Joint purpose driven co-creation camp for the city of Cluj in Romania.

The 27-28^th October I had the opportunity to mingle and share knowledge, best practices and my humble opinion together with our Chair – Fernando Vilarino – on the Cluj Innovation Camp 2018. By using the Innovation Camp methodology, promoted by Hank Kune, Bror Salmelin and others in a two days long sprint we answered three challenges presented by the city of Cluj: Education for the Future of Work (1); Impact Romania (2) and Innovation Cluj–Napoca Manifesto (3).

Personally, being engaged in group1 I was impressed by the stakeholders present on a weekend(!) to give their most in becoming the change makers, enablers with the goal to provide space to non-conventional educational programmes which better fit the future job market needs. Participants included: Former Minister of Education; Educational Inspector; Pro-Dean; Pro-Rector; Professors; Entrepreneurs; Civil servants from the city hall, young professionals and more. Discussion and ideation topics included inclusive societies, dual education system, the 7 habits of highly efficient people in a college context, transparency in crowdfunding by using blockchain methodology, educational law, non-formal bottom up initiatives, young teachers, coaching by companies, purpose driven value co-creation and others.

After the two days sprint the groups presented their prototypes calling for action, which points were directly taken by the Mayor of Cluj-Napoca Mr Emil Boc.

Having a member of ours – Transilvania Living Lab – in the heart of this eager ecosystem, we are keen on supporting by matchmaking and sharing knowledge on a pan-European and transnational level.

Please read Mr Emil Boc’s post right after the Innovation Camp took place:

“I had the pleasure of addressing the participants about the innovation dimension of Cluj and participating in the presentation of the solutions resulting from the innovation camp.

The model tested at the European Open Innovation 2.0 conference hosted in Cluj last year was replicated in the second edition of the innovation camp, held this weekend by cluster Aries Transylvania, with the city’s financial support.

More than 50 participants from the 4 components of ” Quadruple Helix ” (Public Administration, academic environment, business environment and NGOs) analysed “3 challenges”. These are extremely important for the direction in which our city should develop over the next few years, to remain a community with a high quality of life and potential for real development.

Experts from countries such as Finland, France, the Netherlands, Hungary, Bulgaria, the United States and the republic of Moldova have provided proposals for projects and processes that give short, medium and long-term solutions to these problems.

The challenge proposed by the municipality was “the future of education in the context of the challenge of the future in terms of labour market needs”. Groups sought and offered proposals to develop integrated systems that would accelerate this potential for innovation at regional level, which international experts identified in Cluj-Napoca.

I have benefited from the presence of Mr Daniel Funeriu, former minister of education, the president of the European Network of Living Labs, Mr Fernando Vilariño, of European Commission consultants on open innovation and digitisation issues, and many experts in seemingly non-linked areas, but extremely synergistic with the ability to co-create solutions for the complicated future.”

Mr Emil Boc – closing of Cluj Innovation Camp

Post by Zsuzsanna Bodi – Association Director