybe you – or your employer or company – can make a donation.
  • Go get involved.  A lot of organizations fighting the good fight for equality and diversity need people to teach, speak, and more.  You may just learn something when you get hands-on.
  • Visibility.  A lot of people don’t know that the issues of bias that can occur in geekdom, so make them visible in your writing, your convention rules, convention events, and more.
  • Invite.  A lot of the organizations listed below (and many others not listed) would be delighted to speak at your business, convention, club, campus, and more.
  • Team Up.  Many causes for geeky diversity and underserved communities involve training and projects, such as teaching coding or website development.  Why not have your club, con, or even business employ people from one of these groups?
  • Think Geek broadly.  Challenge and change yourself.

 

Geekery really isn’t geekery without diversity.  We ignore ideas.  We forget history.  We forget people.  Making an effort for a broader, more historic, more inclusive geekdom is really something for all of us.

See if any of these organizations and groups can help you do more

Geeks Of Color

  • Black Girls CODE – Introduces girls from underrepresented communities to coding. Focuses on community outreach, education, and technology awareness
  • Code 2040 – A nonprofit assisting communities of color by creating paths for education, professional, and entrepreneurial success in technology.
  • Con Or Bust – Focuses on helping geeks of colors and creators of color attend conventions.
  • The Hidden Genius Problem – An Oakland-based nonprofit that encourages technological skills and entrepreneurship for young men of color.

Female Geeks

Computing

  • Anita Borg Institute – A historic institute to assist women in technical careers, fostering innovation by ensuring a broad range of people in technology. Provides a variety of services and ways to get involved.
  • Girl Develop IT – A nonprofit that provides accessible programs for women who want to learn coding.
  • Girls Learning Code – A Canadian non-profit that focuses on helping young women learn technical skills in a supportive atmosphere.
  • Girls Teaching Girls To Code – A Bay Area program where women in CS teach Bay Area high school girls to code.
  • Grace Hopper Celebration – Produced by the Anita Borg institute, this is a celebration of women in computing.
  • Ladies Learning Code – A Canadian non-profit that focuses on helping people learn beginner technical skills in a comfortable, social way.
  • Made With Code – Promotes women in coding with projects, events, and mentoring. Has several alliances and supporters.
  • Mothercoders – An organization focused on helping mothers get tech-savvy and up-to-date for this economy
  • National Center For Women And Information Technology – Focuses on correcting gender imbalance in technology, and bringing the balance of diversity to the industry.
  • Rails Girls – A worldwide group that works to empower women with technology.
  • The Ada Initiative – An organization that supports women in technology, with a heavy emphasis on codes of conduct, training, and an embrace of open source.

STEM

  • Geek Girl Dinners – Promotes geek girl friendly events, resources, and connection.
  • She’s Geeky – An SF Bay organization that provides events and and conferences around the USA for women in STEM>
  • Tech Girls Canada – Provides national leadership for the various industry groups in canada encouraging women in tech careers.
  • Women Rock Science – A blog about women in science, from resources to history to recent discoveries.

Video Games

  • Girls Make Games – A series of international summer camps encouraging girls to explore the world of video games.

Writing

  • Girls Write Now – Supports future female writers with mentoring, advice, and more.

Equality

Fandom

Fans-Firefly

Media

  • The Box Scene – A nonprofit organization focused on representation of people in media

STEM

  • Platform – A nonprofit working to increase the participation of under-representted people in the “innovation economy.” Has an annual conference and works with YesWeCode.
  • Tech Access – Nonprofit focusing on providing students of color access to STEM careers via setting expectations, providing role models, and access.

Writing

  • We Need Diverse Books – Focus on promoting diverse narratives in children’s literature. Reaches out to individuals and groups in children’s publishing, and is always looking for people to help out.