DreamSpace Academy won the Falling Walls Science Engagement Award

DreamSpace Academy won the Falling Walls Science Engagement Award

On Friday last week, DreamSpace Academy won the Falling Walls Science Engagement award of the year, among 81 applications from 44 countries. Falling Walls Engage is one of the largest international platforms for all forms of science engagement, co-organised by Falling Walls Foundation, Robert Bosch Stiftung, Helmholtz Association, Federal Ministry of Education and Research and many universities around the world. DreamSpace Academy is a community innovation center that tackles socio-economic and environmental challenges using project-based learning. Our mission is to empower creative minds through Maker Education, to create innovative local solutions using Open Innovation, and ultimately leading them to become successful Social Entrepreneurs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B17rJ07Ljs4 The winner of this year‘s @Falling_Walls Engage conference is „DreamSpace Academy“ from Sri Lanka! The project provides workshops for children and teenagers, encouraging them to deal with social and ecological issues using science. https://t.co/Ewl8uQ16eW #FallingWalls19 pic.twitter.com/JjYUncvr4x— RobertBosch Stiftung (@BoschStiftung) November 8, 2019 Press coverage Nov 8, 2019 – Falling Walls Engage: Award for the best project in science communication (German),...
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African Digital Economy

African Digital Economy

Ampion and Plutos Ventures launch new venture for Africa-focused start-ups Focus of the new venture – on site development of digital business models Call for Applications from founders and start-ups with an Africa focus start now! Nairobi & Berlin, 12.03.19 - Africa-focused Ampion and Berlin-based Plutos Ventures Holding today announced the founding of Ampion Ventures. The goal of the new project is to build scalable digital business models in selected African countries by providing seed capital and strategic expertise support. Plutos Venture provides continuous and open-ended funding to Ampion Ventures. Ampion Ventures is led by Fabian-Carlos Guhl, founder of the non-profit organization Ampion.org. Guhl has been working for years on the African continent with founders and early-stage start-ups. Through his very successful start-up bus, with which he has travelled through more than 16 African countries and coached and supported founders in the development of digital business models, Guhl has been able to build up a large network of founders and start-ups in different African countries. Together with Plutos, Ampion is now taking the next logical step to...
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Malian in Diaspora of the Year 2018

Malian in Diaspora of the Year 2018

On January 26, Youssouf Simbo Diakite, founder and CEO at African Diaspora Youth Forum in Europe (ADYFE) was awarded the Mali Entrepreneurship and Engagement Award in the category Malian in Diaspora of the Year 2018 – Best Achievement. Watch the ortm.ml news itemDownload Watch Youssouf Simbo Diakite interviewDownload Read more at maliactu.net/mali-4eme-edition-de-la-nuit-de-lentrepreneuriat-promouvoir-la-creation-demploi/ (French). In December 2018, Youssouf and his team at ADYFE organized the high-level forum 'Accelerated Africa Conference 2018 – from Entrepreneur to CEO: Channeling the power of the Diaspora : ...
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4 years #defyhatenow

4 years #defyhatenow

Over the past four years #defyhatenow and its partners has strengthened the voices of civil society actors and helped building capacities to mitigate hate speech amongst South Sudanese civil society organisations. The project pursues and encourages collaboration with local civil society actors including diaspora groups, international organisations such as the Konrad Adenauer Foundation Uganda and UNMISS in South Sudan and created a network and an agenda against hate speech. Initiated in 2014 in response to the South Sudan political and civil crisis, the project #defyhatenow was designed to develop counter strategies in collaboration with local civil society organizations. Founded as a community peacebuilding, training and conflict reconciliation effort, the project intended to strengthen the voices and actions of youth-oriented civil society organizations while including South Sudanese diaspora communities in online and offline community building efforts. We are currently developing strategies and proposals to continue our work on peace building in South Sudan and other parts of the world. Contact us...
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Is Peace a Commons?

Is Peace a Commons?

