Thank you, @johncoate, @alberto and @hugi for your encouragement, certainly we will need it as we go along with this project
I totally agree and we will get to that at some point of the project when we get a better sense of the specific needs of the participants. As @alberto, many young people do not necessarily need some specific area of expertise, especially considering the fact that we are targeting aspiring young entrepreneurs with early stage projects. However, the conversations, on the platform or during the community calls, will help us better understand the needs of this group and the challenges they are facing in order to refine our model and our mentoring and support offer. This is probably the first attempt to establish an online incubator or mentoring program in the region. We are proud, as Edgeryders Family, that we are leading this journey, with one step at a time. That is being said, I am pretty sure that young people will need your advices in Community management and Community Building which are very important topics for them
Well this is an important question, though at first sure we will do that, I don’t expect to have hundreds of conversations when we begin because this is literally something very new here, and our major challenge is to build the “TRUST” for this to work and grow. But; if things are evolving as we hope, we may need at some level whether to get more people involved in the matching process or to automatize (through machine learning solutions may be). Any thoughts on this ?
That would be fantastic! Having you on board is also pretty great! Through this project, we hope to continue exploring the synergy that with @alberto have started to think about and develop after the Hackathon in Medenine In the next days, we will share with you a small form, to better understand the areas of expertise of each one of our mentors, their availability and also their expectations from this experience. We want to make things interesting for them as well
I think this is true. When I was in Beirut, I got quite good feedback exactly because I brought a different than the other instructors who were more firmly placed in the world of startups and investment. For example, I mentored a woman running an app for booking visits to beauty salons. I gave her the idea to start considering her client salons as a potential community that could support each other as a network, give each other advice and connect each other to customers who might be looking for something that one salon doesn’t offer. She was very inspired by this perspective, since the angle of collaboration instead of competition is pretty alien to the business environment of Beirut, but she thought there might be a market for it and a welcome change. A balanced team of instructors is usually very welcome.
So happy this is happening and we will muster whatever support we can using our various channels -
I would suggest maybe having a two-pronged approach that facilitates outreach and engagement work to draw in both mentees and mentors around topics of mutual interest.
Topic/doman Calls: Here you have a big challenge that you call people around.
then when people are engaged…
Skills Calls: Here you ask for support for specific challenges that require specific skills - e.g design mentorship.
On topic: We are already building a large campaign to reach people working at the intersections of climate change and technology. There is a proposal by some friends over at Extinction Rebellion to do a workshop around this topic - technology in the context of a deep green transition. This is taking place within the more general conversation we are having as part of the Internet of Humans discussion.
Hey @alberto , we are starting putting the project in place, making some noise here around it and around Edgerdyers, as many people are getting curious about it and about the work Edgeryders is doing
Currently, the OCI Lab website (Former Open Village website), and the Facebook page are live. Few things on the website will be corrected or modified.
We have also organized our first info session in OurGhema last Tuesday, to present the program, our value proposition and how to apply. This was also an opportunity to collect feedback as OurGhema’s community are quite familiar with the work we are doing at Edgeryders. Now we are finalizing the partnership package and the communication tools, and we will accelerate the progress of the project, with more intensive communication through social media and through different info sessions to be organized in different regions here in Tunisia, and later in other countries. Our priorities now is to:
Recruit “Projects Leaders” and “Contributors”, through different communication campaigns. We will start with Tunisia, in order to get better sens of the project and the proccess, and to identify any possible challenges before going the rest of the MENA countries.
Build a small network of mentors who can join our first community calls.
Hi and salams to all,
this my first comment here! My name is Wael from Jenin, occupied Palestine. I am overwhelmed happy to find this topic from people from our suffering but rich of change-capacities region. I lived in Germany 17 years for study and work, and came back 10 years ago to my hometown as a reflection of feeling responsible for cocreatinge change in how we art up life. After my return I’ve landed in our family business and thought good ideas like OpenSource-EcoVillage will resonate with existing organizations and people but it wasn’t the case.
Now, after almost two decades of being an open visionary geek connecting the dots and thinking about how to construct a new collective decentralized self-organizing gateway to life so that we can encounter a system in crises can’t heal it self, Ive asked my self, how to downscale all my concepts, ideas and passion regarding Ecovillages, Global-Palestine beyond boarders and Global Brain Application (you can refer to my Human Lab site and my arabic blog ) into a Business Model?
