Sowing the Seeds: Platform Cooperativism for Asia

About this event

Join the first event seeking to explore ways in which cooperatives can join the digital economy in Asia.

We invite interested citizens, policymakers, designers, IT professionals, media and legal scholars, representatives of cooperatives, unions, and non-governmental organizations to “Sowing the Seeds: Platform Cooperativism for Asia” to be held at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), September 28-29, 2018.

Working language of the conference will be English. Register here. And if you can’t join us in person, live stream the events here!

For the first time, participants from across Asia, the Pacific Rim, and beyond will meet to discuss how the platform model, rooted in the principles of broad-based ownership and democratic governance, could come to fruition in Asian countries. Participants will analyze the on-demand economy. Platform co-ops will exchange best practices.

A collaboration between the Chinese University Hong Kong and the Platform Cooperativism Consortium at The New School in New York City, this event is focusing on the following questions:

— Global and local contexts: How can the seeds of platform cooperativism spread across Asia? What are the local needs when it comes to worker voice, democratic governance, and fair pay?

— Success stories: In Asia, how can platform co-ops succeed in sectors such as care work, food delivery, transportation, and translation?

— Cooperatives: In Greater China, India, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia, how could cooperatives of various forms meaningfully join the digital economy and empower workers, women, ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, and others?

— Finance: How to start a platform co-op? How to finance it?

— Governance: How to secure democratic decision-making among distributed workers?

— Openness and Transparency: Why fighting for cooperative data ownership and a diversified digital economy is at the heart of this work?

— Intersections: How the commoning movement and platform co-op movement may cross-fertilize?

— Policy and Sustainability: How to improve the regulatory environment to secure the long-term success of cooperative business models of Asia?

The information-packed conference will address the above questions while facilitating dialogue and collaboration across geographical, cultural, and sectorial boundaries.

Preceding this two-day event, there will also be a “Co-op Hackathon 合作松” during September 26-27, 2018. The hackathon will bring together co-op member-owners, IT programmers, graphic designers, and digital media analysts from across Greater China (mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong). The goal of this hackathon, focusing on projects in the local communities of Hong Kong and South China, is to inspire collaboration between co-ops and technical circles. Working language of this hackathon will be Mandarin Chinese.

Check out the many different cases we’ll be exploring during the two days of the conference here:

Day 1: http://platformhk.coop/2018cases-day1/

Day 2: http://platformhk.coop/2018cases-day2/

播種：亞洲的平台合作運動

香港，亞洲第一次平台合作主義聯盟大會

“Sowing the Seeds: Platform Cooperativism for Asia”, Hong Kong, PCC (Platform Coop Consortium), September 2018

PCC會議主旨

網站: https://platform.coop/2018

我們邀請所有感興趣的市民、合作社員、工會代表、IT和創意產業從業者、政策制定者、NGO和學者一起參加亞洲首屆平台合作主義大會、大會將於2018年9月28-29日在香港中文大學舉辦。

這將是亞洲地區實踐者與世界各地行動者的首次集會，以討論亞洲各國的合作社狀況，交流成功案例，商討數字平台經濟所面臨的問題。會議主題包括：

— 全球和地區語境：如何把平台合作主義的種子播撒全球，播撒到亞洲？

— 合作社：中港台、印度、日本、韓國、印尼、菲律賓和新加坡等的各式各樣的合作社的狀況如何？

— 資金：如何啓動一個平台合作社？如何獲得長期運行的資金保障？

— 新興平台：扎根當地的實踐如何靠專門的app、網站、社交媒體工具和多種渠道發生？如何建立勞工共同擁有的平台？

— 成功經驗：亞洲地區的平台合作社是如何在社區發展、交通共乘、護理、翻譯等方面取得成功？

— 賦權：亞洲平台合作社是如何賦權工人、女性、少數族裔、殘障人士和其他邊緣人群？

— 開放和透明：為何爭取合作社數據的所有權、爭取數碼經濟多樣化？

— 交集：共運動（commoning movement）和平台合作社運動如何互利互助？

— 政策和可持續性：如何改進監管環境從而使亞洲合作社商業模式有長遠發展？

— 治理：如何確保在分散式組織的勞工群體裡施行民主決策？

這次信息密集的大會將處理以上問題，促進跨地域、跨文化、跨部門的對話與合作。大會將用英文進行