Village Innovation Talks Begins!

St.Martin, Siegendorf, Kirchbach, Bittelbronn, Odernheim,Witzenhausen - On the 16th of December 2011 they will start the first "Village Innovation Talk": Six innovative villages from Germany and Austria are connecting via Videobridging and they will openly exchange innovative approaches in various domains of village life..

In a relaxed pre-Christmas mood in local meeting places groups with something to say will come together. By projector, screen and sound, the groups will converse with each other. The aim of the Village Innovation Talks is for village innovators to dialogue, and learn from each other, to define new projects, and to get peer to peer support for them.

"The mayor in an Amazonian area and a mayor from this round would have a lot to relate to each other. They might have to act under totally different conditions, but their aims – like fighting the flight to the cities, the creation of apt infrastructure, be it of energy, communication or entertainment are similar," states Klaus Stoll, Managing Director of GKPF (Global Knowledge Partnership Foundation), who are sponsoring the first Talk. The GKPF seeks to explore new ways and chances for sustainable development through the Village Innovation Talks.. They look to bring people from the Global North and Global South to create something new together.

The participants in this first round of talks all have successful experiences to present in the areas of energy, broadband, culture and education.

• Bittelbronn, with 580 villagers in Zollernalbkreis, has founded a cooperative to supply the locality with heating from renewable sources.
• Also in the energy sector Odernheim has plans underway for a wind turbine park. In addition, the activities of the "Odernheim Future Viability Group" and "Galerie-Jung", are targeting young entrepreneurs in creativity and future oriented fields to widen the scope of cultural offers.
• Witzenhausen in Hesse, Räderwerk e.V. is raising awareness of connections between culture and work with small businesses, institutions and individuals on an old industrial site.
• Dream Academia on the German-Hungarian border is the first „center for dream development“ and invites folks to implement and actualize their dreams across boundaries.
• St.Martin in Waldviertel has created really concretely a fiber optic IT infrastructure that even surpasses the urban infrastructure.
• Kirchbach in Steiermark has brought the university into the village via Videobridging.

Adobe Connect will be used as a technical solution as the video bridging software. In that system, only one computer connected to the Internet, with a webcam and browser is required. Start time is 16.00 o'clock End time is 19.30 o'clock. Further Info

• Germany: Dagmar Eisenbach dagmar.eisenbach (AT) ideawerk.de
• Austria: Franz Nahrada f.nahrada(AT)reflex.at
• more Background VillageInnovationSummit
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=172593001758&v=wall

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