Technology for community liberation.
An occasional podcast documenting GFSC and friends’ attempts to build joyful inclusive communities in an increasingly hostile world.
Rooted in ideas from trans liberation, anti-racism and disability activism, we connect the dots between grassroots community resistance, big tech totalitarianism, bashing your head against local government, love/hate relationships with shiny devices, and co-producting software that actually works.
Alternatives to an Apocalypse: Talking to Friedrich Kirschner
An interview with visual artist, game-maker and puppeteer Friedrich Kirschner about possible futures and ways to see them as something other than the apocalypse. We also hear about how to read theory and why to read laws, plus the final end of both capitalism and the River Danube.
12 Aug 2026
It's Giving: Rachel Collinson, the Donor Whisperer
Kim spoke to Rachel Collinson, author of The Giving Code, about her work helping charities find the right donors, the boring admin which is necessary to effect social change, and her role in bringing down Wonga.
19 Aug 2025
How We Created A Digital Community Commons: 8 years of PlaceCal
Finding out what’s going in your area should be one of the internet’s easiest wins. An open goal for the information superhighway. After all, if search engines can’t easily outstrip the parish newsletter and the community bulletin board, then why have we been carrying computers in our pockets for a decade?
In this interview we speak with Professor Stefan White from the Manchester School of Architecture, Dr Jay Stewart from Gendered Intelligence, Rakesh Prashara from Tipping Point, Dr Kim Foale from Geeks For Social Change about PlaceCal’s past successes and the challenges ahead for making non-commercial solutions like these sustainable in the long term.
Find out more about our work and sign up to our email list at https://gfsc.community (https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqa0ZzOTFVc0hDSGs4ZmR0MWNDNnc0dTVZdmtuZ3xBQ3Jtc0ttQ3JWWXVDckRjd3Y1MU5OOVV5WHYzMFVwZ0J2Q0pxNlByeU1JX0o5dVVnXzRtdjVlbkhoNDA4Uk1iSGpFRFVaT25kaWZOTFpKeFZpaHVTeEV2TTAtNXd0M1BqdHhnTzFMX3JqNmJ4M3liMklvcmtsOA&q=https%3A%2F%2Fgfsc.community%2F&v=66J51_YwX7E)
VOD version of this available on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66J51_YwX7E)
20 Jun 2023
Everything we want to tell you about your funding scheme...
...but are afraid to tell you because we can't afford to piss you off
When facilitating community projects, one key question is ‘how do we make this sustainable?’. The answer, supposedly, is to look to funding bodies for financial assistance, by applying for funding bids. This talk explores the realities of relying on funding like this to carry out projects, where things fall through the gaps, and the impact this has on the work that we’re all ostensibly here to carry out.
This episode of the Geeks for Social Change podcast was recorded as part of an NHS Start With People event on March 30th 2023. As this was originally delivered as a talk with slides, there are audio descriptions of each slide as they come up.
Transcript of this episode: https://gfsc.studio/blog/2023/everything-we-want-to-tell-you/ (https://gfsc.studio/blog/2023/everything-we-want-to-tell-you/)
References
David Graeber's book, 'Bullshit Jobs' on Penguin Books (https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/295446/bullshit-jobs-by-graeber-david/9780141983479)
Blog post about participatory budgeting and the ladder of citizen participation (https://gfsc.studio/blog/2019/ladder-citizen-participation/)
Dean Spade's book, 'Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next)' on Verso Books (https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2722-mutual-aid )
Credits
Music: Cooking, Sharing, Happy Seasons! by Megan Arnold (https://shhhmusic.bandcamp.com/)
Audio recording: NHS Citizen (https://www.england.nhs.uk/get-involved/get-involved/how/nhs-citizen/) #StartWithPeople event
Audio production: honor ash
Transcription: Amy Ní Mhurchú
Find us elsewhere
Geeks for Social Change website (https://gfsc.studio)
Join our Discord (https://discord.gfsc.studio)
Follow us on Twitter (https://twitter.com/gfscstudio)
Follow us on Instagram (https://instagram.com/gfscstudio)
Subscribe to our RSS feed (https://gfsc.studio/index.xml)
Support us
on Ko-Fi (https://ko-fi.com/gfscstudio)
on Open Collective (https://opencollective.com/gfscstudio)
4 Oct 2022
The Rise and Fall of Facebook Events
In the early days of Facebook, the Events feature was the bedrock of a lot of community organising. It was free, all your friends were on it, and it worked well. Events you were organising showed up right in the stream of pokes, icanhazcheezburger and failblog memes, and commenting on your friends' "it's complicated" relationship updates.
Fast forward a decade and it barely works. Facebook's insistence on video content, the effective closure of their APIs for community groups, and increasingly exploitative business model means it's harder than ever to get small community group's events in front of people's eyeballs without paying Facebook a hefty sum for the privilege. As a result we are seeing a mass exodus from the platform and feel like the impact of this for community organising is not fully felt yet.
In this podcast, Kim talks to two highly experienced event organisers: David Hayward, founder of Feral Vector (https://feral-vector.com/) festival, and Rachele Evaroa from The Old Abbey Taphouse (https://www.theoldabbeytaphouse.org/) in Hulme who was recently voted Manchester's most eccentric landlady (https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/whats-on/food-drink-news/old-abbey-taphouse-hulme-review-16150891). We discuss what the future could look like and our plans for our own PlaceCal platform.
Full information and transcript for this episode: https://gfsc.studio/podcast/2 (https://gfsc.studio/podcast/2)
11 Aug 2022
How government technology limits who we can become
Mallory Moore (Trans Safety Network), Zara Manoehoetoe (youth worker and community organiser), and Kim Foale (Geeks for Social Change) discuss technologies of state and empire that control our lives. With a special focus on UK trans legal status and lengthy prison sentences given to black teenagers (https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jul/01/fury-in-manchester-as-black-teenagers-jailed-as-result-of-telegram-chat) for sending text messages in Manchester.
Full transcript and episode info available on our website (https://gfsc.studio/podcast/1): https://gfsc.studio/podcast/1
“I see a lot of the criminal justice system as a technology for further aggravating class divides” - Mallory Moore
“[The CPS] is saying what you hold in your phone, what data sits in your laptop, that is who you truly are as a person” - Zara Manoe
“One day I’m going to have to pass the exam to prove I’m a gender disaster goblin, will that be an official form?” - Kim Foale
Glossary
CPS: (UK) Crown Prosecution Service
GMP: Greater Manchester Police
"Fedposting": Publishing intent to commit a criminal act online
References
CeCe McDonald (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CeCe_McDonald#Assault_and_attacks_(June_2011)) (cw: extreme violence against a trans woman)
Kill the Bill (https://killthebill.org.uk/)
Kids of Colour (https://kidsofcolour.com/)
The Real World of Technology - Ursula Franklin (https://archive.org/details/the-real-world-of-technology/)
Trans Safety Network (https://transsafety.network/)
Credits
Music: Cooking, Sharing, Happy Seasons! by Megan Arnold (https://shhhmusic.bandcamp.com/)
Transcription: Amy Ní Mhurchú
Thanks to Amy Ní Mhurchú and Gabrielle de la Puente for their invaluable support and feedback
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Spotify
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