CEE TRUST Civil Society Forum

Social Innovation Camp, Bratislava
September, 16-18
2009

Can you imagine Facebook, Wikipedia or Travian dedicated solely to connecting social causes with bright ideas for their realization?

The Social Innovation Camp Central and Eastern Europe (SIC CEE) was part of the Civil Society Forum in Bratislava - on the second floor of the factory it brought together talented software developers/designers and social innovators from the non-profit, commercial and public sector. Their task for a couple of days, divided up in teams, was to build effective web-based solutions to real social problems. The competing teams developing the following ideas (click on list for presentation):

Results were presented to the Forum participants as well as to a jury Winning projects were awarded 1500 Euros for realization, and remaining projects received 500 Euros for their hard work - see the winners and their websites!

Further reading and reflection:

Capital Weekly online article "On-line ideas for off line causes" by Tania Obushtarova (in Bulgarian)
Dan McQuillan's blog post on the link - or Berlin wall between civil society and social innovation
a blog entry by a participant
the SIC CEE Twitter profile

Ambassadors were selected for the Social Innovation Camp CEE to follow some of the "buzzing" in the online community, see some of their work under the links below:
Bulgaria Panciuc
Czech Republic Lupa
Poland ngo.pl
Romania Favit, Stop CO2, Manafu
Slovakia SME
Slovenia RTV
Other Netsquared, Pep-Net, SimonColumbus, frogspond posterus, SICAMP UK, SICAMP Australia

Transitions Online (TOL) is an international publishing and media development organization based in Prague and registered as a Czech nonprofit organization. Its mission is to champion democracy, pluralism, and freedom of expression by strengthening the professionalism, independence, and impact of media and civil society organizations in Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and the former Soviet Union. Activities include the Transitions Online newsmagazine, which features material by a mix of local and foreign reporters and analysts, and the TOL Training Institute, which runs workshops and distance-learning programs for reporters and editors. In recent years, TOL has launched a growing number of projects that promote new media as an important instrument of free speech and advocacy in TOL’s target region.