Neurodiversity unconference – The Core of Creativity in NZ

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If you are located in New Zealand, it would be great to see you at the following event in Auckland on 3 December 2016. If you are autistic, please PM me, and you can register without buying a ticket.

https://ciic.s23m.com/2016/10/20/neurod ... mber-2016/

Typical humans are highly programmable. The capacity for cultural transmission of beliefs and behaviours is perhaps the most significant distinction between humans and other animals. Humans are so good at subconscious imitation and copying from each other that refraining from imitation requires conscious effort, and that books such as “Immunity to change – How to overcome and unlock the potential in yourself and your organisation” have to be written to help people to become aware of some of the negative effects of the human copying instinct.

No serious discussion on the topic of innovation, learning, and collaboration can afford to ignore the relevance of neurodiversity, and in particular the role of the autistic spectrum.

People on the autistic spectrum learn and play differently. Autists communicate and enjoy themselves by sharing information and knowledge, and not by negotiating social status. Over the last two decades it has become increasingly clear that autistic cognitive lenses are apparently an essential element in all human societies, especially in the context of innovation and in terms of reducing spurious complexity in human culture.

It is time to liberate autism from the pathology paradigm. This can only be achieved if autists take ownership of the definition of autism and share their experience of human cultures through an autistic lens from a first hand perspective.

Jorn Bettin, an advocate of autistic collaboration, will present a keynote talk at the CIIC unconference on 3 December 2016 on the relationship between neurodiversity and creativity, the impact of widespread discrimination against people with autistic traits in the workplace, and on the need for radical autistic activism.

Well I live in NZ and this certainly seems interesting.

Wow that sounds really exciting. I will probably be in Queensland that week, unfortunately, however if those plans fall through, then I would definitely like to attend. Great initiative.

Just asking but have any of you been to an autism conference before. If so what was it like?

I haven't been to a dedicated autism conference before, and I would only be interested in attending events that are not entangled with the pathology paradigm.

The nature of my work means that I have participated in many workshops and longer term collaborations that involved two or more autists.

Shahunshah and B19, it would be great to meet one or possibly both of you at CIIC in Auckland on 3 December!

If you know others who may be interested in attending, please let them know about the event. It would be neat for CIIC to develop into a regular event that does not exclude NTs, but where neurodiverse minds constitute the majority. Such a constellation could be a very good teaching tool and a laboratory for reframing autism.

jbw, I suggest you go to StrangerInGodzone's blog, she is part of an Asperger's Syndrome women peer support group and chances are they may be very interested in this too.

ASK: http://www.asknz.net/

Great I will likely be sending the PM in the coming days.

Sounds interesting. Unfortunatly, I live on the other side of the world. But, I hope it goes well.

Hmmm, certainly a flicker of interest!

A reminder that you can still register at https://ciic.s23m.com/registration/.

You can also join online (only for the keynote talk), from your computer, tablet or smartphone via https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/535998829.

If not already installed, joining the online meeting will install the GoToMeeting software application on your device, enabling you to follow the presentation and also to comment and ask questions via chat. Audio of online participants will be muted to prevent distacting audio feedback loops.

Since the limit for the number of online participants is 25, the meeting is secured by a password. Please PM me if you would like to participate online, and I will send you the password.

The online session will be active on Saturday 3 December from 9:15am New Zealand time. The keynote will start around that time and take around 60 minutes, plus a short Q & A at the end, where we’ll also review and discuss the questions sent in from online participants.

Looking forward to meeting some of you at CIIC, and also to anyone who is interested in joining online for the keynote on neurodiversity and creativity!

The CIIC community would love to meet you this Friday at the networking event prior to the unconference on Saturday. ... to talk about the submitted problem statements and your interests, not to engage in small talk

For anyone who is keen, you can also still register and contribute to the unconference on Saturday 2 Dec (from 9 am to 5 pm). CIIC contributors have submitted a range of very interesting and timely topics. For example:

I’m passionate about information overload management. Making information interactive would be my dream. I’ve already worked out methods to perform word sense disambiguation (WSD) using neural networks. This solves problems in information retrieval (IR) by making information more relevant in targeted searching. I am now investigating how to better present / store information to help people “wade” through it.

In the domains of health informatics and clinical decision support systems there is a lack of quality assessment of extracted knowledge for clinical decision making. There are two questions:
1. Can clinical decision support systems (CDSS) cope with rare or unusually presenting diagnoses?
2. How to make sure that the knowledge provided by CDSS is reliable?
The knowledge used in clinical decision support systems must be both up to date and relevant for the cases that are being presented to it. However, finding the latest accurate clinical knowledge to support clinical decision making is difficult, because knowledge is changing rapidly, and it might be located in many different repositories in different formats. Additionally, the range of knowledge required in a particular case may be very wide, especially when dealing with multiple co-morbidities.

New Zealand’s contribution to a sustainable world. The stakes are high in NZ. Many of our exports are associated with our clean green image. Yet our clean performance data shows we’re behind much of Europe, and falling behind. The demand for energy efficient living just isn’t there, especially in transport and housing. Rather than relying on policies, how can industries change this? How can we be on the path to a green sustainable future on an international level?

If you have never participated in an unconference, watch the 2-minute explanatory video on the CIIC web site.

Looking forward to meeting some of you on Friday evening or on Saturday!

Its settled I am coming.

Any one else from the forum coming along too?

What a fantastic idea! Good job, guys!

We had a great day

Here are links to the results of the unconference https://ciic.s23m.com/ciic-3-december-2016-auckland/
and to the keynote slides on neurodiversity and creativity https://coininco.files.wordpress.com/20 ... tivity.pdf.