Could Prototyping Be the New Policy?

But the mini-Mubaraks of policy and institution are challenged by hacker culture: through the affordances of technology, you can prototype a working project in less time than it takes to fill in a funding application. Prototyping is the new policy.

We started Social Innovation Camp weekends to kick off social projects using the 'agile approach' of digital startups. The approach combines rapid prototyping with asset-based community development, using the ability of the internet to aggregate and mashup solutions to social issues. People can start to tackle their problems directly, without waiting for permission from incumbent institutions...

The hackday approach to protoyping social solutions is emerging all over the shop. Sometimes they're bottom up, like the upcoming Digital Health Hack, or top down, like the Government Digital Service's homeless hackday, or coming sideways out of a traditional NGO, like the first RNIB Hackathon...

Projects arising from such hackdays follow the path of the lean startup. They aim to get a minimum viable something-or-other out into the world, to test it against real needs. Like the web they're in permanent beta – never finished, always adapting. Practitioners are, like AppsforGood, following the pedagogy of Paulo Freire by critically engaging with transforming their reality.