#mahallae

This week we have a chance to hear from Socialholic Typewriter team, one of our 5 winning teams of the Mahallae Challenges.

It was last week that the 5 winning teams of Mahallae Challenge got the chance to meet at a workshop for an exchange of best practices, lessons learned and prototype testing. A warm welcome and friendly faces set the ambience of the meeting. Inspiring people who dare to imagine a better future through projects that can bring about substantial change met for a mutual sharing of ideas.

Each team shared their story and we shared ours or as we like to call it “The story of a Logo”. The Socialholic Typewriter seeks to create an online, social space where boundaries between dichotomized communities and art forms are overcome; within this re-imagined community,  socialholic creators, that is to say each and everyone of us who uses social media as channels through which to stream their creativity, feel at home.

The project grasps this concept and materialises it. We wanted to offer more than just an online platform; we wanted to offer the experience of collective connectedness. That is when it occurred to us that the logo of the project could become the emblem that could bring a community to life. People felt the need to connect and commit to a project and we felt the need to listen.

That is how the idea behind the competition for the logo was born. We asked designers to submit logos which re-imagined the traditional typewriter in a modern social media era. Open to artists from around the globe the competition managed to collect 184 designs from 60 designers, a number that exceeded our expectations! The word was out there, people were gathering up! The recruited ones commented on the designs and then voted the one they preferred amongst the eight most popular. In this way, we made the logo design a collaborative project that invited writers and illustrators to come together and create, connecting with and building our tribe at the same time.

Some of the designs submitted. We were overwhelmed by the imaginative, creative ways designers interpreted The Socialholic Typewriter!

We had excellent contenders, but the one that seemed to gather a lot of attention was the one that used old typewriter buttons and emoticons, taking a vintage element and coupling it with a metacommunicative pictorial representation of facial expression -omnipresent in our social media era. One of our voters said, ‘Number 116 is my favourite. That immediately spoke to chat/social media because it included an emoticon.‘ Our team also felt that this particular design best communicated the concept of The Socialholic Typewriter as it aims to make the traditionally solitary writing journey, social. Therefore, we decided to take this particular design to the final round and after many changes and adjustments, the result can now be seen on our blog.

This is how the project defines being part of a community, to us it means being engaged in every step of the process, having a voice and an opinion. The need for a communal feeling which promotes an interactive flow of ideas is how the story of the logo began. This is the logo that can help build a community; it sparked interest in a playful way and it was able to inspire a movement even before its online debut.

We would like to thank you for embracing the project and helping us push the boundaries of the conventional ways of creative expression. Stay tuned for more.

Hi everyone! We have some very exciting news. The Build Peace 2015 will take place on April 25 & 26 in Nicosia, Cyprus.

Build Peace aims to explore how technology can enhance the impact of a broad range of peacebuilding, social cohesion and peace advocacy initiatives. It brings together the expertise of academics and technologists and on the lived experience of practitioners working to transform conflict around the world. The first conference took place in Boston, MA last year, and as Mahallae, we were very proud to participate and present our platform.

Nicosia is at the crossroads of Europe and the Middle East. It is also the last divided capital city in the world. This is why we look forward to hosting the conference in Nicosia in 2015; Nicosia not only provides rich ground for discussion, but also issues a collective challenge. We can imagine building peace with technology in a plexiglass building at a high-tech university. But do our ideas stand up in a building, a city and a region steeped in decades of complex conflict and with much greater economic challenges? 

We'll be announcing the conference program and opening registration for the conference in October. Join us to chart the future.

Drum roll!

Out of 43 #tech4peace ideas submitted to the Mahallae Challenges, later narrowed down to 14 concepts, 5 winners now emerge (see the criteria, which evaluation was based on, here).

  i-Vee - a mobile game for encouraging volunteerism.

  YuBiz - an online platform to help young entrepreneurs kick-start their business.

  WE-ME - a mentorship platform and mobile app for women.

  Socialholic Typewriter -  a collaborative storytelling platform for micro-fiction.

  Hands on Famagusta - a hybrid platform for developing a future vision for the Famagusta region.

