made by many cairo november 2014 - creative economy · cairo in november 2014. all participants in...

Made By ManyCairo

November 2014

MADE BY MANY brought together a diverse, talented and motivated group of people at Darb 1718 in Cairo in November 2014. All participants in this lab are actively involved or interested in the creation of co-working and collaboration spaces and in exploring the frontiers between culture, enterprise, social development, learning and technology.

This Made By Many programme aims to develop a network of creative leaders who are interested in working on collaborative projects in cultural fields. The intention is to deepen skills and understanding, to share experiences, to find practical tools and solutions and to create content together. Over the four days of the lab participants co-created this magazine to tell stories and share their insights and has been made by many, guided by editor-in-chief Ella Britton.

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This magazine is the story of our time together

Our trips into the city

Our conversations

Our thoughts and ideas

The things we’ve learnt

The things we’d like to share

We will never be the same.

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Anything goes.

Albeit with a little organization. On the face of it that is what ADEF, the Arab Digital Expression Foundation, appears to be until of course one delves deeper into their structure and begins to define their mission statement. ADEF is a regional platform helping youth from the Arab region to use digital tools and new media to express themselves in an open and constructive environment.

Its acronym which means “Add” in Arabic, is exemplified and meant to express their philosophy. Encouraging youth to “Add” to their experience, knowledge and the creative space in which they work.

ADEF runs different programs:

DECA is a creative hub in which youth can work on different tracks related to arts and creativity in a supportive environment. This project is syndicated to other areas in the country in different formats according to the capacity and capabilities of the space it will occupy. Working with youth is conceived as working in bettering the future through empowerment and the exchange of ideas.

Another program which is central to ADEF is its Youth Camps. Run annually in Egypt and abroad (Tunisia). They bring together youth from different socioeconomic backgrounds to interact over a period of 2 weeks, lodging together and creating together. The participants are required to be in similar attire and the markers of class are erased to a great extent. Over the fortnight they learn computer skills, video making, music, dance and art.

The Arab Digital Expression Foundation A space where you can journey cinematically from Mozart to Eminem, bring your child to learn a new creative skill, or simply paint something on the walls!

The other significant use of the space is for cultural events in small groups. ADEF instigates, runs and manages a number of community based creative activities at their location. DECA takes from these different curriculums and activities for implementation at other locations in the future.

ADEF is currently thinking of future projects like summer schools which will educate and entertain in subjects like music. Funding, being the challenging part of any organizational business model, is also a main concern for ADEF. They function on a “Suggested Fee” system. Participants are asked to pay the suggested fee if they can afford it, part of it if they can’t afford the full amount. They would of course get the activity for free if they cannot pay at all, and their fees in this case would be covered by the suggested fees paid by those who are able. Insuring a more socially just approach to fundraising.

Our visits to inspirational people and places in Cairo

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ADEF’s true strength comes from its commitment to a socially just business model and its socially inclusive approach to participant recruitment.

As for visibility, recruitment and networking needs, ADEF relies on its network began by the diverse background of its founders. Which grows year by year, posing a challenge on the maximum number of participants accepted onto the program since all applicants are currently offered a place with no exceptions or prerequisites.


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We have been very fortunate to meet with Maie El Zeiny from Nahdet El Mahrousa and we all had at least one question to ask her about their great organization that supports social entrepreneurs in their early stages.

We have made some research about them, but we wanted to know how it came together so we asked her to tell us the story.

“Well, Nahdet started by a group of friends who wanted to do something for Egypt so they decided to create an open platform to support social entrepreneurs, so in 2003, Nahdet was born.”

Want to more about how they work? Well, keep reading and you’ll get to know more about how interesting they are.

First, Lamia went on to ask Maie about their selection criteria.

“We focus on people who have a record in being active in social development in university, who have passion and who are active in their community.”

Do you focus on a specific area?

“Not at all. We are not sector specific!”

Mohammad was curious to know how they measure the impact of their startups and this is what Maie said:

“There is no specific criteria. Each project has a way of measuring its impact. Initiatives which focus on farmers have a different criteria from those focused on children or refugees.”

Nahdet el Mahrousa Social Entrepreneurship At Its Best!

