Sep21

Press Release – Launching Dialogue Cafe Amsterdam 0 Reply

LAUNCHING DIALOGUE CAFE AT WAAG SOCIETY IN AMSTERDAM
Inviting organisations in Amsterdam to take part in this groundbreaking project and collaborate with organisations in Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro.

AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS – September, 21, 2010 – The Dialogue Café Association is excited to announce the launch of its third Dialogue Café at Waag Society in Amsterdam on 21st September 2010.

Dialogue Café is a non-profit initiative, which uses state of the art video conferencing technology to enable face-to-face conversations between diverse groups of people from around the world so that they can share experiences, learn from each other and work together to make the world a better place.

Waag Society develops creative technology for social innovation. The foundation researches, develops concepts, pilots and prototypes and acts as an intermediate between the arts, science and the media. Waag Society cooperates with cultural, public and private parties. Waag Society is housed in two historic monuments in Amsterdam, de Waag and Pakhuis de Zwijger. Dialogue Café Amsterdam will be based at de Waag.

Dialogue Café Chairman, Diogo Vasconcelos: We are thrilled to open Dialogue Café in the city centre of Amsterdam, with Waag Society, a vibrant forward-looking organization. Amsterdam now has a global platform that embodies the new nature of innovation: open, collaborative, global. The opportunities are unlimited. With Dialogue Café, Amsterdam is, more than ever, a global meeting point.

For the launch, we’ll be connecting the three Dialogue Cafés in Lisbon, Amsterdam and Rio de Janeiro to Cisco offices in Sao Paulo, Warsaw, New York and Oslo for a round-table discussion. For this occasion we will be joined by President Jorge Sampaio, High Representative to the UN Alliance of Civilisations, Marleen Stikker of Waag Society, Barbara Coutinho, Director of MUDE, Katia de Marco, Director ABGC, Prof. Jose Santos from INSEAD, Prof. Miroslaw Miller from the University of Wroclaw, Barbara Stutz from the HUB Sao Paulo, Bente Erichsen from the Nobel Peace Centre in Oslo, Pedro Veiga, Chairman of the FCCN and others.

Facts/Highlights:

•    With support from the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations, Cisco, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, the Anna Lindh Foundation and others, the Dialogue Café Association is creating a global network of physical spaces – Dialogue Cafés. Dialogue Cafés will provide access to state of the art video conferencing technology. to enable city-to-city and multi-city conversations and activities.
•    All of the Dialogue Cafés will be connected through a global technology platform to enable city-to-city and multi-city conversations and activities. Dialogue Cafés will provide a space for informal conversations as well as more structured multi-city activities such as workshops, seminars, conferences, concerts and lectures.
•    Dialogue Café results from the simple idea that people have many things in common and given the opportunity, they will explore their common interests, sparking collaborations and stimulating ideas that address the major issues of today.
•    Dialogue Café believes that these kinds of conversations and collaborations can lead to new ways of thinking and doing: they can empower individuals and communities, break down prejudice and misconceptions and promote greater understanding and co-operation across cultures.
•    Dialogue Café is created for individuals and organizations with a social, environmental, educational or cultural mission – such as foundations, civil society organizations, community groups, universities, schools, social enterprises, public sector bodies and agencies.
•    There are now three Dialogue Cafés open – in Rio de Janeiro at the Candido Mendes University (UCAM), in Lisbon at the Museum of Fashion and Design (MUDE) and in Amsterdam at the Waag Society. Soon, Dialogue Cafés will be opened in Sao Paulo, Mexico City, Oslo, Wroclaw, London, Florence, Ramallah and Tel Aviv. By the end of 2011, we will have between 10 and 15 Dialogue Cafés open.
•    Each Dialogue Café is managed by a local partner who oversees the day to day management of the Dialogue Café, including programming of events and activities, outreach to engage a wide variety of users and ensuring the financial sustainability of the Dialogue Café.
•    It is very easy to get involved in Dialogue Café. Users have to book the facility in advance. To do this, people should get in touch with their local Dialogue Café manager who can book a session and link up the Dialogue Cafés. So, all users have to do is turn up to their local Dialogue Café (e.g. Lisbon) and get their friends or colleagues to go their local Dialogue Café (e.g. Amsterdam).
•    Dialogue Cafés are spaces for innovation and creativity – with a particular focus on cross-cultural dialogue, social innovation, civic participation and arts, creativity and culture. The following examples illustrate the range and variety of activities that will be enabled by Dialogue Café as the network grows and develops around the world:

