Dears, I’m currently opening an enterprise, the goal of which is to help post-industrial cities fight unemployment, boost the culture of entrepreneurship (which tends to be lower than average) and ideally reimagine their futures (once the mine or factory is gone) one by one. (intro blog post: http://bit.ly/1nbWcJe ; website coming soon)
Together with a local NGO, I’m starting off with these two things:
creating a physical space where people could meet, create, discuss, start up their companies and most of all – support one another. The culture of cooperation and entrepreneurship in this and many other post-industrial cities is low, so creating a space like this seems like the necessary first step.
asking local communities about Konin of their dreams. We’re currently designing a foresight campaign, during which we’ll try to imagine Konin in 2050. I’ll share the details with you as soon as possible, but if you already have any interesting examples of similar exercises in mind, please share!
If this topic is of any interest to you, I’ll be super happy to talk with u!
They seem to be doing a good job of creating a new kind of space where businesses are coming in and maybe getting help with their projects. @Kei is helping some local business in Matera set up website for example, I don;t know how things are going in terms of getting local businesses to actually cooperate.
Maybe you need something concrete as a starting point, or something exciting from outside coming in like we just did in Tbilisi, Georgia. You can ask @Khatuna about the experience, and if she could see ties between local businesses developing out of similar approaches? The workshop we did was in the context of a foresight exercise so I guess it’s related and it would be great seeing more people just remix the concept for different contexts
I know @K and @fortyfoxes were exploring setting up a festival of growing, an event that would get local businesses to work together in a llight weight way also in matera. It’s difficult as an outside I think though, if you don’t speak the language it’s more diifficult. But I think they connected with @andrea.paoletti and his partner. Any news or expereinces to share around this guys?
P.s I formatted the text for easier legibility and added your logo. Hope you don’t mind
Congrats on the initiative and for setting the tone, Justyna, while in Armenia @Lurglomond mentioned your new gig and now I’m catching up on my reading and seeing this
I think starting with serious and constructive reflections on any challenge is a first good step; and letting go of all the previous assumptions, no matter how true they can be if they’re only based on diagnosis they won’t take you far.
I concur with Nadia, if you need advice or help based on what we’re experimenting just now with communities in Georgia, Armenia, Egypt, I’d love to share some early insights; although it could be soon, this is a work-in-progress, the workshop methodology is up.
I’ll be there in last week of may and I’m looking forward to it.
We grew up in an educational system where you were told there is only one solution to each problem and creative initiative was frowned upon. We live in a world where there are multiple answers and we define ourselves by the answers we give (“The only answers we can give are the ones without an answer” - to paraphrase Mr. Foerster). This is highly irritating.
I’m always shocked at how many people act on a do-as-you-are-told basis. It seems incredibly valuable to me, to encourage everyone to act as they see fit. This (IMO) is the key to entrepreneurship.
Justyna must have given you the overview already, so let me know if you’d be interested to learn from other initiatives and I can recommend community members to get in touch with. Our major focus is connecting good people and projects and building things together. We found it is so much rewarding than acting in isolation and innovating with risky approaches, when surely someone else has walked the path and can give some advice…
Yes, cultural mindsets are difficult to change, and the things you mention about education are literally challenges everywhere. Right now we’re having a discussion on Egyptian education and here’s what Hayez thinks: “The problem will not be solved updating the current education system, it will be solved by a new parallel system.” I’m under the impression that with radical initiatives the better approach might lay not in the diagnosis, but in instilling the new values right from the start: building contexts and spaces that have these new values embedded so the learning experience is bounded by these. And you guys seem to be onto something in Konin…
