Debate Club

What’s your idea?

We all know that speaking is the fist step to taking actions that will bring about change. I want to make it easier for ordinary people to use their voices to make big changes.

I think that there has to be a non-partisan central place where people can speak to parliamentarians, social commentators, community figures and religious leaders to suggest, analyse and debate ideas that can make big impacts.

The internet has the ability to group people but I want to host real-world events as well as have a supplementary website where people can prolong the debate in social and interactive environment.

What’s the social need or challenge your idea could address?

We all know the great purpose of debate: to promote democracy and understanding by supporting active citizenship; we know people want to voice their opinions knowing they are to be acknowledged and elevated to higher levels and not wasted merely as space on website servers or pages on an internet chat-room.

We think ordinary people need to be given the chance to have their voices heard by the people to are running their countries, communities and ultimately their lives, in a way that is actually engaging, convenient and worthwhile doing.

We donʼt just want to give people a voice, but a platform where they can put their thoughts to the worldʼs most influential people. We think the world can benefit if everybody is talking about how to fix it, even if they have conflicting opinions as to how to do it.

We think it is arrogant to assume only academics have the only valuable opinions on solving the worldʼs problems.

Ordinary people have a want and a need for the ability to partake in the processes and decisions that shape our planet. We to have the opportunity to offer that.

What’s really new about your idea?

There are some debating sites and forums already out there. But what do they actually provide? What most seems to offer is an unimaginative single-faceted solution: people logging on to come together and argue about stuff amongst themselves. What weʼve found is that people arenʼt inspired by arguing amongst themselves for no reason.

What makes us different is that we see the need to add importance, community and purpose to the argument. We aim to give our users a voice by not only providing a network and platform for constructive discussion, but also a launch pad to transform arguments into forms of real, physical social action.

Our key differences involve: hosting multi-faceted debates, having our online world supplement the physical gathering of people taking part and listening to our real-world debate events, involving key figures.

We also aim to have influential figures active in the online community contributing amongst us mere mortals; we think this would add authority and we have been busy gaining support of different religious, community, union and political leaders who have expressed their
interest in taking part and sharing their views with us.

And also, we realise people donʼt just want to talk about stuff. They want to get more involved in making stuff happen. We aim to use our network and the discussions featured on it as the launch pad of organized, collaborative efforts of social action.

Once a solution to a problem, however big or small is reached through discussion, we will act as the agent that mobilizes that argument into real action.  We think it is arrogant to assume only the people in powerful positions have the best ideas to solving problems, we aim to level the field a little.

What inspired you to come up with your idea in the first place?

I was reading a left-leaning quality newspaper when I read really good idea about recycling from a reader. I wanted to find out what other people thought of it, I thought there has to be a better way to find out what people think than simply messaging my friends.

And if it does turn out to be a good idea, then what happens then? I wondered how can people show that they support the idea and how can it progress.

From 1-5, what stage of development would you say your idea was in?

Iʼd say stage 1.5, I have a idea and a vision mapped out. We have been busy gaining support from different political, community and religious figures in London, where we are based, who have agreed to contribute their time and efforts and importantly their thoughts to our cause; I am also in the process of gaining more and more contributors that our users will find useful to have featured, from further afield.

What can we do for you?

A geek is the most important to actually have a real product developed. Followed by a mentor, then a funder.

If Social Innovation Camp is able to help push your idea forward, do you have the time or desire to take ownership of it?

Yes.

This idea was submitted by Troy Kennedy.

Troy works with a nascent creative communications team in client services, called create (or) die which started earlier this year. He works with a team of creatives, accomplished social entrepreneurs and individuals in the third-sector.