  We are very proud of ALL TEAMS who put a lot of effort and enthusiasm in developing very strong proposals, making the work of the panel of judges a tough one. We also thank all of YOU who became part of the process through your comments, endorsements and contributions, helping to refine the projects and make them more relevant.

  Also, congratulations all winners! We look forward to watching your ideas in action.

  As you may know, more than 40 ideas were submitted to the Mahallae Challenges.

  The ideas were evaluated by a panel of judges and 15 most successful ideas received green light to move on to the next stage. As the Mahallae team, we supported the teams of the winning ideas to develop their vision into full blown concepts. Concepts are basically ideas developed more elaborately, with longer descriptions, a budget and teams behind them.

  You can now view all the concepts on Mahallae here. Simply click “Support a Concept” next to each category, and you can view ideas in detail, make comments, and provide support through endorsement and/or by offering/donating resources to each concept until June 12th, 2014. The winners will be selected by a panel and announced on June 19th.

  See a short summary of each idea selected to go forward into the second (Concepts) stage below; click each project to see it in further detail.

  Youth Enterpreneurship

  1. i-Vee proposed by Maged and Maria

A mobile game app for encouraging volunteerism in Cyprus and Egypt, i-Vee foreesees the gamification approach would have benefits for behavioral and attitude change related to volunteerism.

  2. Project MUSED proposed by Nikos, Michael and Desislava

A platform to help youth interested in digital storytelling find the right partners for project collaboration, Project MUSED aims to create a community through synergies.

  3. Skill Market proposed by Mertkan, Mustafa, Berfu, Paraskevi, Akis, and Kasım

Skill Market is an app, the main aim of which is to address the problem of youth unemployment. People using the app will be able to exchange skills costlessly, and access opportunities to meet with people based on shared interests or skills from different communities.

  4. Stars Club proposed by Cicek, Didem, Faika and Eminay

StarsClub is a mobile platform that informs users when there is a need/motivates users to donate to NGOs. Says Gockun of her idea, “One of the biggest problem of civil society organizations (CSO) in Cyprus - especially in the Turkish Cypriot community - is difficulties in securing national donors.”

  5. EAT proposed by Jonathan, Gabriel and Roberto

EAT aims to establish a Test Greenhouse in Cyprus for the purpose of evaluating the three main Aquaponic growing systems to find the best suited crops for local production in Cyprus.

  6. YuBiz proposed by Panayiotis, Michalis, George, Alessandro and Moyses

YuBiz is an online platform that offers a collection of tools and services designed to help young entrepreneurs to create their business, promote their ideas, find support and establish relationships.

  7. STEP proposed by Efi, Eleni, Panayiotis and Marios

STEP is an online platform where undergraduate and graduate students alike will be able to get real life work experience by completing projects as part of NGOs while still in school.

  Women and Dialogue

8. WE-ME WoMEnPower proposed by Antigoni, Giwrgos, Christina and Maria

Womenpower will be a community platform/mobile app that provides resources and advocates active involvement of women in promoting equal rights in life and workplace. The platform will link women mentors and mentees together to build networks and nurture skills development.

  A Common Vision for the Future

9. Socialholic Typewriter proposed by Louiza Mallouri, Ali, Constantinos and Louiza Kaimaki

A web platform for ‘micro-fiction,’ typewriter would bring together writers and artists from different communities to collaboratively tell stories.

  10. Neighbour to Neighbour proposed by Hatice, Mehmet, Spyros, Caghan, Emine and Susie

A Web platform for information exchange between communities, categorized by different job sectors, allowing people from different communities to create a virtual neighborhood based on solidarity and assistance.

  11. Learning Greek with Hasan Tuna proposed by Sami, Özker, Enis and Ali

The first of its kind, Ozuslu’s idea foresees a Greek language course-program that will be produced and broadcasted via TV, satellite and mobile apps, making language learning more accessible and contributing to a culture of peace on the island.

  12. Pathways to Peaceful Coexistence proposed by Meltem, Alexandros and Ahmet

An online platform/mobile app which will allow Cypriots to express their values, policies and dreams for a unified Cyprus.