Edmond on the other hand, was really interested in knowing an example of a successful story that came out of their incubator and Maie was proud to tell the story of Nawaya.

“There is Nawaya, which has been working with farmers and now they are producing their own products, have more training programs and train more farmers!”

Lamia went on to ask about how they reach their target audience.

“Till 2010, it was based on recommendations from our network. Now, we go through the channels that have social entrepreneurs or people working on their projects. So we are always networking to increase our network.”

Rana really wanted to know their major challenge, and as always, we got the same answer:

“Funding! But, we have diversified sources of donors, in case someone didn’t want to fund, we would reach out to others who might be interested.”

Lamia had a creative question to ask. In 3 words, how do you describe your organization?Maie had a great answer:

“Passionate, persistent, and proactive!”

Is there anything that you want to add?” We asked as we were finishing the interview and we received a shocking answer:

“Most of the social entrepreneurs in the arts sector want to focus on the technical stuff but don’t want to focus on the business part. So if you are from that type, find someone to handle the business and marketing part for you!”


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The AHHHHHHH effectThe documentation of a visit to Naywa and Dayma, a initative promoting social and environmental justice, and Fab-Lab, a digital and pre-fabrication co-working space

It was a sunny day and we decided to have a safari, not to a desert and mountain but to social initiatives.

A handsome Palestinian man and 2 Egyptian females headed to down town Cairo. “I can smell the sense of Egyptian history through our walk” Amjad said.

We passed by Foul and ta’amia shop to find our way to an old building where Naywa/Dayma are located. Betty opened the door with her lovely dog; she started to tell us how a group of young Egyptian youth were inspired by the revolution to transfer their dreams and enthusiasm to into living social initiative and a business model. Both initiatives started in 2011.

Nawaya is an initiative working with 20 farmers to improve their agriculture supplychain, create more sustainable business model and generate more profit.

Dayma through untraditional trips under the theme of biomimicry allows youth connecting with themselves, connecting with nature and connecting with community.

The notable thing about both initiatives is that the founders decided to go for profit and establish a company, they have a business plan target to reach, a marketing campaign; though they are still small companies but they are happy with manageable slow growing rather than massive start depending on loans and credit.

We left Nawaya/Dayma with lots of inspiration and a big smile on our faces, continued our walk in down town Cairo observing the architecture of old buildings and statues at the squares, when we reach ICE Cairo, a very relaxing green place, we met with Mustafa, this energetic cheerful young engineer who manages the place.

It is a co-working space started in 2012, it is a hub for entrepreneurs. ICE Cairo concentrate on environment and tries to establish a common ground for everyone who wants to be involved. They work with government, NGOs, scientists, international agencies, private companies and youth. ICE Cairo is an open source space. They share ideas and innovation and allow everyone to work on it and share experiences…yet they don’t care if the idea got stolen; on the contrary they are happier when this happens.

Their motto is that they will always be one step forward, if someone else steals the idea, they will move on and work on new idea and still will be one step forward.

They have a unique place called FABLAB where entrepreneurs can find 3D printers and other technologies allowing them to create prototypes for their ideas.

Amajad was jumping from happiness when we left and Heba couldn’t close her eyes from the fascinating people we have met and the initiatives that are happening.

What we discovered is that all initiatives happened after the revolution, so even if we agree or disagree with the political system or the government, something happened and can’t be taken back…youth decided to play an active role in building their country and shaping Egypt’s future to the better.


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It was a unique meeting, huddled around a cell phone, conferencing with Cindy from the Nile Project who was out in Al-Minya in northern Egypt preparing for a concert with thirteen musicians. This is a lifestyle, which according to Cindy, has become common for the team of the Nile Project, who travel across the Nile countries of Egypt, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, and Ethiopia, spreading rhythms and sharing cultures. The story of the Nile Project started with musician Mina Gerges, an ethnomusicologist who, inspired by the revolution, and particularly the tension arising between Egypt and Ethiopia over the potential construction of a dam on the river Nile. Returning from San Francisco, Mina wanted to realize a vision of cultural exchange through music. He asked the question ‘Can music be an alternate route for avoiding conflict?”

