Have you attended an Unconference? Well, I did.......
Trawling through the Internet one lazy Saturday afternoon, I stumbled upon an invitation to attend an Unconference being organised by ChennaiCityConnect (CCC). Curious and jobless as I was, I registered as a participant. And, it turned out to be a fun experience.......
CCC (www.chennaicityconnect.com) is a non governmental agency working to bring together various stakeholders involved in dealing with the challenges of being a rapidly growing city. The organization aims to bring together, on a single platform, different bodies that are working for the improvement of the city - laudable goal!
To highlight the issues of urban transportation, all participants were asked to use public transportation to reach the Indira Nagar MRT station. I decided to trek to the venue. I left home at 2pm for the station, an umbrella in hand to protect against the blazing sun (and undesirable fellow walkers and unpalatable city sights!) towards the metro station. Through most of the 2 plus km long trek, I was surprised to note that the road was flanked by reasonably wide footpaths. But, the footpath was hardly available for the use of the pedestrian - it was unevenly laid (or rearranged) in several parts, occupied by vendors selling this and that, converted into a home by a group of gypsies, covered with rubble from nearby construction and of course, used a lavatory......But the good news was - there was a footpath through almost three quarters of the distance that I walked. Now, that I am told is good news for urban planners and transportation managers. Space has already been set aside for the poor pedestrian.......we only need to give the space back to whom it belongs.....
What waited for me at the Indira Nagar MRT station was not something that I was prepared for. I followed the neon sign board indicating the station entrance only to be led into a vacant hall, with broken windows, rusty grills, puddles of water, row of clothes being dried and a heap of construction material. The cobwebs and the streams of light added to the effect! I mustered courage to walk through the wide corridors to find the real entrance to the station. It was surprisingly cleaner and better maintained and the escalators to the train station were actually working! Now, it must be mentioned here that the Indira Nagar MRT station will bag the first place for the most ugly building in Chennai. It almost seems like the builders were called to war at short notice and left the building incomplete as they went away to attend to more pressing matters. So you will see steel rods used for its construction jutting out in every single direction and the bricks left uncemented - well, could make for some interesting city art!
After gathering at the station, we were to proceed to an office across the prestigious Rajiv Gandhi Road (we definitely suffer the leadership vacuum - not too many names to choose from!) to the actual venue of the Unconference. We made a beeline for the sky walk (yes there is one for those who care!), including one of the participants on his cycle, to reach the other side of the road. I decided then and there - if ever I had an office on the IT Highway, the MRT would NOT be my choice of transportation!!! I would need to recover from my journey before I set out to work.....
The Unconference itself was an experience. Kiruba Shankar (www.kiruba.com), the evangelist blogger and the guru of social networking was present to anchor the event. He explained the moot idea behind an Unconference - the combined wisdom of the audience is greater than that of the presenter/ speaker. So, Unconference is all about participation. As he spoke, he pulled out of his small rucksack, various equipment for use at the Unconference - a camera with a tiny tripod to capture the proceedings for publication on the net, an audio recorder (not a microphone!) for recording the discussions, again for uploading on the net - and handed them over to the volunteers from the audience for use. He asked one person to take notes too - I suppose voice recognition is still not at a stage where paper and pencil could have been avoided! There were talks on rainwater harvesting (www.raincentre.net) and CCC's recommendations for the Chennai Metro Rail Project. Cool......this was a good example for the democratization of knowledge......everyone got an opportunity to speak! I returned home (I cheated, I took an autorickshaw for the ride back home, but come on, autos are public transport too!) feeling good about what I had heard, learned and experienced....
Trawling through the Internet one lazy Saturday afternoon, I stumbled upon an invitation to attend an Unconference being organised by ChennaiCityConnect (CCC). Curious and jobless as I was, I registered as a participant. And, it turned out to be a fun experience.......
CCC (www.chennaicityconnect.com) is a non governmental agency working to bring together various stakeholders involved in dealing with the challenges of being a rapidly growing city. The organization aims to bring together, on a single platform, different bodies that are working for the improvement of the city - laudable goal!
To highlight the issues of urban transportation, all participants were asked to use public transportation to reach the Indira Nagar MRT station. I decided to trek to the venue. I left home at 2pm for the station, an umbrella in hand to protect against the blazing sun (and undesirable fellow walkers and unpalatable city sights!) towards the metro station. Through most of the 2 plus km long trek, I was surprised to note that the road was flanked by reasonably wide footpaths. But, the footpath was hardly available for the use of the pedestrian - it was unevenly laid (or rearranged) in several parts, occupied by vendors selling this and that, converted into a home by a group of gypsies, covered with rubble from nearby construction and of course, used a lavatory......But the good news was - there was a footpath through almost three quarters of the distance that I walked. Now, that I am told is good news for urban planners and transportation managers. Space has already been set aside for the poor pedestrian.......we only need to give the space back to whom it belongs.....
What waited for me at the Indira Nagar MRT station was not something that I was prepared for. I followed the neon sign board indicating the station entrance only to be led into a vacant hall, with broken windows, rusty grills, puddles of water, row of clothes being dried and a heap of construction material. The cobwebs and the streams of light added to the effect! I mustered courage to walk through the wide corridors to find the real entrance to the station. It was surprisingly cleaner and better maintained and the escalators to the train station were actually working! Now, it must be mentioned here that the Indira Nagar MRT station will bag the first place for the most ugly building in Chennai. It almost seems like the builders were called to war at short notice and left the building incomplete as they went away to attend to more pressing matters. So you will see steel rods used for its construction jutting out in every single direction and the bricks left uncemented - well, could make for some interesting city art!
After gathering at the station, we were to proceed to an office across the prestigious Rajiv Gandhi Road (we definitely suffer the leadership vacuum - not too many names to choose from!) to the actual venue of the Unconference. We made a beeline for the sky walk (yes there is one for those who care!), including one of the participants on his cycle, to reach the other side of the road. I decided then and there - if ever I had an office on the IT Highway, the MRT would NOT be my choice of transportation!!! I would need to recover from my journey before I set out to work.....
The Unconference itself was an experience. Kiruba Shankar (www.kiruba.com), the evangelist blogger and the guru of social networking was present to anchor the event. He explained the moot idea behind an Unconference - the combined wisdom of the audience is greater than that of the presenter/ speaker. So, Unconference is all about participation. As he spoke, he pulled out of his small rucksack, various equipment for use at the Unconference - a camera with a tiny tripod to capture the proceedings for publication on the net, an audio recorder (not a microphone!) for recording the discussions, again for uploading on the net - and handed them over to the volunteers from the audience for use. He asked one person to take notes too - I suppose voice recognition is still not at a stage where paper and pencil could have been avoided! There were talks on rainwater harvesting (www.raincentre.net) and CCC's recommendations for the Chennai Metro Rail Project. Cool......this was a good example for the democratization of knowledge......everyone got an opportunity to speak! I returned home (I cheated, I took an autorickshaw for the ride back home, but come on, autos are public transport too!) feeling good about what I had heard, learned and experienced....
