New Citizen Newsletter #10

🎣 Feeding the world’s most expensive city 🌇

Singapore may be one of the richest places in the world, but one in 10 of its residents live in food poverty. A grassroots initiative named My Kind of Fridge has placed two refrigerators and a freezer in one of the city’s most impoverished neighbourhoods and invited people to help themselves to whatever food is donated. Restaurants and local fisherman regularly contribute their excessive food and the local council is now looking for ways to help out too.

🔬 Building Tinder for refugee scientists 💥

In 2015, the number of refugees seeking asylum in Germany increased 400% and many of them were academics and scientists. Dr Carmen Bachmann, a finance professor at the Leipzig University, copied a popular dating website to create Chance for Science — a social network that matches refugees with academic collaborators and research projects. The initiative is run by volunteers and has just received funding to begin hosting academic workshops.

🚌 Checking drivers licenses 👮

In July, protests erupted across Dhaka after a public bus killed two schoolchildren. The capital of Bangladesh has some of the worst driving conditions in Asia. Friends of the students were disappointed by the lack of direction of the protests and instead decided to do something to fix the problem. They created a movement called The Children of July and began to direct traffic in dangerous areas and check the validity of drivers’ licenses and vehicle registrations. Policymakers are now working with the children to learn how improvements could be made across the city.

🧠 Brain Snack 💡

Jeremy Heimans: What new power looks like (~15 minutes)

What do New Citizens have in common? This is a question that gets discussed a lot among our team. We know that people have lost trust in governments, corporations and even charities to effect real change, instead they’re rethinking how to organise more openly and challenging existing power structures.

In this TED Talk, Jeremy Heimans explains how the internet has changed where power lies and enabled crowdsourcing to reinvent participation in the 21st century. It’s helped us define what’s novel about New Citizens and to connect the dots between Sub-Saharan farmers, Malaysian blockchain hackers and Brazilian recyclers. You can order a copy of Heimans’ chin-scratching book here 🤔

🍻 Upcoming Events 👶

Brussels, Belgium (September 22–23)

After Barcelona, Warsaw and New York, Brussels joins the family of cities to host a “municipalist” summit. Fearless Cities is a two day conference designed to discuss a more open, transparent, and inclusive way to manage the city. Entrepreneurs, artists, activists and engaged citizens will participate in 14 workshops over two days.

The Fearless Cities Brussels summit was conceived by local residents when they asked a theater if they could use the space for a two-day event. All it took to get started was to set up an Open Collective page to handle donations. From there, people have volunteered to help them create a program, distribute flyers, invite speakers and even provide child care.

🎟️ Tickets for the Summit are available on Open Collective 🎟️

📨 Help us out 📨

Tell us about citizen-led initiatives, upcoming events and funky opportunities by tweeting us. You can also help us grow by sharing this post or registering for the weekly newsletter at www.thenewcitizen.co