Since the project has been active Since 2011, we have asked Cyndy on her perception of their present cultural impact

The Nile project model has integrated a fascinating amount o f diverse musicians, a melting pot of talent and leverage of sound exposure opportunities, that have affected the way these musicians make music, and its impact

They were able to introduce new evolved traditional music, more relevant to youth as traditional instruments and rhythms were incorporated with electronic modern popular DJ music

Yet the impact didn’t stop at that, as their personal attitudes started to change, they felt empowered to act in ambassadorial role, a representative of their country.

Furthermore, “the influence on influencers” at government level as the Egyptian Minsitry of Foreign Affairs, invited the Nile Project to play in various occasions including, the reinstatement of Egypt in the African union

An insight into the Nile Project Transforming the Nile conflict by inspiring, educating and empowering people to make change.

Interesting enough, the Nile project had a life of it’s own, where one factor led to another in a serendipitous way: Mina’s intent to support change in Egypt was complemented by a fortuitous visit to a concert playing Ethiopian music that he enjoyed very much and “wondered how come I never heard Ethiopian music in Egypt and I have to be all the way in San Francisco to listen to it”

Upon identifying this gap of lack of exchange, the Ethiopian dam issue was brewing up, and then it all made perfect sense and the Nile Project was incepted, as an outreach program, uniting Nile countries through music as alternate route to avoiding conflict.

We wondered if their exclusive focus is to affect music and political scenes

Not at all, we engage with students too through workshops, presently launching a Nile fellowship where the fellows - not necessarily musicians - will be trained in conflict transformation methodologies using music and arts to inspire, establishing a Nile project chapter and student club to mobilize their peers to join in working with Nile communities on Nile sustainability environment.

About Performance and impact measurement

In the realm of arts and culture its difficult to quantify, even if the work we are doing is incredibly important - 20,000 attended our concerts and 600 students participated in our workshops- yet we are, still looking at new methods to measure impact quantitatively, as the donors are only driven by measurable results


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Challenges that you have faced or are facing

Challenges in the past and present remains the same, the main challenge is funding that is the number one challenge, no other challenge comes to mind above that one.

With a core team of only eight, the Nile Project’s success, according to Cindy, has been due to their commitment, creativity, and idealism. The Nile Project views the Nile as more of a holistic system than a river.

Amir Nabih


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We visited Endeavor and met with the marketing and networking manager. Endeavor is a non-for profit orgnisation who is providing mentoring support and organizing networking events to selected entrepreneurs of scaled-up profit making businesses. The selection of these sale-ups is mainly determined by two criterias; turnover and number of potential created jobs. They get their funding from a board of advisors which is composed of local influential businessmen.

Mentoring is a key aspect within Endeavor and they showed us the importance of that through a chart illustrating how the development look like.

We then visited Zooba which is a small-business which took part in the Endeavor program. It is a small shop/restaurant selling local food but with high-end packaging. Cool environment, hip, modern, very local, it employs at least 10 people in one shift.. A very good model for a very local business in the F&B industry that is targeting both locals and foreigners. They also support local community through showcasing and selling food products made by locals, you may find more about this #eatlocal.

Endeavor and ZoobaSupporting entrepreneurs Being an entrepreneurThe story from both


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Cluster Cairo, an architecture design practice who define themselves as a urban studies laboratory for critique, training, research, design and exploring their surrounding built environment restricted so far in Cairo.

Cluster was a long standing dream of Omar Nagati, yet it only came to be four years ago, in late 2010, with his partner now Beth Stryker they founded cluster, now they are a team of six of mostly trained architects in addition to many more interns.

Cluster are located in an apartment in downtown Cairo, a place not only significant as the commercial and historical centre of Cairo, but also it was the area to host all the political protests which gathered vast masses for the past three years from all over Egypt to trigger political reform, this brought about many research opportunities for cluster.

Cluster in CairoBold new visions for a city in flux

Their location and rich context enabled them to critique their surrounding built environment on a deeper level, for example, a whole research project dedicated to the street vendors of downtown observed right from their window, or a documentation project for downtown landmarks and formulating touristic guided tours and maps around them.

They are an architecture practice, where they do design work, yet they invest so much doing cross cultural workshops with universities, initiating researching solutions for urban problems in Cairo in collaborations with other organizations, also they invest in further exploring the blurring line between art and architecture, like curating exhibitions in downtown Cairo.

