When did two weeks pass already? One moment I’m packing, wondering what is waiting for me in Budapest, the next one I find myself half-way into the programme. It’s hard to grasp your feelings and experiences from the middle of them, but one thing I know for sure. I wish the day had 40 hours instead of 24. There’s so much that you can do, and so much you want to do, that the one month that seemed a lot at the beginning becomes nothing.
Mindspace is a host organisation in the Climate-KIC programme. Participants from the programme Pioneers into Practice can choose our organisation for a 4-week placements in projects related to the themes of low-carbon living and low-carbon mobility.
It will provide individuals from a range of backgrounds with the opportunity to develop their knowledge about the dynamics and management of system innovation for the transition to a low-carbon economy in Europe. It will be delivered across 6 major European regions – Central Hungary, Lower Silesia (Poland), West Midlands (UK), Hessen (Germany), Emilia Romagna (Italy) and the Valencia region (Spain) – which form Climate-KIC’s Regional Innovation Implementation Community (RIC). The programme is committed to producing a new generation of specialists, entrepreneurs and policy-makers with high-level skills for the low-carbon economy. It focuses on addressing the socio-technical challenges for the transition to a more sustainable society. It will develop a cross-sector, multi-disciplinary approach by bringing together people from research, business and public agencies in a ‘learning-by-doing’ environment.
More info: climate-kic.org
Marine Mellado Ruiz and Jesus Roche helped Mindspace's work in October 2012 in Budapest. Adam Kobrizsa took one month in Lower-Silesia (Wroclaw) at Side Cluster organization. You can read about these experiences below.
Photos: flyzipper, orangeacid
Pioneers-into-Practice programme
During my placement I obtained a lot of useful information thanks to my host and I could get in touch with several different organizations which could be interesting for Mindspace in future collaboration of smart city projects. Just one to be mentioned: the “Desayuno con Viandantes”.
A series of seemingly random events led me to parking my bike at the bike stand in front of Cafe Lumen on a sunny May morning. Entering a new context again and again in the recent years - I learned to take in whatever experience I had waiting for me.
When in March I learnt about the possibility of participating in Pioneers into Practice program I did not know much about transition neither how a non-profit organization operates.
We took part on a two-day workshop about transition management at EIT+, which was given by Anna Wieczorek, a teacher of VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam Global Change Institute. We listened to a lecture from Rosemary Coyne about the british initiative, called Green Deal programme.
As explained in by Graphisoft's park founders, “its mission is to offer an environment that helps its businesses attract the most talented, most ambitious employees.” Companies have the possibility to evolve into a friendly urban space in which the traffic is excluded (by building a large underground parking for 3000 vehicles) and pedestrian routes domain.
“Simple things are the one that work best if you want to involve a lot of people”, explains Dominika Tihanyi. She is a landscape architect with a particular interest in urban environmental and social regeneration. She carried for her PhD a project of acupunctural artistic and cultural activities in the 8 th district to introduce social flexibility.
Then Nemecsek resumed his normal walk, but contrary to what he had done in the last 25 years, he took the way to the left, as it had done in the past three months, since he had discovered that curious garden that had been springing in a corner of his XIXth district.
Along centuries, rivers have been barriers that separated territories placed in each bank. In most occasions, they have been the physical line that marks the frontier between neighboring countries, as the Danube does in some parts.
I am really glad I have to opportunity to stay for a month as a member of Mindspace from the Climate-KIC program and already had this thought that I wish to stay longer!
