PICNIC 09 – Amsterdam

What are the great breakthroughs that will change our lives in the coming decade? Will they improve our economy, deal with the environment and make our lives more livable? What are the alternative urban, social, digital, scenarios for our future?
PICNIC ’09 tackled all this and more.
If you have missed this truly unique three-day event, go to:
http://www.picnicnetwork.org/search/5905/en

The Digital City in the Next Five Years –Report

Cap Digital’s main event within the International Futur en Seine Festival “The Digital City in the Next Five Years” (5-6 June 2009) brought together international guests (senior politicians and political advisors, urban planners, thinkers, digital creatives, designers, business, research) and their Paris City/Region equivalents to collaborate in discussing and designing the new paradigm of the digital city. Here is the link to downloading a comprehensive report about the event written by Andrew Bullen (Organiser of the International Programme for Futur en Seine).

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Perth – A Cultural Map

Here is a short extract of an excellent 60-minute film produced by Juliet Rees as part of the identity mapping exercise conducted by the Noema team in Perth (Scotland) this year. Through interviews, group discussion and visual diaries, the film captures the impressions, perceptions and aspirations of the people of Perth today. For more information, please see the link Perth Cultural Plan on the Noema Current Projects page.

Costa Rica tops ‘Happy Planet Index’

Can you measure the happiness of the planet?

The second global ranking of the ecological efficiency with which the world's nations deliver long and happy lives for the people who live there - the 'Happy Planet Index' - confirms a surprising picture of the relative wealth and progress of nations.
The report, The Happy Planet Index 2.0: Why good lives don't have to cost the earth, published by nef (new economics foundation) at the beginning of July, presents the results of the second global compilation of the Happy Planet Index (HPI).

The new HPI is based on improved data for 143 countries from around the world, representing 99 per cent of the world's population. The report shows that globally we are still far from achieving good lives within the Earth's finite resource limits. Latin America tops the HPI with Costa Rica as the 'greenest and happiest' country. Nine of the ten highest-scoring nations are Latin American, while the USA, China and India were all 'greener and happier' twenty years ago than they are today. By the way, the same index ranks the UK as 74th. A lot still to do?

World Future Digital Cities @ Futur en Seine 2009

Here is a short video report by Frank Kresin of Waag (http://www.waag.org/) of the prototype and scenario building work developed during the Digital City event in Paris.
More soon.

The International “Futur en Seine” Festival

Futur en Seine is a Festival of the Digital city, a unique cultural, technological and social event taking place between the 29th of May and the 7th of June across Paris and Ile de France region. For ten days, participants will be able to see, touch and interact with innovative technologies and applications, which will be part of daily life in the digital city of the future.

Futur en Seine also presents a pioneering international programme of debates and conferences about the state of cities and digital democracy. On the 5th and 6th of June Lia Ghilardi will be presenting Noema's more recent cultural and urban mapping projects at The Digital City in the Next Five Years Conference.

For the latest updates on the event see: http://www.futur-en-seine.org/en/world-future-digital-city/index.php

Testing the benefits of Cultural Planning

Fablevision and the University of Strathclyde have, over the last three years, delivered a CPD course in Cultural Planning methodology aimed at public, private and voluntary sector practitioners. The report compiled by FairPley on behalf of the National Cultural Planning Forum contains an evaluation of both the course and the projects developed in Scotland using the Cultural Planning approach.

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