  13. Hands on Famagusta proposed by Esra, Emre, Nektarios, Socrates and Munevver

An interactive hybrid platform to engage people in developing a future vision for Famagusta. The team aims to use both online and offline techniques to achieve their goals.

  14. Tag’n’Fix proposed by Ali, Doğuş and Suphi

We recently launched the Mahallae Challenges, where you can come up with tech-enabled solutions which address some of the challenges facing our communities. Now you can submit your idea for the chance to receive support and funding of up to $30,000.

You can watch the clip for each Mahallae challenge here. Do you have a question about the Mahallae Challenges? The Mahallae Team will be around in the following weeks to offer you support and guidance. You can find us here:

March 27th, Nicosia, Home for Cooperation Café, 10:00-15:00

March 28th, Kyrenia, Dükkan Café, 16:00-19:00

April 1st, Nicosia, Ghetto Cafe, 14:00-18:00

April 4th, Nicosia, Oktana Café, 17:00-20:00

April 11th, Limassol, Sto Dromo Café, 10:00-15:00

April 14th, Famagusta, Sabor, 16:00-19:00

by Florin Marin

Stories are an essential component of human life and human experience. We use them for learning and guidance, for sharing wisdom with future generations, and for building a sense of community and continuity that gives meaning to our endeavours. In a way, stories make us who we are. And while stories change us in irrevocable ways, the technologies we use for storytelling also impact us profoundly.

When we set out to build the mahallae civic action road map, we aimed to tell the story of civil society in Cyprus in an innovative way. We didn’t want to write an inaccessible report and we didn’t want it to be a static archive of civil society initiatives that only researchers would find interesting. Instead, we wanted to capture the story as it unfolded over the years so that it can be used for learning, sharing wisdom, and building a sense of community, like every story should.

It was not an easy task and we had our moments of doubt that it would work. But we persevered, we went back to the drawing board several times, and in the end put together three different digital tools to help our mahallae users navigate the different aspects of the story we wanted to tell.

First we assembled a fun to use exploration tool that lets you build network graphs to explore the broad range of initiatives that were carried out by civil society in Cyprus in the last few decades. Here is a snapshot of the initial work we’ve done:

 We built this tool thinking of it as a living organism. It even looks like one! And just like a living organism, we want it to grow and mature. And for that we need everyone else to lend a hand and become part of the story. We had our vigilant team gather a lot of the information needed but we know there is more to be uncovered to capture the complete picture of civic engagement in Cyprus. So make sure to check it out once we launch and share with us your piece of the story!

Our second storytelling tool was born out of the necessity to interpret the data we had gathered and give it meaning. We knew that all these initiatives we were discovering had two things in common: goals and methods to achieve those goals. We saw the goals as being part of thirteen different thematic fields, from arts and culture, to environment, to science and technology. We called these spheres of change and build a visual representation of their evolution in time. At the same time, the methods employed by these different initiatives also had deep significance, be it capacity development, knowledge and innovation, or advocacy and policymaking. We identified six of these different methods and called them building-blocks of civic engagement.

On mahallae these won’t be static charts. We’re allowing the users to customize their own chart based on the field and time frame they are interested in. Here is the initial look of this tool, it’s still work in progress but we’re committed to make it as user-friendly and interesting as possible.

Together these charting exercises offer us a perspective of the kind of work civil society has been doing in Cyprus over the past few decades and it can help us identify trends and needs more easily.

After building these two tools, we realized that while both are extremely useful, one was very detail-oriented and the other was operating on a meta-level of overall trends. We needed something to ground them both and make our story personal. So the third tool we built is an interactive infographic that uses new design techniques to delve into the evolution, the key moments, and the achievements of the civil society peace-building movement in Cyprus. A lot of civil society activity in Cyprus has revolved around the bi-communal peace-building movement, so we wanted to honour its legacy and tell the story in a way that it’s never been told before. If you want to see what inspired us, have a look at this.

by Ellada Evangelou 

"We spend much of our time worrying about our ideas being truly innovative. Better, faster and newer. But the truth is, the essential elements of innovation are patience and team work."

