Posts

Contracting with the Planet by Indy Johar [UK] // CONVERSATION

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This was a session at Untitled Festival 2020.

In this discussion, Indy Johar will present a hypothesis that building a new relationship with ourselves and the world around us is both fundamental and possible to avoid the self termination of society.

Indy Johar is the Co-founder and Executive Director of Dark Matter Labs  – a multidisciplinary design team working with partners, clients, and collaborators across the world to develop new working methods for system change. Dark Matter Labs is focussed on the great transitions our societies need to respond to the technological revolution and climate breakdown we face. They aim to discover, design and develop the institutional ‘dark matter’ that supports a more democratic, distributed and sustainable future across five domains of exploration: Cities, Finance, Institutions, Experiments and Education [Source: https://darkmatterlabs.org / Projects]

Twitter: @indy_johar, @DarkMatter_Labs

Website: https://darkmatterlabs.org/projects

Photo: Indy Johar LinkedIn (c)

 

 

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Imagine a society where government functions are taken over by autonomous, blockchain-based algorithms By TOKEN [EU] // CONVERSATION

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This was a session at Untitled Festival 2020.

Blockchain technologies are claimed to make it possible to develop and implement social technologies that can replace existing social apparatuses of public governance. This could mean for example implementing autonomous executing administration in public governance or building a governance system based on direct democracy – or conversely, distributed autonomous organizations outside public power taking over similar tasks. 

In this conversation we explore a future where by scaling different distributed ledger technology solutions  replace current public organisations and processes.  What kind of impact would it have on democracy, public services and on our societies at large?  Would this be a desirable direction to develop our public administration? Can technological solutions be a substitute for institutional trust? 

Launched in January 2020, TOKEN (Transformative Impact Of Blockchain Technologies in Public Services) is an EU funded project whose ultimate goal is to develop an experimental ecosystem to enable the adoption of Distributed Ledger Technology and to prove its value, via highly replicable Use Cases, as a driver for the transformation of public services. TOKEN has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Grant Agreement No. 825268. 

Twitter handle(s): @TOKEN_EU

Website: https://token-project.eu

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Evo Untitled – Entrepreneurs Changing Capitalism by The Trampery // EXPERIMENT WORKSHOP

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Entrepreneurs are currently being trained in a narrow Silicon Valley model of success based on limited liability corporations, equity investment and profit. This approach actively reinforces the most damaging aspects of capitalism. How can we change this approach, so entrepreneurs around the world are inspired to build purpose-driven businesses that solve social and environmental problems, as well as generating profit?

The Trampery invites you to join us and reimagine a Radical new curriculum for the world’s entrepreneurs. As part of the Untitled initiative we are setting out to deliver a 12 month experiment called “Evo Untitled”. Our ambition is to pilot a completely reimagined Accelerator program, focused on social and environmental impact alongside profit, for 100 entrepreneurs in 5 locations around the world.

The seed for Evo Untitled is being sown by The Trampery, by the intention is to take it forward with a larger group of Untitled partners. Partners will be involved at every stage of the process: design, development and delivery of expert workshops. Crucially, the experiment will test the hypothesis that a large proportion of mainstream entrepreneurs will choose to establish a purpose-driven business if this option is included in their learning.

Join us for the workshop!

The 90 minute workshop will be fast paced and highly participative, facilitated by Tom Farrand. It will cover the following topics amongst others:

  • What should a reimagined Accelerator curriculum look like?
  • What kind of learning process triggers the Greatest creativity in entrepreneurs?
  • How can we change the dominant Silicon Valley ideology?
  • Which Untitled partners should be part of the experiment?
  • Which 5 locations in the world should we work with?

Charles Armstrong – Founder and CEO of The Trampery . Charles is an entrepreneur and social innovator based in London. In 1998, they worked with Michael Young establishing the School for Social Entrepreneurs. In 2009 he founded The Trampery, one of London’s earliest coworking ventures. Through its Workspace and Accelerator programs, The Trampery has helped more than 1,000 Ventures get started and grow. In London, Charles has worked with local and national government to establish the Tech City and Fashion District innovation clusters, whilst in Oslo, he led the development of the Tøyen Startup Village initiative.

Tom Farrand – Coach-in-residence of The Trampery. Tom has 23 years of experience in brand, business and social innovation and specializes in pioneering leadership development and learning experience design. He has been coached and ventured across multiple clients, sectors, geographies and types of organizations, holding leadership positions in P&G, WPP and Oliver Wyman before launching a series of social impact-focused Ventures including Swarm, Good for Nothing and The Wild Network.

