About Us
Traveling Geeks is a consortium of entrepreneurs, thought leaders, authors, journalists, bloggers, technology innovators and influencers who travel to countries to share and learn from peers, governments, corporations, and the general public to educate, share, evaluate, and promote new, innovative technologies. The initiative was founded by Renee Blodgett and Jeff Saperstein in 2008.
Trips are funded by sponsorships from corporations, organizations and governments. The first tour was sponsored by the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a trip that successfully marked the proof of concept that could expand to other countries around the world.
Read MoreBackstage Pass- Jeff Saperstein
Jeff Saperstein is a marketing expert, writer, educator, and consultant to governments, companies and NGOs. Building on his contacts with people around the world, he connects experts, investors and students alike with new ideas and resources. In 2002 he wrote Creating Regional Wealth in the Innovation Economy, which focuses on a regional basis, on how innovative practices can lead to the formation of regional wealth. Jeff co-founded Traveling Geeks and will be leading the charge in London as well as a featured speaker at Reboot Britain.
Thank You Britain!
Swinging with Grandson Harry Saperstein, who resides in Kensington
“Never have the Traveling Geeks owed so much to such a dedicated few.”
Badly paraphrasing Churchill, I am stirred by and grateful to the phenomenal people and organizational support who have collaborated, hosted, and worked with us these many months to bring the Traveling Geeks to Britain.
Penny Harwood and Richard Stanaro from Think London initially worked with JD Lasica and me to conceive the trip.
Roland Harwood and Rohan Gunatillake of NESTA, the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, have been our gracious hosts, sponsors, and collaborators for site visits.
Karyn Barnes of EEI, East of England International, has worked very hard to schedule the Cambridge leg of our journey.
Jess Tyrell and Steve Moore have been our gracious organizers for ReBoot Britain Conference on July 6
Barbara Grull-Cacao from Think London who planned the Guardian Media Podcast and coordination with other media.
Ted Shelton of the Conversation Group spearheaded our Tweet Up scheduled for Sunday July 5 at JuJu’s
Clare Laurie of E Consultancy worked with us to develop the round table discussions for July 9.
London/Cambridge is a natural habitat for the Geeks. We share culture, curiosity, and inclination to see what is new, innovative, and beneficial for the common good. Not to be downplayed, we all know how to have a good time with lots of laughs. The Geeks will be blogging, video streaming, presenting, and conversing formally and informally with hundreds of like minded British kindred spirits through a week of intensive morning, afternoon, and evening events.
We are eager to begin.
Up Next: London
God forbid I sit still for more than two weeks. I've still got my Africa jet lag, but I'm already planning my time in London July 4-16.
The first week I'm traveling with a group of videographers, bloggers and authors called "The Traveling Geeks." I went on the first Traveling Geeks trip last year, which was also my first trip to Israel. Most people know I usually like to travel alone, but every once in a while experiencing another culture's tech scene with people from slightly different media disciplines can be eye-opening. Plus, they needed someone in charge of pub crawling. (Ahem, London readers, leave your suggestions in the comments…) I'll also get to present an award and do my best Michael Arrington impression at the UK TechCrunchies, or as they're actually dubbed the "Europas." I'll be blogging here and on TechCrunch, as I try not to step on Mike Butcher's capable TechCrunch Europe toes.
If you want to hang with us, get your ticket to the UK Crunchies or come to our Tweet-up. Tweet-up tickets are half-price until Friday, if you say you read about it on SarahLacy.com. (Just kidding, they're half-off for everyone until Friday.) Our full agenda is here in case you want to just STALK us the whole time.
Our statement of ethics is going up on the site soon, and I wanted to bring it up since I've been pretty harsh on Pay-Per-Post. No one on this trip is recieving any payment in exchange for coverage. We do have sponsors paying our travel costs, so we could get a diverse group of attendees without worrying about income or travel budgets. We disclose those sponsors here. Our only obligations are to go to the events we've committed to and write about whatever we find interesting.
I love London and spent a good deal of time there last year, so I padded five extra days onto the trip so I can reconnect with friends and meet new ones. I've always got a list of startups to meet, but this trip, I'm particularly interested in ferreting out some London investors who are doing deals in China, India, Africa and South America. Most of the ones I know do more Western-centric early stage tech venture capital. Would be great to mix some European investing perspective into the book, so please let me know any suggestions.
Also, in case you were about to comment about the un-American-ness of my leaving on INDEPENDENCE DAY to go see the very people we declared independence from in the first place, Mr. Lacy has already beat you to it.
