WG 4: Conversations Across Contexts: A Warm Data Lab

Coordinator:
Arnaldo Pellini (Capability Oy and ODI Global)

Description:

A Warm Data Lab is not a panel or a presentation. It is an invitation to take part in a conversation, and to meet as people rather than as professional roles.

Development research often divides complex problems into neat categories and designs solutions inside them. This Lab offers a different way in, through stories from our own lives. In small groups, each anchored in a different context such as family, ecology, economy or education, we explore a question drawn from everyday life. Nobody in the room is its expert. The conference themes of people, nature, technology and geopolitics tend to arrive anyway, carried inside the stories we tell, often revealing connections and patterns that conventional discussions overlook.

There is nothing to prepare and nothing to solve. No prior knowledge of Warm Data or systems thinking is needed. The Lab produces no recommendations; its value lies in the conversations themselves and the new perspectives they open. A shared reflection closes the session, a moment to reflect together on complexity through what we have learned from one another.

Warm Data Labs were developed by Nora Bateson, founder of the International Bateson Institute. More: https://www.warmdata.life

Type of call:
Call for Participation. No abstracts or papers are invited. Participants join the Lab itself.

Participation mode:
In person only (Helsinki). The Lab depends on people moving between conversations in one room, so it cannot run in hybrid form.

Reservation and funding note:

  • No abstracts are required. Places up to 25 participants. To sign up, interested participants can email arnaldo.pellini@capability.fi with the subject “Warm Data Lab DevDays2027” by 23 February 2027. Any remaining places will be open on the day.
  • The Working Group has no external funds for travel or accommodation. Participants are expected to secure their own funding.

Contact:
Arnaldo Pellini, PhD, Capability Oy and ODI Global, arnaldo.pellini@capability.fi
A second host will co-host the session.