The Goa Project, India's first Collaborative 'Unconference' By Sinead McManus
In the perfect setting of Marbela Beach Resort, North Goa - The Goa Project, an experimental platform for diverse people to meet, solve problems, build relationships, and enable new collaborations, kicked off its first annual event last Thursday and Friday in Goa. The event brought together people from different walks of life, broken down into six tracks: entrepreneurship, performing arts and music, society, visual arts, fringe, and film. The Goa Project was the first platform in the country to bring together a kaleidoscopic collection of people through a grassroots, grounds-up, unconference format. The entire event was run by a group of 40 volunteers from across various disciplines. Moreover, the agenda was completely crowdsourced: all participants nominated a talk ahead of time on an online funnel, through which others could vote and decide which topics they wanted to be a part of The Goa Project experience. This meant that there was no difference between leader and listener, speaker and participant - everyone was an equal. Even a significant amount of the funding for The Goa Project came from personal contributions from individual supporters across the country. The final itinerary included a wide diversity of sessions, from a workshop on krav maga to a behind the scenes look at sex workers; from a teach-in on guerrilla filmmaking, to a lesson on pinhole photography; from debate on how to design Indian language solutions, to a futuristic gaze into robots. There were over 90 speakers, including: CEO of Only Much Louder, Vijay Nair; Former CRO of Air Deccan, John Kuruvilla; Director of PVR Director's Rare, Shiladitya Bora; Founder and Chief Dreamer for Teleradio Solutions, Sunita Maheshwari; Co Founder and Creative Chief at Dream:In, Sonia Manchanda; and founding partner at Seedfund, Mahesh Murthy. "It was thrilling to see such deep dialogue and collaboration amongst people who had never met before - who never had a reason to meet before," states one of The Goa Project organisers, Vijay Anand. "We've put the wheels in motion for a new paradigm of collaboration, about great leaders existing in fertile relationships with a diverse and motivated group of thinkers." Preetham VV, another organiser, added, "Every participant achieved something here that they could not have achieved alone. Nor could they have achieved it in a space dedicated solely to their profession or place. Beyond the creative projects and initiatives that will come out of these two days, I believe we've also started a larger, much-needed dialogue about the need for cross-pollination of people and perspectives to solve the bigger problems that India faces today." http://www.navhindtimes.in/iexplore/goa-project-india-s-first-collaborative-unconference For pictures: http://www.facebook.com/TheGoaProject ~Avelino ______________ On Mon, Apr 8, 2013 at 8:13 AM, [email protected] <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > Thanks for this very intriguing report, Avelino. Will there be detailed > reports on any of the events? That way, those of us who could not be present > will also benefit. > > Warm regards, > Victor > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Avelino D'Souza <[email protected]> > To: goa-research-net <[email protected]> > Sent: Sun, Apr 7, 2013 1:11 am > Subject: [Goa Research Net] The Goa Project - Unbridled > cross-pollination of ideas > > Creative wonderland >