– Young people in Istanbul, London and Toronto sharing stories about their heritage.
– Women from Cairo, Doha and Amsterdam discussing the role of education and employment in empowering women.
– Multi-city conferences and events on topics such as climate change, creativity and innovation, ageing and social exclusion connecting London, New York, Amsterdam, Florence, Doha and Ramallah.
– Joint projects linking schools in Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro, and Seoul and San Francisco.
– Social entrepreneurs from Cairo, Tel Aviv and Toronto talking about potential commercial collaborations.
– Simultaneous theatre workshops run in Rio de Janeiro, New York and San Francisco.
– Concerts from Rio de Janeiro live to London, Lisbon, Amsterdam, Florence and New York.
– Health practitioners in Ramallah, London and Toronto carrying out joint consultations and training.

Supporting resources:

Marleen Stikker, Director, Waag Society

We are absolutely delighted to be opening Dialogue Café Amsterdam at Waag Society. For Waag Society, this participation marks a continuation of our longstanding tradition of openness and experimentation, of exploring new ways of using technology to tackle today’s most pressing challenges. Through Dialogue Café, we will provide a space for global conversations on global issues that matter.

For more information on Dialogue Café visit www.dialoguecafe.org

•    Waag Society: http://www.waag.org/
•    MUDE: http://www.mude.pt/
•    UCAM: http://www.ucam.edu.br/
•    Cisco: http://www.cisco.com/
•    United Nations’ Alliance of Civilization: http://www.unaoc.org/
•    Anna Lindh Foundation: www.euromedalex.org
•    Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation: http://www.gulbenkian.org.uk/

Contact information
Dialogue Café Association, Julie Caulier-Grice,
+ 44 7825 587 544 |
julie@dialoguecafe.org

210910 Press Release Amsterdam.pdf

Tags: Amsterdam, Waag Society

Sep21

Message from Professor Candido Mendes 0 Reply

MESSAGE FROM PROFESSOR CANDIDO MENDES

Dear President Jorge Sampaio, High Representative of the Alliance of Civilizations, Ms. Marleen Stikker, Director of the Waag Society of Amsterdam, Ms. Barbara Coutinho, Director of the MUDE in Lisbon, Diogo Vasconcelos, Sara Piteira and Julie Caulier-Grice from the Dialogue Café headquarters in London. Katia de Marco, my dear representative at Dialogue Café in Rio de Janeiro.

Although I cannot join you and attend this magnificent event due to a trip to Paris and Brussels for a series of workshops and meetings this week, I could not go without conveying to you how happy I am with the launch of a Dialogue Café in Amsterdam, as a result of your untiring efforts to expand this remarkable initiative to as many cities in the world as your creative minds and amazing energy allow you to.

This Dutch link to the Dialogue Café network – especially considering the relevant interdisciplinary work developed by our new partners in the Netherlands, the Waag Society – represents a landmark in the development of the DC mandate of linking different parts of the world, by means of state-of-the-art technology, in one single, cohesive – but not homogeneous – community. This new addition will allow us a big step further in the process of incrementing the cross-cultural debate of ideas advocated in the guiding principles of the United Nations’ Alliance of Civilizations.

In a world that is now moving fast from a hegemonic to a pluralistic, multicultural perspective, bringing together not only different schools of thought but the very essences of the distinct national repertoires, the Dialogue Café initiative is an extraordinary tool to promote and enrich this systematic conversation and exchange of insights among the individual actors – scholars, artists, social and cultural innovators, politicians, students, representatives of the civil society and persons from all walks of life, for that matter – that reach out to have their ideas and projects heard by their counterparts across the globe. This is no minor achievement!

