Launching impact joint ventures to shake up Brussels

lisez la version francophone ici

At civic innovation network (CIN), we aim at making Brussels an example of resilient city by connecting actors around co-created missions. Everyday, new initiatives are launched, startups and citizen-led initiatives are on the rise to solve urban challenges and generate social and environmental impact. Most of the time, these initiatives are unfortunately evolving in their constrained sector.

With a future-proofing approach, our role at CIN goes three-fold:

1. Identify collaboration opportunities
2. Trigger interactions between innovators, citizens, private/public partners
3. Emphasize and highlight the impact of these urban actors in order to inspire others

Hence, we are kicking-off Impact Joint Ventures (IJVs), ventures which are co-created by multiple actors in key-sectors for the region: energy, transports, education, work, healthcare or food. Unforeseen paths of collaboration can be found at the intersection of the interest of each type of stakeholder: we aim at making these IJVs autonomous, financially sustainable and scalable in order to multiply the provoked impact. To sum it up: being stronger together.

Here is a brief presentation of the first IJV we are currently working on and inviting stakeholders to collaborate on.

IJV 1 - Food surplus / unused housing / soft transports — cargo bikes / isolation of freelancers and self-employed

We aim at reducing food waste by distributing surplus to social entrepreneurs working or living in temporary coworking spaces in Brussels.

Key challenges:

• Tons of food surplus are wasted by different actors (stores, restaurants), with a cost of 150,000 euro/year per store.
• At least 30,000 housing units are empty in Brussels regions. Several millions m² are unused.
• Brussels, world leader in the most congested city.
• Hundreds of social entrepreneurs and changemakers are living in precarity, they are looking for shelter and food.

This scenario seems straightforward, intuitive and simple: cargobike fleet distribute the food surplus from stores to social entrepreneurs in temporary coworking spaces.

Invited actors today:

Foodwin — Communa — Färm — Molenbike — Foodwe — Bourse aux Dons — Sequoi — Terroirist — Upcooking

You may know more people who could be interested by this IJV? Shout out on our communication platform.

Get your voice heard and help us on our crowdsourcing tool.

IJV are designed to become scalable

IJV 2 — Creativity of children / mental healthcare / autistic spectrum / digital tools in education

Efficient use of technology (virtual reality immersion, 3D printing, robotics) in education and healthcare with therapeutical services and/or developing creativity of children with new modalities offered by tech.

Invited actors today:

Muntpunt — UZ — BIDs — BDC — Special Needs schools — Kasterlinden — VGC — Erasmus — FabLab — IBM — Makers Fair — iMaterialise — 3D Printing — Gluon — — MAD — Poolpio — M4KE.IT — Royal Family/King Baudouin Foundation — KBC — Zorabot — Ashoka

You may know more people who could be interested by this IJV? Shout out on our communication platform.

Get your voice heard and help us on our crowdsourcing tool.

IJV 3- Autonomous and sustainable housing / precarity

Pilot the feasibility of an autonomous and sustainable housing with waste management tools, renewable energy and aquaponic farm in which unfavored people could be hosted.

Invited actors today:

Walden project — Communa — Community land trust — Ouicoop — 4Wings — Cosmopolis — CPAS — Beeodiversity

You may know more people who could be interested by this IJV? Shout out on our communication platform.

Get your voice heard and help us on our crowdsourcing tool.

Other work-in-progress IJVs

IJV 4 — Soil and air pollution / soil regeneration

IJV 5 — Shared kitchens / migrant integration / precarity

IJV 6 — Wood waste from Brussels region

IJV 7 — Ressourcerie

If these IJV/co-creation ring a bell, if you are changemakers or citizens, join us online or at our next Opendrinks session, you are more than welcome.

If your organization empower initiatives or startups, we would be glad to help them grow with you.

We are always open to work with more actors that could be relevant contributors to these IJVs, let us know about your projects. Late in the stage, civic agora sessions will be organized in June 2017, to consult the citizen of Brussels; follow us to receive our updates.

***

Read more about civicinnovation.network