Shout out to coworkers in Egypt, Armenia, or Georgia!

[Tricia Chirumbole]

Hi all!

I am working on a civic engagement project that focuses on experimenting with user-designed methods for civic engagement and action toward achieving development goals in Egypt, Armenia, and Georgia. 

There is interest in connecting with the grassroots communities, such as coworking spaces, to see how they can be a part of the action. 

Is anyone a coworker in any of these countries or have knowledge of spaces in these areas? If so, I'd love to talk! I will be happy to provide more details. 

Thanks so much and happy new year all!

Tricia Chirumbole

Open Space Facilitator, Certified Scrum Master

Mojo Collaborative

www.mojocollaborative.com

571-232-0942

skype: tricia.chirumbole

twitter: @themojozone

[cairo....@gmail.com]

Hello Tricia

This is Uli from Cairo.

I'd like to know more!
Pls share here on the list or on the CoworkingEgypt fb page.
We are by now more than 10 coworking spaces in various cities all over Egypt (mostly Cairo though).

I initiated a community-oriented coworking space several years ago, Rasheed22, and one of our coworking groups is harassmap (working to end harassment).

Looking forward to hear more about your project!

Best,
Uli
Rasheed22

http://www.facebook.com/rasheed22

---

From: Tricia Chirumbole <tri...@mojocollaborative.com>

Sender: cowo...@googlegroups.com

Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2014 19:32:30 -0500

To: <cowo...@googlegroups.com>

ReplyTo: cowo...@googlegroups.com

Subject: [Coworking] Shout out to coworkers in Egypt, Armenia, or Georgia!

--
Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coworking" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to coworking+...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.

[Tricia Chirumbole]

Hi Uli!

Great to hear from you :) I checked out your Rasheed22 and the harassmap project - awesome! I had a feeling there'd be some interesting stuff going on in Egypt. 

The project I am referencing is sponsored by UNDP Bratislava and involves the development and field testing of both face to face and virtual methods for citizen engagement in 3 countries - Armenia, Georgia, and Egypt. 

I have rallied a team together of folks with great background in civic engagement and, most importantly, creating space for the flourishing of self-organization. We are currently writing the proposal and will know some time after January 13th if we've won the bid (fingers and toes crossed!)

I would love to have you and your network involved! Do you maintain ties with the other coworking spaces? 

The goal of the project is to encourage a "culture of civic engagement" and to build momentum among local stakeholders, who are interested in supporting citizens in becoming a core part of identifying and meeting development goals in the wake of the Millenium Development Goals, which "expire" in 2015. 

To this end, we are looking to engage local hubs of community activity, learn what types of collaboration and virtual engagement are already occurring, "field test" engagement approaches that support user-driven design and self-organization, as well as provide a format to kickstart the activity in co-designing the future. 

In 2013 the UNDP has held consultations with groups of the public in Egypt and collected their thoughts on priorities for themselves and their country moving forward. You can find the report on the "world we want" website: http://www.worldwewant2015.org/

We will be working with this input and the local stakeholders involved in this project. There was a strong focus on marginalized groups and a primary use of focus groups. 

The methods we are proposing involve more open-ended, self-organizing platforms and we want to engage vibrant and important community institutions, like coworking spaces, hacker clubs (do you have those?), and other grassroots actions groups as potential leaders. 

If we win the bid, would you and your network be interested in being involved? That would mean participating in some engagements, or hosting them, and possibly collaborating on some virtual engagement methods. If so, we would love to include you/your space in the proposal as adviser/collaborator. 

Please let me know if you have any questions and what your thoughts are! Sorry for my verbosity!

I look forward to hearing back :) take care Uli!

Tricia Chirumbole
US: +1-571-232-0942
Skype: tricia.chirumbole

[Cristina Santamarina]

Hi Tricia, 

My name is Cristina, I live in Germany and I work at Cobot, an app to manage coworking spaces, and at the coworking wiki, an open source coworking project part of open coworking, a global non profit supporting coworking and its values.

The coworking wiki has a list of coworking spaces in Egypt that could be of help: http://wiki.coworking.com/w/page/64804763/CoworkingEgypt. 

I am not sure of how much up to date the list is, and I couldn't find any info about Armenia or Georgia in the wiki, but if you find out in your research, it'd be great if you could update the pages. It only takes a few minutes and somebody will find it useful for sure. 

Let me know if I can be of any further help, and good luck with your quest!

Cheers,

Cristina Santamarina

[Tricia Chirumbole]

Thanks so much Cristina!

I will definitely check out the link you provided, as well as make sure to update it with any finds that I may come across!

I have felt for a while that coworking communities would be hubs of civic engagement beyond the traditional population and their activities. I look forward to seeing this in action!

Tricia Chirumbole

Open Space Facilitator, Certified Scrum Master

Mojo Collaborative

www.mojocollaborative.com

571-232-0942

skype: tricia.chirumbole

twitter: @themojozone

--

[vgra...@gmail.com]

Hi Tricia,

Do you still want to contact a coworking space in Armenia. I am from Utopianlab a newly opened coworking space in Yerevan.

Cheers, Vachagan