Funding answers
Hi Francesco,
I think it’s great and quite honest to come forward with these questions. Indeed I’ve been reading your blogs about Lote and the unMonastery, and I feel partly responsible that this key information has not reached you yet.
So: Lote is an event where everyone is volunteering their time to build it into a great experience, which means that it depends on each and every one of us to get hold of funding opportunities. Edgeryders the organisation offers the infrastructure for organising it, as well as mobilizing members to help out, but it does not dispose of its own financial resources yet.
We are indeed trying to come up with creative methods to try and lower some of the costs - such as discounts at local B&Bs or at AirBnb.com, opportunity to rideshare and things like that. In terms of some fully funded places, we have managed to secure a sponsorship from the Dutch Embassy in Rome for Dutch residents only- 1000 EUR worth, and this was a matter of good contacts and trust i think. There is available documentation for people who want to reach out to their own gov embassy in Italy and do the same in trying to secure their travel… let me know if you need it.
I do hope this helps, I too have heard from [Xavier] at Mutinerie and hope he and others will still be able to make it!
Noemi
PS if it helps, the way to ping people is simply put their usernames into square brackets like I’m doing with you [immaginoteca]