We just landed in Marseille to participate, from the 23rd until the 25th of October, in the very first Idea Camp, initiated by the European Cultural Foundation (ECF), bringing together cultural changemakers from more than 23 countries across Europe and beyond in a three-day exchange of ideas to help rethink people’s place in public space.

The Idea Camp offers an array of physical spaces and activities to provide the perfect environment for reflection, sharing, learning and nurturing of ideas. The programme includes: daily Idea Talks by experts: Workshops and Knowledge Stations to share best practices and learn about social entrepreneurship and many other topics, some of them proudly facilitated by Platoniq in collaboration with other hubs: interactive media labs; and relaxing spaces such as the Idea Spa. These are all laid out in a unique environment on the Mediterranean coast that’s used by artists, designers and performers.The 50 Idea Camp participants come from 23 different countries, from across the EU as well as from neighbouring regions, including the Arab Mediterranean region, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine and the Western Balkans. They represent organisations from a vast array of sectors, from academia to environmental bodies, from human rights, architecture, social & civic activism and city planning through to media, arts and culture. The huge diversity of sectors represented means that the ideas are equally diverse. Some of the ideas are focused on rural or ecological issues while others highlight urban or digital topics.

During the summer, 813 proposals were submitted in response to a European-wide call for ideas to engage people in re-defining and shaping public space. Representatives of the 50 most innovative, daring and inspiring ideas have been selected to join ECF’s first Idea Camp, co-hosted by Les Têtes de l’Art at La Villa Mediterranée. The goal is to propose concrete actions to redefine and redesign public space.

Goteo's team will contribute actively to this amazing date offering their expertise and knowledge through intensive methodologies to share information, shape ideas and materialize projects. We have been designing and implementing methologies for co-creation and crowdfunding for a while and in very diverse contexts and we are very excited to share and use them in benefit of innovators and changemakers from all over the world, and also pleased to share its authorship, in this special ocassion, with our partner Subtopia.

In addition, after the Idea Camp, we and the rest fo the hubs will stay to work internally on our joint advocacy strategy and evaluating these first months of collective work. We have great expectations on getting good results out of these meetings and are looking forward to having something great to share with you, a reasonable hope as a result of the hard work performed by all the hubs within this partnership during the former months.

The Idea Camp will be live streamed on www.ideacamp.fr. Don't miss it! ;)