When we started with the idea of a platform which would bring together the work of NGO practitioners from all around the area, innovation was at the forefront of our planning. And to get the best ideas out there, we launched a Fund and made it all about Knowledge Innovation. We started by getting several strong ideas, and as time passed we realized that innovation became a tangible value when we worked diligently, taking into account the creative input of many people. You need your practical minds to ask “how will this work”, some aesthetic feedback to make sure it looks pretty, a tech person (or two) to get all the technical stuff right and a communications team to make sure you get the word out and do justice to the work. Most of all you need patience and loads of “yes, but”, “ahah” and “duh” moments.

When it’s time to explore the interactive tools on the space of creativity which is mahallae, it is this type of spirit which will welcome you. At the moment, a handful of innovative tools which push civil society into new and exciting paths, reaching new groups and engaging in different conversations. The tools include the following:

Shared Wor!ds: The game was developed by a Turkish-Cypriot Greek Language learner and a Greek-Cypriot linguist, combining experiential and academic knowledge. SharedWor!ds is an on-line language-learning game, part of the  SharedWords project aimed at  learners of Greek and Turkish. It utilizes common words shared by both languages  and uses the learner’s existing knowledge of Greek or Turkish to make language learning easier and more fun.

Collaborating into the Future: The Management Centre of the Mediterranean and the NGO Support Centre, have developed a Video Webinar which explores the case study of the collaboration of the two organizations, one Greek-Cypriot and the other Turkish-Cypriot, and how they dealt with challenges in Cyprus, a post conflict society. These organisations built up a successful relationship with each other centred on trust and developed a unique way of working together. An additional aim of the Webinar is to present their collaboration as a possible model for others to follow.

Digi Wisdom for Mediators and Trainers: The Mediation Association and Conflict Resolution Trainers Group, pioneering groups of peace makers, initiated this project. On a map of the region, mediators and conflict resolution trainers share their experiences and insights via short video clips.  The individual  stories recounted highlight the vital role that training in mediation and the resolution of conflict can play in bringing about reconciliation and lasting  social change. 

The Power of Sport: Animated Videos and Learning Guides by Peace Players International, Cyprus.  The tool is a series of 5 short animated films accompanied by learning modules and facilitators’ guide. The films illustrate how sport can be used as a tool for peace building and share the methodology used by PeacePlayers International in their programs in Cyprus, the Middle East, Ireland and South Africa. The films can be used by organizations and coaches looking to use sport as a tool for conflict transformation. The learning modules are targeted towards young people aged between 14 and 20 (on average) and can be used by practitioners and coaches in the field.

Nicosia is Calling: an online game developed by the Association for Historical Dialogue and Research and a group of inspired collaborators. Geared towards children aged 8-14, it is also suitable for adults who want to travel through time!  The game combines history and learning about the city of Nicosia as it stands now, it familiarizes the player with Nicosia’s rich cultural heritage and its multicultural past and to imagine the city in the future as a unified whole. The game uses a map of the old city within the Venetian walls to take players on a virtual journey.

The CCMC Story: a series of infographics and visuals by the Cyprus Community Media Centre. These capture the story of the Cyprus Community Media Centre (CCMC), from the birth of the idea to the present, as well as serve to bridge the gap between civil society and the mainstream media. The site also illustrates ways civil society can acquire its own distinct voice and how collaboration has been encouraged between two entirely separate (Greek language and Turkish language) media networks on the island.  The tool is enriched with hyperlinks, images, videos and “how-to” features.  It aims to inspire others in conflict situations who may be considering their own community media initiatives.

Youth Power Line: an online platform developed by Youth Power, a network of 4 diverse, Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot organizations, focusing on youth activism. The platform developed for young people who want to take their life and their future into their own hands and discover creative possibilities to help them navigate their way through times of financial and emotional depression. YouthPowerLine.org is divided in two sections: entrepreneurship, for users interested in social or corporate business and youth, for users interested in culture, youth activism and the creative arts.