Kypseli’s Market Project : Agora
Our challenge from my perspective
One of this semester’s lab was the Start Up Lab, where we were presented with 4 projects. As a team we prefered to choose the one that had to do with Social Innovation and Urban Togetherness, known as Kypseli’s Market Project “Agora”.
The Challenge
This project was held by the organisation “Impact HubAthens” and our challenge was not only to improve the current situation that Kypseli has as a neighborhood but also bring back a part of her previous glory. To do so we searched which are the obstacles we had to overcome and after brainstorming for solutions we did came up with a plan.
The Problem
After several meetings and after interviewing several resident’s of Kypseli, we decided to focus on one problem and one innovative yet feasible solution. The problem we chose to solve was the ellipse of interaction among Kypseli’s citizens, which is an outcome of fear, racism and also generations gap.
So we actually asked ourselves what is that one thing that could bring people together? Every one of us had an example in his mind and all of our ideas were under the same theme, Culture!
The idea
We want to create a theatre festival which will last for a week, twice a year with various theatrical shows for every day.
To ensure the equal involvement of everyone, after communicating and agreeing with the individual theatre owner, the institution of “Εισιτήριο σε αναμονή” / “ Ticket on hold” will take place. What “Ticket on hold” is? For every full priced ticket, the person buying it, has the option to buy another one for half the price. The half priced ticket will be available for those who can’t afford a ticket at all — unemployed, students, the elderly etc.
At the beginning of the festival a big party in and around the Market of Kypseli will take place, where everyone will have the opportunity to bring homemade food and drinks in order to interact with each other.
Insights
At this point it is actually interesting to see what we gathered from the interviews that we took, what we learnt and how we used this experience in order to build an idea.
If we learnt something is that an interview in depth can show you lots of things that you may have never think before for the project you are working on. When we took the first interview we had in mind that Kypseli is a dangerous neighborhood with transportation problems and incidents of racisim. But what Kypseli’s citizens told us was quite different. For instance, there is no fear nor a transportation problem at all. Kypseli has actually many buses to take. Racism does exist in some point but this phenomenon is not as it was in the past. People of Kypseli are reconciled and they are open in new ideas in order to communicate with each other and spend time together. So, through all the interviews that we took we came up with the Theatre Festival and the Ticket on Hold.
Value Proposition
The Theatre Festival is an innovative and stable idea through which not only the theatres of Kypseli and all of our collaborators (sponsors,other projects such as street food festival etc.)but the whole neighborhood will be benefited. Our goal is to make those who live there to interact with each other and why not also bring new audience. We want to increase and point out the togetherness of the neighborhood through this cultural activity. That is the reasin why the hashtag #KypseliLives which is our campaign’s moto is representing our idea deservedly.
As for our next steps, we want to talk again with all the theatres of Kypseli and see how this collaboration can actually beging. Another step is to find sponsorships for the party of the festival’s beginning and also make some collaborations with interesting projects such as Street food festival.
Finishing words
During the past 3 months we worked on a very challenging project. It is very difficult to find ideas that will make an impact and try to change peoples mentality for a whole place. We had to find this one idea in a few days and find ways to make it work even If it was just a prototype. Once more we practised our teamwork skills, our marketing skills and our pitching skills and once more we tried to do our best. But this project was more than an assignment to us. Kypseli is a special place for some of our team members and this feeling inspired us to put all of our hard work into this project.
Team: The Bakers
Frossini Drakouli
Charis Zarbalas
Jason Verbis
Martha Davari
Asimina Christodoulatou
Danai Kontitsi
Our Mentors
Betty Tsakarestou | Katerina Vlassopoulou | Spiros Kapetanakis| #DimitrisKokkinakis
#ADandPRLab #StartupLab #ImpactHubAthens