A little Q&A re Traveling Geeks tour to UK and my thing
Well, they asked questions regarding all my service stuff and perspective, so maybe worth mentioning a little from the Econsultancy Q&A:
You founded craigslist in 1995 and took it to the web in
1996. That's almost a full decade before 'Web 2.0' really went
mainstream in a big way. What has it been like to watch Web 2.0 emerge
and grow into a mainstream, global phenomenon?
In the sense that Web 2.0 is about collaboration, it feels really good, maintaining and increasing my confidence in humanity.
It may be hard for many people to believe but you still do
customer service for craigslist. Obviously you could have someone else
do this so I'll ask the question: why do you do it?
It feels right, in terms of my commitment to our community and to public service.
It also helps me stay in touch with what's real, which is the same reason a President needs to keep his Blackberry.
You're passionate about open government and have written quite a bit about it. What is open government and why is it important?
Very
long story, but it's about genuine grassroots democracy complementing
representative democracy. People talk, figure out what matters, then
government listens and acts.
It also involves the government telling us what it's doing, so that it can be held accountable.
Backstage Pass- Craig Newmark
Craig Newmark, founder of Craig’s list is one of the dozen Traveling Geeks on their way to London and Cambridge to find out what’s happening in social media and technology during July 2009. Craig is particularly interested in how online services are changing the way government (in the broadest sense of the word) works. See what Craig is looking forward to doing in London!
“Traveling Geeks” to visit London, Cambridge
Hey, last year a bunch of talented bloggers, and also me, visited Israel as part of the first Traveling Geeks tour.
This year, we visit London and Cambridge.
Me, I'm hoping to get a better sense of British culture and history. I have a real interest in the way modern representative democracy was kind of invented there in 1688.
Also, hoping to talk with some UK leaders about what they're doing regarding Government 2.0, or eGovernment, or networked grassroots democracy, whatever you like to call it.
More to come…
Smartmobbing the Traveling Geeks
I learned from Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle that “unexpected travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.” This explains why I knew I could not turn down the opportunity to spend an intensive week in London and Cambridge with the Traveling Geeks. I already knew Renee Blodgett, JD Lasica, Craig Newmark, and Sky Schuyler, but I won’t meet Meghan Asha, Sarah Austin, Susan Bratton, Tom Foremski, Jeff Saperstein, Robert Scoble until July 5 in London, at which point we’re scheduled to swarm over London, meeting various geeks, enterprises, institutions. Here are the geek bios. How could I not want to ride along with a crew like that? I’m not much of an industry observer, more of the 30,000 foot level observer, but I do follow the fellow geeks’ reports. I like that the geeks represent a range of media and beats. I like we’re not just old guys. The agenda sounds juicy and tiring. We’re supposed to be equipped with the latest from Nokia, so we’ll all be streaming video at one time or another – or simultaneously. I’m supposed to speak at two events while I’m there: Reboot Britain and Civil Service Live. Stay tuned.
Traveling Geeks Agenda – London and Cambridge July 5-11th #TravelingGeeks
If you are going to be in London or Cambridge from July 5-11th, here’s our Traveling Geeks agenda.
Perhaps you can join us for the TweetUp, the Guardian Round Table, Reboot Britian, the Europa awards from TechCrunch or the Round Table Discussion on Social Media in Cambridge.
https://tg.planetlink.com/agenda
Let me know if you can attend any of these fun events. I’d love to see you there.
Backstage Pass- JD Lasica
JD Lasica must have superpowers to do, and see, and interview all of the people that he does in any given month! Interested in all aspects of online social media, his new site socialbrite.org is tag-lined Social Tools for Social Change. If the word tools brings up an image of shovels or software for you, forget it! This site really has quite a range. It’s way more than just profiling online tools and sites.
SocialBrite also focuses on people to organizations, showing you how to apply those online tools to support the social activities that’ll help you build your organization for social good. JD has assembled a team of a half dozen experts who will help grow this site. Hey geeks, add SocialBrite to your RSS feed reader now!
Also see:
[1] Socialbrite.org
[2] Netsquared.org
[3] JD Lasica also on socialmedia.biz
Tweet up for “Traveling Geeks” in London
Last year, I was part of a group of Traveling Geeks visiting Israel, and this year, the UK.
The Geeks will be attending a TweetUp on Sunday, July 5th at London’s JuJu on King’s Road. Half priced tickets end on June 26th, so if you’re in London or know someone who is, please let them know. You can register early here. Sponsors include The Conversation Group and NESTA.org.
(Words mostly stolen from Renee Blodgett)