This question lead me to the first steps to establish a vision-based Open Enterprise OE startup called ALBAYDER in Palestinian territories with the vision: Build regenerative human-earth transformative ecology beyond borders through better form of work and business!
ALBAYDER should offer 2 main services; self-organizing P2P good businesses incubator and crowdfunding platform to finance these businesses and other local projects at firsthand, where the successful incubated projects will have the chance to be part of ALBAYDER OE.
The self-organizing characteristic is applied from the methodology I put together to enable open integral collaboration, which can further developed for deep learning machine to allow peers to progress with minor mentors (MentM, Mentoring-Machine) involvements.
Using internet based solutions for connecting people through reality changing business ideas into an Open Enterprise will build a nation beyond boarders, a Global Palestine, a possible leading model for other Arabic countries and new humanity!
@zmorda and @Sohayeb and all, as your program further developed than me, It would be great to collaborate to further develop the P2P incubator and find common supporter. If you agree, lets meet online to know each other better and see what best to be done together at the moment for the approach. For now I dont have official cofounder and just joined the Founder Institute startup accelerator branch in Ramallah.
Hello @WaelAura really sorry for the delay, it has been crazy busy weeks for us lately, but it is really super nice to read about your story and your vision regarding Palestine and all countries beyond boarders, by using the P2P philosophy and new technologies. I believe that your project and our project would help build more resilient and connected communities to resist and survive any upcoming economic crisis which is I think is inevitable. Now, let s talk action, @zmorda and I care a lot about this, and we want to prototype models on how to build these communities which could support each other, through the OCI Lab initiative, so I think we can schedule a call to further discuss this, and see how we can work together and support each other
Thanks for your interest @Sohayeb
All great ideas are obsolete if not being realized. My problem that these transformative concepts need almost full time job. While my work as manager at our furniture factory is taking most of my time … now I am trying to develop a radical shift by working on a startup launch if I found the right partners. It’s my 4th week on our local Founder Institute program. @zmorda and I had a great talk. Here is the summery
Regarding the meeting Theursday is better for me. Best to send out Doodle.
I think after I get involved in your P2P incubator, we might put a propsal together with Edgeryders for the Ai cocteation engine. I am working on a first draft concept which I’ll send soon. @MariaEuler@gazbiasorour] (Profile - gazbiasorour - Edgeryders), @Abacagames, @zmorda
Would be best if you could set up the doodle and start inviting those you want to have there, I will just set up the room for you and can be there as a Edgeryders representative who has a bit more overview for example about the currently planned festival events. Tell me the time (best not between 16:00 and 19:00, as we usually already have some calls in those time slots, but if its not possible other way we will fins a way)
Also, you are welcome to come to the Community call on Tuesday the 23rd 18:00 Brussels time (every Tuesday).
Hello everyone, you know what they say, better late than never, this saying applies to my experience with OCI since I’m joining a little late into the program, yet I have the enthusiasm to see out my vision for my social enterprise. I am still at an early stage in the development process, yet my project will look to offer youth a natural access point to the world of activism, with free & discounted capacity building training to be held on the regular.
I am still in the very early stages of development, at this point I have the general concept ready, it’s a space that will generate profit by selling goods and providing services in order to sustain its socially oriented operations. The aim is to attract youth from underprivileged areas to the space, who usually wouldn’t attend training sessions willingly, and eventually offer them capacity building workshops that will help develop their skills as well as advocacy training to help multiply the impact.
The nature of such a space is still up for discussion, and will be decided after holding discussions with the mentor and attending the training sessions online.
Sounds cool! If possible also plan to include some good documentation opportunities and lessons, so they can take home proof of their workshops and potentially start building their portfolio which would help when searching for job or education and also so you have nice documentation to advertise the space
In the next days, we will share with you a small form, to better understand the areas of expertise of each one of our mentors, their availability and also their expectations from this experience. We want to make things interesting for them as well 
really sorry for the delay, it has been crazy busy weeks for us lately, but it is really super nice to read about your story and your vision regarding Palestine and all countries beyond boarders, by using the P2P philosophy and new technologies. I believe that your project and our project would help build more resilient and connected communities to resist and survive any upcoming economic crisis which is I think is inevitable. Now, let s talk action, 