Building European Network for Social Innovation

Workspaces unMonastery
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Dear unMonastery and Edgeryders Teams,

…There are things worth all of us, big and small, making an effort for. One of them is loving and investing your own city each day. With our desires and vision of the future, we are the city. Technology, nature, hospitality, knowledge, sustainability, tourism and tradition: in a nutshell, personality.

Matera  is one of the 20 italian city candidate to be European Capital of Culture 2019 as my city Bergamo. We both have similar visions for the future, and we all share a passion for improving our community for a better life for citizens and collective advantage for everyone: individuals, companies, associations, institutions.

Matera with -unMonastery-,  Bergamo with -Bergamo Hub- project.

                                 Think locally, Act Globally…!!

                     The power to innovate through collaboration

I believe that both cities and project can lead inspiration and support the creation for a national and international network for Social innovation Open Spaces because a teams are not a group of people who work together,  teams are a groups of people who trust each other. Our project will be presented officially at “Casa Suardi”, the headquarters European Embassy of Culture in Bergamo, September 5 at 15:30 as Top Rated project initiative.

I was wondering if instead of having 1 winning city and 19 excluded, we could both protagonists of the change in Italy and work together for  support a lifelong  European Network for Social Innovation.

I invite you — whether in a  personal or a professional capacity, or both — to help shape the activity and the vision of the group.

We encourage all members to provide insights and  stimulate debate in this process, and  contribute to the development  of a final community statement of intents to be released and presented in the  final  European candidature dossier.

I will therefore encourage you to take all steps that you may deemed appropriate to improve and empower our learning experience.

Continue to inspire,

Fabrizio Terzi

1 Like
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how beautiful :slight_smile:

I would just like to notice, the beautiful phrase you used “because teams are not a group of people who work together,  teams are groups of people who trust each other.”

I would Love to participate of course !!! :slight_smile:

wonderful idea !!! :slight_smile:

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It’s there!

Hey Fabrizio, great idea… in fact, something like this seems to exist, though mostly at the top level. It would be great to collaborate more at a grassroot level. I (sort of) can speak for Matera2019 a bit, and I say that’s interesting. What do you have in mind, in practice?

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grassroot

yes, “grassroot level” would be quite interesting :slight_smile:

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Grassroot Yep…!!

Ciao Alberto & Dorotea.

If we intend plant trees under whose shade we intend to sit, the grassroot level is exactly the right place where we should stay… isn’t it ? :slight_smile:

Frankly speaking I think that we can not do much to convince at the “top level” for any  possible joint presentation, considering that September 20 is the deadline for applications submissions. However, I am convinced that the unMonastery and lote patterns are replicable and scalable good models to follow.

What does any group of Edgeriders need to know in order to self-organize their Open Space initiative? How can we  support Dorotea in Lisbon if she decides to take action at local level?

In practice–

What do you think about to prepare an  Open Educational Resource (OER), a step by step guide Handbook for innovetors? A collaction of Articles, Case Study, Features, Interviews and (IT) Tools in order to facilitate the transition from ideas to reality?

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Not sure

@bergamo_hub: I was hoping for something more action-oriented. Example: you Bergamo guys that got involved in the ECOC application could have a session in which to compare notes with your Matera counterparts, with a view to maybe organizing some common activity. Even online: the grassroot part of the Matera ECOC application has its own online community, that was pretty active (well, except in August of course) and is expected to become active again very soon. At the core of it there is a web team of volunteers that includes @ilariadauria and others; I am sure they would love to compare war stories with you. This would be something for track 3. We might even get lucky and find someone with comparable experiences in a different country!

But of course, mine is only a suggestion. You (and people who join you) should make this decision, in accordance to the Edgeryders mantra that “who does the work calls the shots”.

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Who does the work calls the shots…!!

Nice Mantra…!!  Ideally share the  documentation for pre-selection stages ECOC would be a nice  for any collaboration activities between our initiatives. The overview of the programme which each candidate city intends to run during the year in question it wil be public and we could easily exchanging unrestricted and organize some common activities in accordance with ilaria.

