Marina Henriques, Innovation Consultant. (Original publication in Spanish)

Do you have time to read this article? Perhaps you'll skim it, but you might also find yourself in a moment of deep reflection, where you even take the time to click on the links in the article (thank you!).

Last June, the La Prairie du Canal farm in La Sauge hosted the Ouishare Festival, an intellectual and artistic event with a spirit of coexistence. Ouishare is an international network of professionals defined by five values: collaboration, transparency, dedication, do-cracy, and continuous growth. 

As a warm-up for this year’s edition, Ouishare hosted a series of conversations between key players in the system. In Intervalle #8, the founder of Ideas for Change and president of Ouishare Spain, Javi Creus, explored with Marina Gorbis, executive director of the Institute for the Future, the need to shift from social innovation to social infrastructures. 

The festival consisted of three days with different objectives:

DAY 1: Orient

“Growth dictates our political, economic, and technological decisions. We need to do more, faster, in the name of infinite progress. And yet, this acceleration is clearly incompatible with planetary balance.”

– Ouishare

Doughnut Economics, the only donut good for health

Kate Raworth, renegade economist and author of Doughnut Economics, showed examples of city projects that are regenerative (aligned with the cycles of the living world and at the core of them) and distributed (sharing co-created opportunities) by design. In terms of organizations, five design traits should be considered: purpose, networks, governance, ownership, and funding. Following these ideas, transformation occurs in disruptive times. 

Can tourism be regenerative?

New ways of traveling are being developed. The  BCN Green Deal redefines the tourist concept as “short-stay residents.” Recent graffiti in the streets of Barcelona demonstrate that by just changing a word or concept, host communities see things from a different perspective. One example is Night Trotters, a movement led by Faouzi Derbouz which organizes long night walks to fight against crime, drug addiction, and precarious living conditions. 

Another example is Barris que Molen, a project led by Ideas for Change, with the support of the Barcelona City Council and Barcelona Activa. The aim of this initiative is to promote the regeneration of the Sant Andreu district through participatory tourism, impacting the local economy to anticipate the opportunities of the new visitor economy and tackle its challenges in a coordinated manner. 

As part of the project team at Ideas for Change, I presented how Paris and its surroundings can anticipate the influx of visitors they will receive for the 2024 Olympic Games, using the regenerative project Barris que Molen as an example. To do this, three key principles must be considered: design from the future, think in systems, and leverage the capabilities of citizens. 

DAY 2: Organize

"Long-term thinking is based on collaboration. Citizens, businesses, associations, states: everyone has a role to play to achieve more supportive and sustainable political and economic systems."

– Ouishare

What kind of ancestors do we want to be?

If history is a good teacher, what do we want to teach? was the title that Roman Krznaric, writer and public philosopher, chose for his opening speech. His latest book, The Good Ancestor: How to Think Long Term in a Short-Term World, explores six ways to widen our time horizons toward the coming decades and centuries, addressing our most urgent challenges, from the climate crisis to the threats of new technologies.

Harnessing the power of data for citizen participation 

Under what conditions would you share your data for health research? This was the initial question we posed when conducting the workshop for Salus.coop. 

SalusCoop is a non-profit citizen data cooperative for health research. The Salus Common Good license was jointly designed with citizens and allows for the donation of data for research purposes, as long as it meets the following five conditions (i) for its use in health research (ii) by non-profit institutions (iii) that openly share the results of their research (iv) anonymizing the data to the highest possible level (v) until the data donor withdraws their permission. 

In the workshop led by Ideas for Change, participants learned about the power of collective data for the common good, and explored their conditions for sharing it through a participatory methodology.

DAY 3: Act!

"Investing for the long term means changing our ways of acting. Leaving behind a dualistic vision that places Man and Reason at the centre to embrace ecology in depth and reconnect with ourselves, with others, and with the world."

– Ouishare

Combining plant, human, and artificial intelligence 

Forms of intelligence? We need them all! is a must-read for everyone. Javi Creus describes intelligence as a system that combines the resilience of plants, human judgment, and artificial potential. 

As Javi mentions in his article, adaptive intelligence is not linear: it is cyclical, circular. If we want to continue on this planet, plant intelligence can help us design a living structure that is distributed, decentralized, interconnected, and regenerative. 

We must also utilize human intelligence: our sensitivity, empathy, ability to formulate new questions, share fantasies, improvise, and disobey. But if we combine the above with personal repositories, distributed algorithms, and edge computing, we will move at machine speed. 

A new vision of intelligence allows us to channel the power of sensors, connectivity, and data to improve the conditions and opportunities for life on Earth, asserts Javi. Citizens are key agents in advancing our climate and social action agenda.

Activism in a polarized world

After lunch, there was a roundtable discussion with three futurists: organizer and Fridays For Future activist Janine O'Keefe, the independent candidate for the upcoming German federal elections Lu Yen Roloff, and Naresh Giangrande, co-founder of Transition Town Totnes.

“We need politicians who are humble enough to believe in citizens,” said Janine O’Keefe. “Leadership today is having the courage to acknowledge the old system that lives within us,” supported Naresh Giangrande. But the question is: how can we cultivate a more mindful form of activism and move beyond polarization? Contemplation, self-care, love, anger, humor, and celebration, politics and activism are omnipresent. 

A regenerative experience

I believe that gathering and sharing thoughts and ideas in person, after a year and a half of abrupt remote work, is a necessity. Now combine this with local food, music, dance, and meditation. That is the Ouishare Fest.

As Roman Krznaric says, we all have the opportunity to become good ancestors and create a better future. So, what are you waiting for? Act now, time is running out!

Thank you Ouishare!