The Trampery is committed to playing a role in the shift towards a more balanced form of capitalism, supporting entrepreneurs, startups and scaleups who pursue social and environmental benefits alongside profit.

Twitter: @thetrampery / @ car0lus / @tomfarrand

Websites: www.thetrampery.com

Images: The Trampery (C)

Related Untitled Agenda Themes : Reimagining the contract, Reimagining climate, Reimagining power, Reimaging human, Reimagining the economy

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Beyond the blockchain hype: 4 Experiments on public sector transformation through distributed technology by TOKEN [EU] // EXPERIMENT WORKSHOP

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This session was hosted at the first ever Untitled Festival in 2020.

Fit for purpose tools for a government of the 20th century do not provide the solutions we need today. Public governance must increase their capabilities to not only strengthen trust and legitimacy, but deliver on tackling the wicked problems of today. Can distributed ledger technologies such as blockchain offer more than just the hype and be a part of the solution?

In the workshop we will co-create and explore together desirable Futures of the use of distributed ledger technology in the public sector. We start off from four concrete use cases being developed within the TOKEN project and use them as catapults for collective imagination of a world where technology builds trust, transparency and legitimacy. 

The four use cases:

1) Public funding distribution in the EU 

2) Incorporating blockchain into active smart cities projects in Central Macedonia: Municipality of Katerini 

3) Reimagining urban logistics: Assessing the specific value of distributed ledger technologies, DLTs for urban mobility 

4) Reimagining data valorisation services: Improving citizens’ lives whilst also increasing urban services efficiency and exploring new economic models based on data valorization.

Launched in January 2020, TOKEN (Transformative Impact Of BlocKchain technologies in Public Services) is an EU funded project whose ultimate goal is to develop an experimental ecosystem to enable the adoption of distributed ledger technology and to test its value, via highly replicable use cases, as a driver for the transformation of public services. TOKEN has received funding from the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Grant Agreement No. 825268

Twitter handle (s): https://twitter.com/TOKEN_EU

Website: https://token-project.eu/

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Source: Planetary ArchitectureSource: Planetary Architecture

Vertical Park Prototype with ‘Goodlife’ Assets by Y-foundation [FI] // EXPERIMENT WORKSHOP

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Source: Planetary Architecture

This was a session at Untitled Festival 2020.

The Y-Foundation wants to experiment with a “Vertical Park” Prototype using ‘good life assets’.  Vertical Park is a next generation prototype of a living unit which combines working to housing, along with local food production, natural biodiversity and using Residents’ resources to promote their livelihoods. It is essentially a wooden structure for carbon-neutral construction where horizontal assets of good life are work, sustainability and residents’ own resources.

The role of housing is changing. Home, buildings and neighborhoods are becoming basic units of a vital city. The Y-Foundation has the capability to be this kind of transformative innovator in social housing. This is an open call for those who want to start working with us. The Vertical Park wooden structure would combine biodiversity, food production, carbon neutrality and a sustainable lifestyle, while bringing a new kind of social security and support to the local community for people in difficult life situations. The aim is to develop the concept to concrete implementation in 2020-2021 in order to start a detailed design process in 2022 and finally construction work in 2023.

Vertical Park is an idea that must be experimented with out-of-the-box thinkers as well as organizations that are capable of co-creating social housing in a new way. We have to redefine housing as a part of basic income and sustainable living in a city. With regenerative architecture we want to define the role of housing in a neighborhood. We need partners who want to start working in practical environments transforming the passive housing environments into active living environments. We need neighborhood activists, designers, architects, construction companies, service providers, third sector organizations as well as cities and local municipalities in order to evolve our prototype to new practice. 

 The Y-Foundation is one of the key national developers of the Housing First principle in Finland. The Y-Foundation offers affordable rental housing with a vision to eradicate homelessness and promote well-being and sustainable lifestyles among its Tenants. The hosts are Juha Kaakinen, CEO of Y-Foundation, Kimmo Rönkä, Future Living Specialist from Rönkä Consulting and Pekka Pakkanen, architect from Planetary Architecture.

