The weekend I spent at Mardamej Social Innovation Camp inspires me with hope, that young innovators and civil activists will turn Armenia into the best country of the world.
The Camp brought together more than 60 people: civil activists, programmers and webdesigners, who split into 6 groups and developed the 6 pre-selected social innovation ideas. The event was organized by Eurasia Partnership Foundation with the support of the UNDP.
I was the facilitator of a group which worked on creating the iLike Community Development Network. We developed the concept, built the network engine and got the design down. Everything was done in an environment of wonderful team-work and creativity.
Looking back I can clearly see, that our main product was the team, not the software or the concept. We had a group of 12 people, ages 16 to 34. We had a school-boy, some young media professionals, activists, students who got the chance to work side by side with a couple of Armenia’s coolest programmers. Even though I’m not sure what will happen to the iLike concept in the end, the fact, that those people worked together and learned so much from each other in the course of those 48 hours was an accomplishment in itself.
Way to go, team!
So happy to read this post. So was it like a TED event, but where you actually develop certain product as a result?
Hayastan is full of very smart and very intelligent ppl. they just have to want it bad enough to take back their homeland and fix it for the better