Building a Borough Brain

The project is co-developed by Netstorms Limited (a creative and community technology consultancy led by Gavin Sealey) and Newham Mosaic (a community collaboration facilitated by Gavin Sealey and Lia Rees) to create a model for community intelligence – figuratively, a “Borough Brain” that connects individuals, community organisations, and institutional organisations through both dialogical networking and digital technologies.

In democracies that work for the common good, governance is responsive to community dialogue that is informed, inclusive, and intelligent. It is precisely this dialogue that NAIC – Building a Borough Brain seeks to nurture, in collaboration with UEL and other community partners.

As AI and algorithmic systems influence everyday life – from local governance to social media – individuals and communities are facing new forms of information overwhelm, dependency, and exclusion.

NAIC responds to this by developing digital, dialogical, and ethical literacy. Rather than focusing on technology in isolation, it creates the conditions for community learning and dialogue – exploring how AI might become a tool for autonomy, collaboration, and civic consciousness rather than control.

NAIC is not a ‘once and done’ project. It is inclusive, ongoing, and documented so that others can learn from it and build on it. The initiative is rooted in the philosophy of STEAM DREAMS — Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics guided by Dialogue, Reflection, Ethics, Awareness, Meditation, and Storytelling.

NAIC unfolds through five learning seasons in which community participants co-create understanding, tools, and stories that build towards a Borough Brain – a coherent, networked intelligence across Newham. The Borough Brain is not an artificial intelligence doing our thinking for us. It is communities thinking and acting intelligently together.

By fostering dialogue between individuals, civic groups, and institutions of governance and commerce, we create a shared ecosystem of learning, creativity, and civic participation. What we learn will be recorded and shared to strengthen future community structures in Newham.

Part of the purpose of the Borough Brain is to dissolve the old divide between the moral and the material. Just as yin contains the seed of yang and yang the seed of yin, we seek to embed moral and cultural intelligence within governance and commerce, while embedding structural and material capacity within civic society.

When empathy and ethics inform policy and business – and when civic groups are equipped with real resources and agency – the borough can think, feel, and act as a balanced whole.

The NAIC workshop series is aimed primarily at community organisers and ‘actionists’ who want to understand and use AI effectively and ethically. All seasons and sessions are approached through collaborative and co-learning methodologies, with all participants seen as co-creators of the ‘Borough Brain’.

• Season 1 – AI and the Community Actionist
• Season 2 – Robots, Resistance and Renaissance
• Season 3 – Algorithms, Awareness and Autonomy
• Season 4 – Mindfulness in the Machine
• Season 5 – A Brain – A Heart – The Nerve – A Home

The five sessions of the first Season will be delivered fortnightly to allow for reflection and review between sessions. They will be held at:

Venue: UEL’s Royal Docks Centre for Sustainability
University Way, London E16 2RD
Time: 6.00 pm to 8.00 pm

Session Outline

• Cool Tools Part 1 (11 November)
  Introduction to each other, to the workshop rationale and to AI tools. Becoming familiar with the tools – discussion of tools we already use and an overview of their potentials. Creating a learning community.
• Cool Tools Part 2 (25 November)
  Generative AI – text, images, video, music. How AI can empower, enchant and endanger us.
• Threats (9 December)
  For Good or for Greed – the personal, societal and environmental dangers.
• Promises (6 January)
  Ways in which we can use AI and other digital tools to reclaim power as individuals and communities.
• Resistance and Resonance (20 January)
  Emerging technologies as tools of resistance and resonance.
• Makers Mosaic and STEAM-DREAMS (Ongoing)
  Beyond the workshops the story continues in what we are now able to do with our enhanced capabilities, with our sense of autonomy and with the connections we have made and are continuing to maintain and extend.

Season 1 sets the stage for us to begin negotiating AI not just as individuals, but as a community conscious of itself.

If you’re interested in taking part in the workshop series, or just participating in the discussions about the use of AI in and for community, please share your thoughts in the comments box on this page.

Session 2 continues with an invitation to help create the community while learning more about AI Large Language Models and other AI applications. If you are interested in attending, please use the link below to register for the next workshop:

Register for the next NAIC workshop