To our new partner, Ms. Marleen Stikker, my warmest congratulations and best wishes in this new venture. I am sure that the interactions between the DC’s in Amsterdam and Rio will be most inspiring and beneficial for both parties.

With the testimony of my admiration, recognition and friendship to all of you.

Candido Mendes

Tags: Amsterdam, Candido Mendes

Sep20

PICNIC Afternoons @ Dialogue Cafe 0 Reply

Between Wednesday 22nd and Friday 24th September, Dialogue Cafe will be hosting a series of conversations as part of the 2010 PICNIC programme.

The events will take place
each day at Dialogue Cafes in Amsterdam, Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro from 5.30pm until 7.00pm (CET). These events will involve innovators, researchers, entrepreneurs and thought-leaders and will focus on three themes: Re-designing Life, Re-designing the World Around Us and Re-designing Design.

RE-DESIGNING LIFE
Wednesday 22nd September 5.30pm – 7.00pm
As we are increasingly able to manipulate the building blocks of life and the (living) world around us, the possibilities seem endless: prolonging and enhancing human life with improved healthcare, implanting nano- chips in our brains to boost human intelligence, creating smart materials for more sustainable use, improving food crops and developing sustainable energy sources. But what are the ethical and moral implications of these developments? How does it change our role as human beings in the greater order of things?

Speakers: Rachel Armstrong (Amsterdam) Miguel Neiva (Lisbon) Daniela Pais (Lisbon)

Moderator: Lucas Evers, Waag Society (Amsterdam)

RE-DESIGNING THE WORLD AROUND US
Thursday 23rd September 5.30pm – 7.00pm
Our domestic environment as well as the cities we live in is going to huge change due to fast technological developments. We start to live in smart cities and smart houses, networked with the rest of the world. Our notion of the quality of cities not only depends on the endowment of hard infrastructure (‘physical capital’), but increasingly on the availability and quality of knowledge, communication and social infrastructure, made accessible true technology. (‘intellectual and social capital’). What future scenario’s can we expect? What will or can be the impact on economical, social or environmental issue. What is the ideal design of the world around us?

Speakers: Matthias Hollwich (Amsterdam) Helder Coelho (Lisbon) Luis Correia (Lisbon) Artur Arsénio (Lisbon) José Luiz Moutinho (Lisbon) J. Arthur Vasconcelos (Lisbon

Moderator: Frank Kresin, Waag Society

RE-DESIGNING DESIGN
Friday the 24th September 5.30 – 7.00pm (CET)
The design industry is going through fundamental changes. Open design, downloadable design and distributed design democratize the design industry, and imply that anyone can be a designer or a producer. On the other hand design methodology as a problem solving process has found new applications in a broad range of seemingly unrelated sectors. How will these trends impact the very essence of the design industry, including copyright issues, traditional business models and the role of the professional designer?

Guest Speakers: Geoff Mulgan (Amsterdam) Charlie Leadbeater (Amsterdam) Blindesign (Lisbon) White Tent (Lisbon) Aforest Design – SARA Lamurias (Lisbon)

Moderator: Barbara Countinho, MUDE (Lisbon)

Picnic Afternoons at Dialogue Cafe.pdf

Come and join us at de Waag! For more information contact julie@dialoguecafe.org.

Tags: Amsterdam, PICNIC, Waag Society

Sep20

Dialogue Cafe Amsterdam – Launching tomorrow! 0 Reply

We are really excited about launching Dialogue Café Amsterdam at Waag Society tomorrow.

For the occasion, we’ll be connecting the three Dialogue Cafés in Lisbon, Amsterdam and Rio de Janeiro to Cisco offices in New York, Sao Paulo, Warsaw and Oslo for a round-table discussion on innovation and creativity and the role of Dialogue Café. This will be followed by music from OMIRI in Lisbon and Cristina Braga in Rio de Janeiro!

