Our challenge: Regeneration of Kypseli Market

We are students in Panteion University and members of the @adandprlab, our team is called Infinitum and it is consisted of me, aggeliki iwannou, Thomi Galani and Kleidi Lika. During our ‘’Start up’’ lab, our mentors Betty Tsakarestou, @spiroskapetanakis, Katerina Vlassopoulou, have assigned us a challenge, which our mission was to help the international network Impact Hub in Athens,Greece to rejuvenate Kypseli’s Market and the whole region as well, by proposing a solution that may help in the homogenization and the co-existance of the different cultural groups in the area, as my colleauge Kleidi Lika mentioned.

We estimated, that in order for our solution to become a reality, we had to gather insights from residents in Kipseli, both natives and immigrants and refugees, as our challenge is based on the social entrepreneural sector and so the acceptance of the society is ver crucial. We conducted, a qualitative research, in which we took many interviews from our target group, consisted by open-ended questions asking to share with us their opinion for our solution without hesitations. The majority of the respondents, answered that they would be willing to participate in our solution and that they believe that it is a very interesting idea that can actually work. Some native respondents, were a little bit suspicious, that people who have completely different cultural habitants and characteristics, such as different religion, wouldn’t be willing to get in touch with the natives, as they don’t feel that they belong here and they are more introvert by choice. But, as we found out by the vast majority of immigrants and refugees, they wish to see our solution happen and they will also help us with their contribution. It was a great experience, to communicate with people, who have a different lifestyle and the discussion with them could give you a different point of view, a completely unique and uknown for us piece of the world and at the same time we discovered that no matter from what culture do we belong, we are not that different after all and people in all over the world should definitely experience this fact. By the insights that we gathered, we became positive that we can bring our solution to it’s next level and we thought to organize a festival in a primary school in Kipseli, in which we would experiment in a bigger grade our idea and raise the awareness and a small budget for the expenses that our solution requires. This idea, inspired us after the interviews that we took and the visit in this school, where kids from different cultures were educated and had fun all together.

At next, we had to structure our idea into a real prototype. In order to make and distribute the traditional products from the immigrants and refugees, we had to raise money in order to help them in the procedure. One major source of funding, would be the festival at the primary school that we mentioned before, in which it will be a small entrance fee: 5 euros for families and 3 euros for students and unemployed people, while kids under 12 years old will have a free pass. One another source of funding, will be emerged by the voluntary fiscal help of both residents in Kipseli and every other person, that would be willing to help in our idea and have heard about our solution, that we have tried to make it viral, mainly by the Social Media (such as the Official Facebook page of the Kipseli Market and other Social Media that we have suggested the Market to creat, like Instagram and an account in YouTube). We are also planning, to ask from businesses such as ‘’Sklavenitis’’ super Markets and others, to sponsor our idea and give us voluntary fiscal help or products such as fruits, sugar e.t.c to make our solution less costy. We are also going to fund our idea, by the help and the collaboration of the Municipality of Athens. We are also, believe that our solution, would be affordable, innovative and interesting for our possible costumers, so the value that the consumers will pay would be representive and beneficial for every side. That is the reason why, we expect that more job vacancies will be opened in the region and the incomes, can bring more investments and visitors in Kipseli. If our idea, will succeed, it might become a business in the future, then we assume that we can also get extra and more strong funding, that can help us win our competitors, by asking from the European Union, in the limits of the EASL programm, by giving us a loan to start with.

We are very optimistic, that the approval of the Society will push us forward to make our solution a reality and overcome the difficulties mainly in the economical level.

I would like to help our guides Betty Tsakarestou, @spiroskapetanakis, Katerina Vlassopoulou and also the funder of the Impact Hub athens, @KokkinakisDimitris, for the brief and the chance to help them in the efforts of this special International Network!