 

Twitter: @ysaatio ,@JKaakinen,@lassyj, @kimmoronka

Website: https://ysaatio.fi

Images: The Y-Foundation (c)

 

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Let’s Not Just Be Inclusive, Let’s Build a New World Together by YLVA // CONVERSATION

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As the world is in Transformation just including people to current projects and institutions is not enough. The right way would be to build a more just world together. We want to invite people to explore what comes after diversity and inclusion, how to centralize the marginalized and take on big issues such as just and fair distribution of value in the urban setting: in urban planning, in housing, in services, in public spaces and in work. When a new building is built, who benefits? Is the value distributed evenly and is there feedback to quality and Sustainability, 

How about the people who live in the neighborhood? The people who walk by? Do the buildings provide something good for the cities and communities? For whom do they provide something? The rich? The well off?

YLVA focuses on real estate and financial investments along with the hotel and restaurant sector. It is owned by the Student Union of the University of Helsinki and its profits are used to promote student activities. [ Source: ylva.fi ]

Website: https://ylva.fi/

Twitter: @YlvaHelsinki

Images: YLVA (c)

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Imagine Work and Home Integrated (and as a Universal Right) by Y-foundation [FI] // CONVERSATION

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There are a lot of possibilities creating new work in home environments from traditional maintenance to modern services, from gardening to food production, from community-based work to work as a capital and as a concrete tool in construction.  Integrating work and home has transformative capacity as it does not force the weakest among us to the labor market, where they perform badly or not at all. This could be experimented already in Y-Foundation’s or any other housing company’s properties: for example sharing tasks from the house, creating value trough community projects and the housing company actively seeking work from the markets.

The Y-Foundation is a Developer and Global Forerunner of the Housing First principle. The Y-Foundation offers affordable rental housing in Finland. The Y-Foundation is the leader in eradicating homelesness with its Housing First approach. Now it is setting a new standard where those in need will get a home and work combined. At the core of the idea is capital that the inhabitants create whilst working.

Twitter handles: @JKaakinen @lassyj @kimmoronka

Website: https://ysaatio.fi/en/y-foundation

Images: The Y-Foundation (c)

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Data Union Fork – Tools for Data Strike by Larisa Blazic (UK) // ART & IMAGINATION

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Today’s Internet is becoming increasingly centralized, slowing innovation and challenging its potential to revolutionize society and the economy in a pluralistic continent. DECODE is a project in which practical alternatives will be developed for managing online identity, personal and other data and collective governance in a citizen-friendly and privacy-aware fashion. Larisa’s work ‘Data Union Fork: Tools for Data Strike’, realized in Collaboration with the DECODE project  asks what it means to Strike in the digital domain and how citizens can mobilize and organize for collective action. The Fork encourages audience reflection on critical issues arising from persistent personal data harvesting, digital surveillance and profiling.It also engages the participants to think how collective action could help regain control and redefine the value of data collected whilst promoting solidarity and mutual aid.

During the workshop, participants are invited to explore collective bargaining in the Labor union tradition through ‘word & image example mapping’, a subverted software design methodology, and investigate what is a breach, how to communicate alert, mobilize and organize citizens locally and across Neighborhoods.

Larisa Blazic is a London-based artist focusing on critical examination of digital technology, its impact on power relations, dominant narratives surrounding it and the consequences of lack of ethical consideration and / or framework in the world of digital innovation. Over the past 20 years, Larisa has been combining hybrid interests ranging from the creative use of the Internet to intersections of video art and architecture and has initiated, collaborated and participated internationally in projects ranging from net.art to FLOSS art and design. Larisa’s work is part of a Collaboration between S + T + ARTS (Science, Technology & the Arts), an European Commission initiative launched under the Horizon 2020 research and innovation program and Untitled.STARTS’s purpose is to support Collaborations between artists, Scientists, engineers and researchers to develop more creative, inclusive, and sustainable technologies. 

Websites:

https://www.ewns.net/dataunion/dataunion.html

https://vertigo.starts.eu/calls/2017-2/residencies/data-union-fork-tools-for-data-strike/detail/

https://decodeproject.eu/

 

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Universal Basic Hope by Mikko-Pekka Hanski (FI) // CONVERSATION + EXPERIMENT WORKSHOP

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Welcome to a conversation and experimentation workshops to imagine what would be the new contract and universal basic insurance for a better life. At this point my company (www.hanskismaskinservice.com) is taking the imagination forward and the project code name is Universal Basic Hope.

Welcome on Thursday to have a conversation about the just-cause and on Friday 18th at 11am EEST (9am GMT) to co-create an experimentation.