5.00 pm: Doors open and drinks
5.15 pm: Launch – the conversation starts!
6.15pm – 6.45pm: Music and drinks

PARTICIPANTS

Amsterdam: Ger Baron (Amsterdam Innovation Motor), Marleen Stikker (Director, Waag society), Diogo Vasconcelos (Chairman, Dialogue Café Association)

Lisbon: Barbara Coutinho (Director, MUDE), Teresa Patrício Gouveia (Gulbenkian Foundation) (tbc), Beatriz Vidal (Portuguese Design Centre), Luís Mah (UN Millennium Campaign), Prof. Jose Santos (INSEAD), Pedro Veiga (Chairman, FCCN).

Rio de Janeiro: Rita Torre (UCAM), Katia de Marco (Director, ABGC), Carla Cipolla (DESIS).

New York: President Jorge Sampaio (High Representative to the UN Alliance of Civilisations), Helena Barroco (Senior Advisor to President Sampaio), Relina Bulchandani (Cisco)

Warsaw: Prof Miroslav Miller (University of Wroclaw, EIT+), Bartlomiej Michalowski (Cisco)

Sao Paulo: Antonio Laporta (EDP Foundation), Guilherme Benevides (EDP Foundation), Flavia Ramos (EDP Foundation), Barbara Stutz (the Hub), Renato Pazzoto (Cisco).

Oslo: Jorgen Myrland (Cisco), Mailliw Sorensen (Cisco), Bente Erichson (Nobel Centre for Peace).

Tags: Amsterdam

Sep13

Greenfest at Dialogue Cafe this week 0 Reply

This week Dialogue Cafe is taking part in Greenfest, Portugal’s largest sustainability festival which celebrates everything good and green in business, people and the environment. The festival brings together activists, community groups, businesses and others for a week of workshops, lectures and talks, films and performances and other fun activities.

Greenfest at Dialogue Cafe:

On Tuesday we’re doing a workshop on food and the environment. In Lisbon we’ll be joined by the Director of the Portuguese Macrobiotic Institute.

On Wednesday, our Greenfest workshop is on the theme of sustainability and social innovation. We’ll be joined by a number of NGOs in Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro.

On Thursday, the theme of the day is energy efficiency. In Lisbon we’re joined by Cascais Energia – the Energy Agency of the Cascais Municipality. Cascais Energy, established in January 2007, is a private non-profit association with the purpose of contributing to a more efficient energy and renewable energy use in the Cascais Municipality. The Agency also seeks to promote sustainable development and social cohesion.

On Friday, we’re doing a Yoga Laughter Workshop! The workshop will be led by Clara Fernandes, specialist in Laughter Yoga, qualified teacher from the Laughter Yoga International School. You can find more information here.

Join us at MUDE or UCAM! For more information contact mude@dialoguecafe.org or ucam@dialoguecafe.org.

Tags: energy efficiency, greenfest, sustainability

Sep7

Dialogue Cafe Amsterdam – Coming Soon! 0 Reply

The Dialogue Cafe Association is excited to announce the launch of its third Dialogue Café at the Waag Society in Amsterdam on 21st September 2010. We are really thrilled to be partnering with Waag Society; they are an incredible organisation and a truly excellent addition to the Dialogue Cafe Network.

Waag Society is housed in two historic monuments in Amsterdam, de Waag and Pakhuis de Zwijger. Dialogue Cafe will be placed in de Waag.

Waag Society was founded in 1994 by Caroline Nevejan and Marleen Stikker. Stikker also initiated the Digital City, the first internet community in The Netherlands. It has developed into a interdisciplinary medialab, where besides research and development there is room for experiment with new technology, art and culture. Waag Society divides its activities in five social domains: Healthcare, Culture, Society (public domain), Education and Sustainability.

We’ll be launching Dialogue Cafe Amsterdam on the 21st September. From then, it will be open for all of you to connect to Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro.

To find out more information about Dialogue Cafe contact info@dialoguecafe.org and to find out more information about Dialogue Cafe at Waag Society contact waag@dialoguecafe.org!