Sunday 11th

First we have to say a few words about the arrival in Amsterdam. When Tage arrived the streets were completely empty because all the Dutch were watching the football finals, but thanks to a trusty iPhone gps he found the bar where Mari and all the others from the Kennisland team were watching the game. After being harassed by the crowds who obviously wasn’t interested in being disturbed by a Norwegian with a rather large suitcase he got to sit down for five minutes and then Spain scored their first goal. The Dutch went absolutely crazy – and a riot nearly broke out! There was nervous tensions in the air for a bit, but then we walked back to Kennisland along with roughly a million quiet dutch. Getting a taxi to the place we are staying proved to be easier said than done, and we waited for two hours before hailing a cab, sharing with a 60 something extremely drunk man and a nice lady in her 50s. We finally got to the destination.

Monday 12th

We started our day at 830 in the Kennisland building where breakfast was served and then the presentation of cases started. The short summary is as follows;

• The weekendschool is a hugely successful educational offer for younger people between 10 and 14 years from socio-economically challenged areas in the Netherlands. On the weekendschool young people get together every Sunday for three years to be motivated and thaught by professionals. The challenge is how facilitate contact between alumni and the network after the three years.
• Filmmuseum Amsterdam will be moving to a new location (Amsterdam Noord) and wants to involve the neighbourhood. What ways can be found to make this cultural institution part of the neighbourhood and how can the people living there profit from this and add their value?
• Jeugdzorg Amsterdam (Office for Juvinal Care) is a looking for ways to innovate in their complex organisation. What is going wrong? Interview the people involved and design simple intervention for a complex problem.
• IJburg is one of the youngest neighbourhood in Amsterdam and already facing serious challenges: small enterpreneurs are having a hard time surviving, different social groups don't mix. A group of active residents of IJburg want to make their neighbourhood more livable and need your help!
• Mixacademy: An alternative art academy in the center of Amsterdam. What can they do to stimulate creative entrepreneurschip and offer chances to talented people without focusing on prior education?

After being driven from location to location to get the cases presented the time was around 20:00 and we were served dinner at the last case presentation. After we started our own presentations which was on an open subject on what motivates us or what social innovation means to us. All in all it has been a very packed day full of information that we need a night to digest! Tomorrow morning the real work begins and we are divided into work groups where we will be assigned a case to work on for the following 24 hours!
So far the Safari has been great, with some really interesting participants – and we are looking forward to the next few days with the Kennisland crew and 23 participants from 10 countries ☺

Check facebook for photos throughout the event!

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