The UBH (Universal Basic Hope) is about creating a service and platform where we all can make better choices regarding our life and realize the impact of our choices in the feeling of relevance and meaning. The scope of the idea is to respond to too small worriers early enough, create glimpses of hope and provide practical solutions to improve life. I am challenging the fundamentals of welfare society. My argument is that the current system is siloed and focused to solve everyday problems too late. The other objective is to remove or make fast, easy but dangerous solutions to worries obsolete. With this I mean especially quick loan providers with greedy interest programs.

The UBH is not yet out there. Collaborating with the Untitled Festival and with you is in key role on my journey to make real life experiments first in Finland and then later in the EU. At this point the service concept prototype is being developed and we are starting customer validations this fall. So far we have done extensive research about the current macro-level social welfare system and also investigated together with Demos Helsinki about the everyday worries that we finns have today.

My goal is to imagine a new contract for the social security and welfare system; find a solution that is adaptive to personal life situations, empowering not shameful, compassionate not dangerous and understanding the true nature of everyday life.

Developing the evolution of social welfare systems like in Finland is a daunting task. In fact the system I have a privilege to live in is close to perfect. I am sure that every system has room to improve even the one from the happiest country in the world. I invite everyone to imagine how we can create a engaging, motivating, uplifting and ethically sound system that we can provide not only in Finland but for the rest of the world.

Mikko-Pekka Hanski is the founder of the experiment and happy to connect with everyone who wants to reimagine social systems! In addition to imagining a better future Mikko-Pekka is a Co-Founder and Head of Studio for a global design agency Idean. He is also a board member in several organizations such as the JRC, the Children and Youth Foundation   and the Design Forum .

Twitter handle: @mphanski

Website: www.hanskismaskinservice.com

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The Transcultural Republic of Nodes by Raphael Thelen and Theresa Leisgang [DE] // EXPERIMENT WORKSHOP

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Ecological collapse accelerates as technology advances. To face both, we’ll need a community, or better than that: a network of independent communities or ‘Nodes’. This experiment workshop will explore how such nodes can share a constitution, collaborate online, and make a Universal Basic Income (UBI) for every member. The nation state as an organizing system is broken. Corporations like Facebook are attuned to the accelerating speed of communication and globalization, but they are profit-driven. Let us reimagine a decentralized self-governing system, based in the real world as much as in the blockchain, that is robust in the face of crisis, innovative through cc-license knowledge sharing and life-friendly by design.

To get started we need Ideas, knowledge, inspiration! What would a Constitution for the 2020s look like? How do we set up a self-financed UBI? How can we harness the power of Blockchain/Aragon? How can we create a new social code that proclaims not freedom from harm, but rather the freedom to self actualize? Imagine an international network of physical open spaces – Nodes – that are based on: shared values, self-financed UBI and an internal, privacy-conscious social network. Its goals would be:

  • Cohabiting peacefully / adverting crisis
  • Creating spaces to navigate and inspire change
  • Providing mutual support
  • Using advancing technologies in communications, production, agriculture and energy

Raphael Thelen lives and works on the fault lines of our global society, where our conflicts and aspirations are thrown into their sharpest relief, where the boundaries between personal and political blurr. He experienced the 2011 Liberation struggle of the people in the Middle East, accompanied by Refugees crossing the Balkans, wrote about the crumbling Dreams of today’s Eastern Germany. His writing has appeared in all major German Magazines. Currently he is finishing his second book. He writes not only as a Spectator, but as someone who hopes to change the conditions he finds.

Theresa Leisgang lives her life on the fine line where local practices and global structures meet. She explores the connections between transculturality and climate crisis, between agriculture and biodiversity-loss, between indiginous knowledge and imperialism.Whether she researches how oil companies exploit the people of the Amazon, works on board of civil rescue ships in the Mediterranean or develops PR strategies for public figures like Carola Rackete – to her all these Missions are sides of the same quest: a good life for all on our shared planet.

Raphael and Theresa are collaborating on a project called Pulse Of  The Earth. They have traveled through Southern Africa, Europe and towards the Arctic Circle to examine how communities deal with the impact of the climate crisis. During their meetings with social-entrepreneurs, feminists, psychonauts, shamans, thinkers, politicians and activists, while living in community houses, squatted forests and on spiritual gatherings, they learnt one thing time and again: community is not only making us more resilient, it is also the solution to many of our most problems.

Twitter: @RaphaelThelen @besal

Photos: Raphael Thelen (c)

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