Last week, Hybrid Plattform was invited to take part in the international conference “CULTURE FOR ALL: International Mobility, Creative Economy and Entrepreneurship” at the University of Lisboa, Portugal. And we were very excited, since Hybrid Plattform was announced as one of “Europe’s most original and dynamics European projects in the field of Universities cross innovation”. This is what we love to read more of!
We shared a panel with Esa Santamäki, Chief of Spatial Design from Aalto University Design Factory on the invitation by Carlos Alcobia from Faculdade de Belas-Artes da Universidade de Lisboa. So, even better: Aalto’s Design Factory and Hybrid Plattform shared their experiences, challenges and opportunities, activities and outputs, and – of course – the significance and importance of cross innovation! This was truly a great opportunity for us to spread the word abroad on what we have been doing on Campus Charlottenburg in the past two years and our ambitious intentions and prospects for the next year plus. It was also very interesting because we share the same principle ideas that offbeat collaborations emerge from the close connection of representatives from all fields of expertise. But yet we follow slightly different ways of fostering new ideas and innovation: With its Design Factory, Aalto is very much concerned about the space where the different designers (practitioners and researchers) meet whereas Hybrid Plattform established different formats for encounters and networking between the different disciplines and fields of practice – and culture.
For sure, we are still working on creating our own Hybrid Lab in the very heart of the campus and we are aware of the huge advantages of having an analog platform. This “Lab of Ideas” would serve as a think tank: it would offer work spaces for the Hybrid Office and for temporary Hybrid Fellows and it will be open to the public as a meeting place, venue for events and show room of our projects. But as Pedro and Esa agreed first-hand in our panel, beyond facilities, the personal networking (or, as Esa stated: having a coffee together) is THE key feature in our daily work – and this is what Hybrid Plattform stands for.
However, if you are interested in the presentations and subsequent discussion, a video documentation will be soon online on the conference’s website. And hopefully in the nearby future, we can tell you more information about our progress with the Hybrid Lab. Thirdly in the very near future you will hear great news regarding our digital networking, the “new” Hybrid Community! (Oh, I would like to provide you with a sneak preview... but you will see it in five days.) And, last but not least, during the conference I had the opportunity to meet very inspiring representatives of other European incubators for cross innovation (Alexa from Brighton/ UK, Elsebeth from Kolding/ Denmark, etc.), and we are thinking about one-on-one or larger collaborations, so we will keep you posted on Hybrid’s European network.
– Julia