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Huh :slight_smile:

My experience is different from yours. My understanding is that applications (dossier di candidatura) are public documents; at lote they will have been submitted already. But they tend to be official documents, and therefore not always interesting. I was more referring, again, to comparing notes at the grassroot level. For example, in Matera there is a vocal minority of skeptics that maintain Matera should not run for ECOC, and should lose if it does run, because (it seems) they have beef with the way the city is run, they don’t like the mayor, and they feel the city should focus on core business like filling potholes in roads and sweeping streets rather than trying for fancy stuff like ECOC. The Matera2019 community reacted by trying to build a narrative of bottom-up change (“you don’t like the ECOC process? Come fix it!”), that led to interesting proposals and even actions from citizens. In this video you see a bunch of people exploring an unfinished railway with a view to reclaiming it and using it as a hiking/biking/running track (here’s the whole discussion, in Italian). What happened in Bergamo? Was ECOC run from the top? Were citizens involved with open processes or just made the target of communication?

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A problematic pre dossier

Basically, the biggest mistake Bergamo made was to build the application as an internal process only by the municipal offices and the competent department, limiting the comparison with the other participants and especially with citizens and cultural operators. The European Union,instead, encourages the candidate cities to generate processes of building from “bottom-up”, capable of activating energy and networks, which are useful regardless of the title of European Capital of Culture.  The solution came from a group of university students who have created an interactive map to widen participation at all levels in a transparent and public way. BERGAMO OPEN MAPPING. And we are grateful to them :slight_smile:

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Exploring Network for Social Innovation

I would like to update this topic :slight_smile:

I think it’s quite important to explore the possibilities (various) of networking and collaboration and therefore empowering and inspiring each other.

I am happy to discuss these topics with anyone interested :slight_smile:

We could start some design thinking about up-skilling in networking and collaboration in the european and global level.

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European Social Innovation Competition – round 2

This year too, I am to be a judge of the European Social Innovation Competition. The launch of the second round is scheduled for October 11th in Milano.

[Matthias] won round 1 with Economy App. I am hoping he will volunteer to give a lote3 session about how you guys can win round 2!

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Good … and also learning sth. beyond round 2 …

Great idea, Alberto! To make it a bit more generically applicable for this “upskilling” thing, I’d propose we make it about awards, prizes and philantropic capital in general, for learning how to make ones projects happen with these. Any idea who might want to contribute the part beyond some tips for the Social Innovation Competition (which I may give, but I’m not qualified to give much more than that …).

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“What we don’t build ourselves…”

“… does not get built”, of course. I am afraid, my friend [Matthias], that you are as qualified as it gets in #LOTE3 to speak about winning prizes! So, do propose the session (in “my” track, the Upskilling one); I will help with comments as a jury member, and hopefully others will come on board too. The goal for the session: this year, Edgeryders win all three Euro social innovation competition awards!

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Why we do it ⟴

We have been inspired by the The Free Knowledge Institute (FKI) to work together to enhance and unlocking Knowledge and Technology for a “Free Knowledge Society”. Our aim is to provide equal access to the tools for production and open access where participants can learn in a practical way how to turn ideas (and their dreams) into reality. We work towards this aim together with a local and global network of autonomous actors. Our mission is to educate people about “free knowledge” and “free technology” to a level at which they become effective participants in their domains of interest at local level.

@Build ourselves and ESIC°2: Currently our biggest challenge is  introduce the project to our citizens, because Bergamo-Hub is a project with no political affiliation, and for this reason we are been totally obstructed from official resources . You know Alberto how things unfortunately still goes in Italy…!! However, we have already some Seed Project in which  Matthias and all geeky Edgeriders might be interested in unlock their expertise.

@“What we don’t build ourselves…” We support and committed to developing the (Open Educational Resource-OER) Peeragogy.org project. This project presents a range of techniques that self-motivated learners can use to connect with each other and develop stronger communities and collaborations. is an excellent resource for self-learning and self-build ourselves.

But collaborate in a virtual environment does not work very well, because “the mind can be convinced but the heart must be won”, it does not create “true trust” & “faith” …

This why  I believe that unMonastery & lote3 will have a great success !! … because you’ll look through eyes in Matera and you’ll be surround yourself by people who believe what you believe in a real environment.

best, Fabrizio

“The more people we’ll inspire, the more people we’ll inspire us”