From November 5th to the 23rd, 2018, Sensorica and Ouishare organised eco2FEST 2018, an open space and unconference where we engaged the Montreal South-West population in discussions and workshops about the social and collaborative economy.
A significant number of local organisations that engage in socio, economic and cultural development contributed to the eco2FEST experience and manifested their interest in future collaboration. We also engaged governmental organisations in general discussions about the collaborative economy.
eco2FEST space, Verdun, Qc., November 5th to 23rd, 201
We plan to publish a comprehensive report about eco2FEST during the month of April 2019, in collaboration with Jeremy Diaz, a researcher at UQAM University. Our preliminary conclusions show that Verdun consists of a vibrant community with an informal network of coops and non-profit organizations that collaborate to improve the well-being of local citizens. Their activities span from awareness-building and education programs through to those that strengthen social cohesion and mutual support, to urban agriculture, fair commerce and cultural events. The civil society in Verdun is in development mode, and is still far from the stage of emancipation and refinement seen in Le Plateau, Montreal - the epicenter of the social economy in Quebec. Although the Verdun borough pays a lot of attention to these local social development initiatives, resources are very scarce. We maintain that local coops, nonprofits and independent individuals can do a lot more with the little they already have by mutualizing resources and collaborating better through formal relationships, prescribed by collaborative economy models.
The three-week-long eco2FEST event gave local organisations opportunities to know each other and strengthen their bonds. A few months later, some of them are still meeting on a regular basis and planning for a better future in the Montreal South-West neighbourhood.
For enthusiasts of open collaboration, open networks and communities, open source development, open science and innovation
Wednesday October 9th, 5:30pm to 8pm, in Verdun (Caffe le 5eme).
An open forum, sharing experiences in open networks and communities, defining the Fourth Sector together, identifying achievements and roadblocks. Canada's Justice Minister helped us identify a path towards recognition and legitimization of the Fourth Sector.
Many of us have had some experience with open networks and communities. Some of these experiences have probably been frustrating. Ask yourself if some of the frustration came from the fact that these new types of organisations aren't well understood, recognized and legitimized. Ask yourself what would be the situation if your work in open networks and communities can give you access to social benefits, if there were budgets allocated to open networks and communities.
Guided by Shamengo, a group of innovation managers from some of the largest companies in France, who came to Montreal for the Monin'On conference (organized by Michelin), were also interested in exotic innovation and business models. They asked Sensoricans to present their work. Tibi answered the call and gathered everyone at a local restaurant. The discussion started by observing the new trends of shifting towards a network state of organization, as traditional vertical organizations are breaking down into a complex ecosystem of subsidiaries and supply networks on one side, and the crowd, individuals, get organized into global networks like Bitcoin, on the other side. Then, Sensorica and its innovation and production model were presented, followed by a long question and answers period.
As expected, Sensorica's innovation model was found fascinating, those in the room seemed perplexed, as everyone of us did when we first learned about Wikipedia and its open, crowdsourcing-based content production model. Open network organizations, open innovation and peer production still have this magic aura around them. People don't understand how they are even possible, so they're mesmerized but at the same time paralyzed, not knowing how to play with it.
Our session session: Transitioning to a responsible organization
This session will hear about real world examples of how companies have transitioned to responsible organizations by focusing on different business models, re-engineering their value chain, redirecting inside out and outside in linkages, highlighting new technologies and other kinds of innovation, fostering future of work practices, and building new bridges of collaboration with peers, partners and civil society. The session will include speakers from diverse sectors who will share deep insights into the topic, shedding light on their own experiences and perspectives. It will help the audience to grasp what are the real requisites of the change towards responsibility as demonstrated through practical cases.
Tibi, Maria and Fabio presented Open Science Practices at the CSPC2017.
Our Panel description
Canada hosts some of the most ambitious pilot projects in open science and open innovation. The problem is that all these initiatives are poorly known and understood, especially those that did not emerge within traditional institutions, which are in fact the most disruptive ones. In this Case Study panel we discuss a few special open science projects that have originated within open innovation networks, and have been conducted in collaboration with forward-looking academic labs. The panelists will present the methodologies, the infrastructure for collaboration and the governance that have been employed, the resulting benefits, and will analyse some of the problems encountered. These cases constitute a great example of how academia can interface with open networks and communities.
Online communities and networks have become environments buzzing with scientific and technological activities. It is nowadays normal for a graduate student to work in a lab by day and contribute to online communities by night, or spend their evenings in open innovation spaces such as fablabs, makerspaces, and hackerspaces. It is also not a secret any more that students turn to their online peers for technical questions and advice, rather than to their lab colleagues and professors. The most prolific students are those who maintain complex relationships outside of the immediate academic circle. The boundaries of academia are becoming very fuzzy, but there is very little effort to formalize these exchanges between academic labs and online communities/networks, and open innovation spaces.
The cases that will be presented and discussed during this panel will show how interfaces between academia and open innovation communities/networks accelerate scientific discovery and technological transfer. By presenting and discussing these cases we hope to stimulate other labs to experiment with relations with open innovation networks. At a higher level, we also hope to influence Universities to put in place pilot programs to begin formalizing these kind of relations. SENSORICA affiliates can work with different academic players to transfer their knowledge and know how.
During the first part of the session, Guy Rouleau (Chair of the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, McGill University) spoke about MNI and their bold action to move to open science. The open science concept in the first part was presented as a more open collaboration between academia and the private sector, where no patents were pursued. This is the institutional view of open science, a more top down approach, supposing that scientific development comes from academia and the private sector puts new scientific knowledge into practice. A representative of the multinational pharmaceutical Merck was part of this first panel, testifying why large companies are interested in open science and open innovation. In essence, for rare medical conditions that don't represent a large market, Merck is happy to work in an open way to reduce the costs of treatment development, while hoping to monetize the solution.
During our part, we extended the definition of open science beyond open publication and the creation of commons and of open source technologies. These concepts are captured in a presentation that we made for MNI in 2016. We also approached the question from a practical perspective, presenting Breathing Games and some of the SENSORICA's past projects. But most importantly, we established the existence and the importance of open networks (the crowd/people) as new socioeconomic agents with a very important role in science and innovation, proposing private-public-people partnerships. We introduced the button up view, advocating for a better interface between the crowd (open networks) and the public and private sectors.
Name of the event: ''Matrioshka hub de mobilite''LEAD: Pamela, with Tibi (facilittor)In collaboration with OuiShare Montreal and Matrioshka DATE: 12 to 13 August, from 9:30am to 5:30pm
L’activité a eu pour but de faciliter la création dans un mode d’apprentissage actif. Nous avons mis en place une expérience de création à partir d’une approche Ecodesign reliée à la mobilité. Le but de l’activité a été d’ecoconcevoir de nouveaux usages et fonctionnalités du mobilier urbain Matrioshka, dans différentes scénarios de mobilité à Montréal. Nous avons utilisé des concepts reliés à l’écologie du paysage, aux technologies durables et à la mobilité en réseau en utilisant la Matrioshka. Des citoyennes et quelques expertes en mobilité ont participé à l'activité.
