The Weekend Movement in Malaysia

Knowledge Collection People & Projects
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Steve, a friend of mine from the United States is now spending time at Sultan’s (a friend of us) in Malaysia working on a Pashmina business and thus I started keeping an eye upon what’s happening in Malaysia (something I have never done before). My first step into this world was Steve’s exciting blog he started up, the http://seagypsyadventures.com/. This is how I have recently come across this initiative and I think it rocks!

The organizers of the Weekend Movement in Malaysia say they are getting together ‘a community of people building crafty projects and innovative solutions to real world problems over the weekend’.

I am posting this as a mission as I would love to learn about similar initiatives in Europe and if there is anything alike we have over here and that you are also aware of, plse add it as a reply to this mission.

I wonder though what it takes to pull together hundreds of young talented people into a space for a weekend to deliver “time bound collaborative innovation”. Participants with a similar mind and skillset need to go through an application process to enter. Organizers pay a careful attention to selecting people who want to be there to make something happen and not just learn or raise funds.

Sponsors and investors also take part although their identities are not revealed. This is to ensure that ideas get kickstarted and I love that particular component there :slight_smile:

Where could this evolve if the meetups are thematic, if young people start addressing concrete issues and come forward with solutions to real local economic, social, political and cultural challenges? This can easily end up being an awesome way of building our networks, improve our skills and learn from peers right then and there.

The reason for me to giga like this initiative is that it is opening up a space for local innovations, local changes and local collaboration! I have always managed to network with people on the Internet, on national or international levels but when trying to get across a change in the city where I lived then I could hardly find people believing in the same thing that I did.

Biggie Smalls, one of my favorite rappers from Brooklyn, New York once said ’We can’t change the world unless we change ourselves’ and changing ourselves also implies to me that we should change the environment where we live.

Click here to read more on the initiative itself.

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Of course we do it!

I think you are talking about Social Innovation Camp. They have been going since at least 2008.

If you look at this page you will find a list of SICamps all over the place. Many are in Eastern/Central Europe, and I think my friend Giulio at UNDP in Bratislava might have something to do with it. :slight_smile: You could even do one yourself!

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Italy too

I just found out another SICamp is happening in Milano, Italy, next months. Egderyder albertomz, as the founder of The Hub Milano, is heavily involved!

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As a magic magnet

When we did the map of future builders with CitizensLab, I carefully paid extra attention to the Hub network. I was hoping to find ones in my area. There is one Hub in the Maritimes (a minimum 8 hours drive). One group in Montreal, I had already contacted them, and they are barely a shadow of what seems to happening elsewhere. Closed as oysters.

Another group, although managed by one of my former professional colleagues, I find myself unable to explain exactly what they do.

I am under the impression that it has been mainly so far an European phenomenon and movement, gradually spreading to other parts of the world.

Before joining the Edgeryders team, I had never heard about the Hub before, neither in Quebec, nor in the rest of the Francophonie. Meeting Alberto Mazetti was a big revelation for me. I believe it would have the same effect on many people of my monolingual hometown, locked in their bubble, often very much unaware that the rest of the world exists.

Playing the ‘Spotlight: Social innovation’ mission report was not easy. I remember that I did quite a bit of whining when I sought for existing resources (and found practically none). Gyula, this is perhaps a mission report that you would like to play as well? The fact of trying to identify resources positions our mind to ‘open’. It’s like putting the switch ‘ON’. Thinking, writing, looking to identify resources: it helps to attract the right people and the right situations. Of course, nothing is born my area since I completed this specific mission report, but I found a group which fits my needs in the province next door (Ontario), I got involved, and now people come to me and tell me that they want to get involved. This mission report in particular, I am telling you, it acts as a magic magnet…!

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Sounds very good!

I particularly like how hands-on and practical these events sound. Excellent. Is there a web page where we can read more?