Instituto Procomum launches a magazine with reports and reflections about the role of citizen innovation labs for peace, based on concrete experiences in post-conflict Colombia. Between February 13th and 25th of 2018, the Laboratory of Citizen Innovation for Peace in Colombia #LABICxlaPAZ prototyped ten citizenship projects (chosen by a public call, with proponents and collaborators from all Ibero-America), promoting Peace and improving people's lives after the agreement between the FARCs and the government of the country. The event was held in Pasto, Nariño, in the south of the country, the most affected region by armed conflicts. Instituto Procomum was one of the co-organizers of the event and part of the team participated as mentors and collaborators developing the projects, besides helding a workshop about the commons (the lens of the commons, a workshop prototyped by Instituto Procomum) From the experiences lived in #LABICxlaPAZ, Instituto Procomum published Peace and Commons - Reflections of a Laboratory of Citizen Innovation (LABIC). The magazine...
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Low Tech Humanitarian Innovation Project in Greece (planning phase)

Low Tech Humanitarian Innovation Project in Greece (planning phase)

I am planning a humanitarian innovation project in Greece with Field Ready and Soup & Socks (Habibi Workspace) starting in July. I am looking for contacts, networking opportunities, funding prospects and like-minded individuals who want to join. The short term goal is to build a lot of humanitarian items for refugees and poor people. While the mid-term goal is to build a sustainable presence for all the partnering organizations within Greece through a well funded humanitarian project. Find out more about me and our work in this Dropbox and here is a short video of our work in Jordan: If you have questions or would like to join the effort, kindly contact me at [email protected] ...
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Emancipation through Technology in Africa 4.0

Emancipation through Technology in Africa 4.0

Geraldine de Bastion, radio interview Africa produces an amazing number of technical developments and applications for technical developments, according to Geraldine de Bastion, curator of re:publica and founder of the NGO Global Innovation Gathering. For the Arte documentation " 'Digital Africa', she reports in a cross-media project on mobile payment in the countryside, drones to monitor the harvest, 3D printers that supply spare parts and traffic control robots. According to de Bastion, many young people in African countries took the opportunity to innovate so that they no longer have to be petitioners in their own countries. Jan 25, 2019 – SWR2, Geraldine de Bastion: Emanzipation durch Technik im Afrika 4.0 | [Engl: Emancipation through technology, Africa 4.0] | Download audio (4,43 MB | mp3 | German) ...
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CryptoParty in Brazil

CryptoParty in Brazil

CriptoAxé, a CryptoParty event aimed to strengthen the security community of Bahia State in Brazil. It was an effort to unite diverse people, collectives and organizations already involved in the dissemination of the debate about the importance of privacy and the tools of online security and cryptography. An event open to the public, with workshops and lectures for all audiences and where the spirit of sharing, solidarity and respect prevailed, so that all people, regardless of gender, class, ethnicity or religion were welcome. The event took place at Raul Hacker Club, on December 8th (Saturday), from 9am to 8pm. At the end, everyone was invited to join the end(less) party.  ...
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GOSH, GIG!

GOSH, GIG!

Anna, Saad, Alex, and Jorge joined this year's edition of the Gathering for Open Science Hardware in Shenzhen. China's booming hardware city was the perfect place for workshops, fruitful discussions and foundation of new collaborations from people all around the globe. Saad and Alex hosted a workshop about microbial fuel cells and discussed with the community how this technology can be further advanced in future. Anna hosted a session on distributed manufacturing and is part of a team documenting open hardware business models - she would love to hear from any GIGgers with suggestions of ones to look at. Jorge (who arrived late so missed the photo, therefore was photoshopped in) was leading discussions on AfricaOSH which will move from Kumasi to Tanzania for next year. We think that GOSH’s aims of making Science Hardware open and accessible to all are very complementary to the GIG ideals; would you agree? One of many highlights for me at #GOSH2018 building particle detectors...
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