Bloomington to host "camp" for discussion of recent election

IU informatics doctoral student Kevin Makice is interested in creating diverse conversations about politics, and he has organized Bloomington's first "RootsCamp" as a way to encourage those discussions.\n"RootsCamp" follows an open conference format in which anyone can attend and suggest a topic for discussion. Makice plans to organize another group of discussion sessions next semester under a different name.\n"RootsCamp" will consist of five sessions over two days beginning 9 a.m. Friday in the Monroe County Public Library. \n"I can tell you where and when it will be, but I cannot tell you what will be talked about," Makice said. "That will be determined by the people that show up."\nPeople often concentrate on the voting aspect of politics but forget what comes after elections, Makice said.\n"There are things we can do now to make sure we're informed," Makice said.\nSome of the topics Makice is personally interested in are the ways voters discover information about candidates and how people get involved and become active in local politics. He also wants politics to be framed in a different way.\n"Politics have often been about persuasion," Makice said. "I want it to be more about understanding why you believe what you believe."\nMakice said he believes "RootsCamp" is a good way for those that were involved in the recent election to refocus some of their energy now that the elections are over.\nThe two final sessions will be held Saturday at Ivy Tech Community College. One of the civic engagement goals of Ivy Tech is to try to facilitate community organizations' needs for space.\n"We hope the community will benefit from being able to host these sessions at Ivy Tech," said Penni Sims, director of marketing and communication for the college.\nOpen conference formats like this began in 2003 with Tim O'Reilly, who has written several books about programming languages. O'Reilly's discussions used the tech word "FooCamp," which was also an acronym for Friends of O'Reilly. Other people have organized discussions with the same format under different names such as "BarCamp." Makice went to an open conference with the same format in Denmark about a month ago and kept an eye out for one in his area. When a progressive group released a wiki (a publicly edited Web site used for educational projects) for a "RootsCamp" in Bloomington, Makice jumped at the chance to organize it. \nThe RootsCamp wiki can be found at http://rootscamp.pbwiki.com/RootsCampBloomingtonIN.