‘Creative Cities: Innovation for Urban Challenges’ is the new title for the workshops due to take place in Warsaw, 21 - 23 March 2010

Purposes

The purpose of the event is to help:

• Create an elite flight-school of emerging urban entrepreneurs;
• Develop the management and delivery skills of new social businesses and producers of urban projects in Europe and South East Asia;
• Leverage best practice on behalf of the Creative Cities programme.

The event  gives supports  to the diversity of social entrepreneurs now active in this sector, provides these people with a programme that is:

• an empowering experience;
• offers practical advice that can inform their successful implementation of projects and businesses in the future;
• bank a ‘stock’ resource of best practice that can be referred to and replenished after the event;
• Inspirational best practice thought and examples from global urban innovation;
• new skills in project design and delivery, with special attention to the narrative, scalability, orchestration and choreography, business planning, marketing, phasing and achieving user-goals;
• a moment that will identify as a critical turning point in their career/life-plan.

The event is organized   as a garage or surgery for the design and delivery of urban social businesses and projects.

Participants

The workshops  are for members of the growing class of governmental, Third sector, voluntary and ‘culture-preneurs’ who are committed to innovative social enterprise in our towns and cities – but the event will prioritise, in descending order:

• Local government officers;
• Social entrepreneurs;
• Civic activists;
• Cultural entrepreneurs;
• Urbanists/members of think-tanks or policy bodies.

For the event to be as effective as possible, we’ve drawn up an optimum profile of prospective participants:

They are:

• 20-35 year-olds who are improving the society of the places in which they live and work;
• pioneering new ideas - products, services and models - that fulfil unmet social needs;
• leading a new service, initiative or organisation, or a new approach to the organisation and delivery of services;
• producing goods and services for a market economy but manage their operations and redirect their surpluses in pursuit of social / community goals;
• they work in all sectors of the market, perhaps innovating transport systems to health provision, improving the appearance and use of cities, supporting children's services, providing skills training and support for the unemployed, exploiting the social value of technology, running a drop-in centre, providing food or services to the poor or under-privileged, or committed to enabling the cohesion of new and established communities;
• their determination is social, but their media may be cultural: in other words, they may be acting as culturepreneurs, either broking alliances between public institutions, private corporations and the media or exploiting the commercial, as well as pro-social potential of a cultural passion - by running a record, book, fashion or food shop or market.

They

• work in local government;
• run their own businesses, enterprises or projects;
• are active citizens or citizen activists;
• see themselves as entrepreneurs;
• are not in the process of starting up a venture or in the business of offering consultancy services to enterprises but are leading enterprises in their own right (their enterprises are beyond their first year of trading);
• entrepreneurs can  bring to the event not just naked enthusiasm for their product or service but also challenges that they wish to overcome in the effective management and growth of their venture.  

Their enterprise:

• is making a real difference to the well-being, social, economic and cultural life of their community;
• is inspirational and life-enhancing to them;
• has been recognised as a valuable asset by their community, market, agencies and organisations in their geographic area or area of work;
• may be challenged by issues often faced by enterprises that they would like to share, such as lack of finance, insecure market demand, organization of staff, scalability of the original concept, forward planning and growth.

Structure

Overall structure

The event is to be:

• framed by three keynote presentations;
• phased around four key themes: Design, Profit, Management, Sustainability;
• break participants down to three groups;

Themes

The four key themes mirror the four key challenges to success that people creating and running social enterprises face:

• How to design an effective project or business;
• How to make it profitable;
• How to effectively plan and manage the enterprise;
• How to make it long-lasting.

Under the umbrella of these four themes of Design, Profitability, Management and Sustainability, the programme can engage with the diversity of opportunities and challenges such enterprises face, such as business planning, marketing, management, market-definition and growth.

Three Groups

It is proposed that participants are broken in to three groups:

• Group A: Those who need an introduction to key skills (Masterclass);
• Group B: Those who have projects or businesses that need to be developed (Group sessions);
• Group C: Those who have projects or businesses in need of ‘repair’ (Repair team).

The programme of activity for Group A will centre around a masterclass led by an expert practitioner.

The programme of activity for Group B will centre around the case-study of a project and group discussion and resolution of challenges to the growth of their enterprise.

Group C will act as a strike force of key figures from enterprises who have contributed to the Creative Cities programme. They will lend their advice and expertise to local enterprises, either as ‘drop-ins’ to the event or through external visits.

Programme

The entire event will break down in to eleven sessions of activity, roughly 90mins each, across the two and a half days with cross-overs and interaction at different moments in the schedule.

Registration

In order to participate in the event you need to fill out the registration form and send it via email to katarzyna.naszarkowska@britishcouncil.pl before 22 February 2010.

British Council will cover all the expenses related to participating in the workshops ‘Creative Cities: Innovation for Urban Challenges’.

More detailed information you can see on the international Creative Cities page.