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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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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Get creative with the internet...

This weeks Time magazine business story has some tips for all creatives out there.

They say we are in the midst of a "start up boom" and suggest that there has been no better time than now to start an internet business with only a little seed money. Coining a term, LILO, which stands for "little in, a lot out," they note a new start up model which embodies the innovation principle of fast prototyping. Unlike the dotcom standard of creating an exhaustive business plan to attract investor dollars, the LILO model is that of putting your energy and effort into a quick-start on a shoestring...then thinking about the business plan later.

The Time story offers a 5-point How To guide from Silicon Valley start up expert Paul Graham:
1. Collaboration is king - find partners with skills and talents that complement yours.
2. Look for what's missing or broken in the marketplace - what people will pay for is a solution to a problem.
3. Follow the "fail fast" philosophy - get going quickly, simply and cheaply so you can see what works and what doesn't.
4. Respond/react/revise immediately in response to customers.
5. Be cheap. (Just as well!)

The Helsingborg + Competition

In 2008, the municipality of Helsingborg in the South of Sweden launched a competition for proposals about the regeneration of a large former industrial district in the South of the city. The process adopted for the selection of the winning teams was unique in that it involved the setting up of an Expert Group which worked over the past six months with Helsingborg's key stakeholders to evaluate 5 proposals by different teams.

The Expert Group featured, among others, experts in the public realm (Gehl Architects) and cultural planning (Noema Research and Planning). On the 18th of March the Expert Group delivered their report to the Jury and a decision will be made over the next few weeks.

This 'Open Source' innovative approach to planning is an excellent example of how by drawing on the expertise of professionals from various disciplines civic leaders can deliver quality of life, distinctiveness, sustainability and competitiveness for their cities.
For more information on this ongoing process, contact Hakan Asmoarp, or Kristoffer Nilsson at Helsingborg's Planning Department.

Forum for Creative Europe

On Thursday 26 March the Forum for Creative Europe will take place in Prague. Organized by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic in collaboration with European Commission, the conference is one of the main events of the European Year of Creativity and Innovation 2009. With over 50 speakers, artists, policy makers and practitioners from Europe and outside the Forum will be an opportunity to make the case for creativity in a world in turmoil.
Lia Ghilardi will be among the speakers and in her presentation she will discuss how cities can be more creative in the way they deal with competitiveness by focusing on their unique DNA defined across urban, social, human and cultural capital.

To follow the Forum live please go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J526Q-Wczbc
www.forumforcreativeeurope.cz/en