We found Cluster Cairo

to be an incredible inspiration for people in the creative industry, especially architects who feel overwhelmed by their built environment reality in the Middle East. Cluster Cairo started as being critical observers and now they trigger solutions for their social urban problems.


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25 Journalists decided to open their online newspaper after the closure of their journal the Egyptian Independent.

They decided to work on the content and on publishing on cultural production that creates controversial opinions around it. They dream of changing the mind sets of the readers rather than reaching large numbers and collecting figures and statistics.

Their main aim is to be an independent and liberal online newspaper and to spread this way of thinking to the other newspapers like the state and other independent ones.

Their main achievement since their opening is that they still do exist without being faced by problems related to censorship, their articles never been banned.

Mada MasrControversial in professionalism and liberty

They are now working on learning how to market their work and to attract advertising companies to put their adverts on their site; beside that they run some events and few trainings and workshops to cover their expenses.

Lina Attallah, Chief Editor said “Our main policy is to create an environment of criticism and controversial opinions about our published topics to raise the awareness of our readers”


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The project began in 2011, as an initiative by the "Townhouse" in Cairo, who wanted to organize a performance similar to the international Choir complaints "International Kompelinc Quaar".

Salam Yousri - a visual artist who began his career as a lecturer at the Faculty of Fine Arts, and soon resigned to be devoted to work in theater and music – got enthusiastic about it. He succeeded in mobilizing 25 people from different backgrounds with a unique shared desire to sing and express their hopes , dreams and realities and publically present the first creations of the Choir project

“I never thought in my life that complaining, which someone might define as a negative attitude, can become an engine of creativity and imagination”

Thus crumbled the ideas in the mind of the artist and playwright, when we met him in his lab, and volunteered to work with him simply without barriers nor pretention.

“The most beautiful element in this experiment is that participants are closer to each other and willing to surround each other. They talk, feel their pains, express their complaints, and the hopes that fill their hearts , then dream to find solutions for it; or at least improve their condition he says. No one really knows what will derive from each workshop, maybe it will result with a song, a play or a popular show. For example one time we organized a workshop in a popular neighbourhoods, and all the songs were about fruit and vegetables .The Choir project is one of the dreams that never ends, it is like the phoenix legend that get to reborn by itself, that is eternally renewed and can create Life even after his death. With each new dream begins a new workshop joined by new members of the new themes, and by its end, the public expect a new birth. Salam adds: we offer a work of arts that tackles the challenges that singers face in sharing their emotions with the public, and we have often succeeded to overcome the barrier of language”.

This workshop has been organized in more than a foreign country, most notably in France, Germany, Azerbaijan and Russia.

Our songs became the symbols of our gathering and our dream to be reborn.

The Choir ProjectBringing singing to everyone


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What we learnt from one another

Mohamed Rahmo

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Abdallah AbsiZoomaal Crowdfunding www.zoomaal.com

Zoomaal was created to give people hope, that they can make things happen and use their creativity to change their communities for the better. The crowdfunding platform offers people in the Arab world the ability to develop their projects, tell their story to their community of friends, family and followers, and offer small rewards in return for small amounts of funding. Many small amounts put together can make a big difference in making projects happen. And more importantly many friends, family and followers attract many more. It is an exercise in ‘mobilising the crowd’.

Mobilising the CrowdCreativity and Innovation for the Arab world

Abdullah says that crowdfunding does four really important things:

1. it validates your project and plans – it gives you a community to test the value of your ideas and give you feedback

2. It creates a media buzz – you have to campaign to make your project known and once you attract people to it, then the media gets interested.

3. It creates a community of early adopters – you will attract a community to your project and if they like it then they’ll stay with you.

4. It is funding without having to compromise your project’s values – people who fund you are not telling you what you can or can’t do, they are offering you support because they like what you’re doing.


Crowdfunding is not the answer to everything but it is a growing part of the infrastructure for supporting innovation. There are currently over 1000 platforms across every continent except Antartica. World Bank research predicts a 93 billion dollar equivalent crowdfunding investment market by 2025. But it is about much more than money – it’s about many people making many things happen.

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New types of conversation New forms of leadership


Jonathan is the Founder of Impact Hub - www.impacthub.net - now a network of nearly 60 spaces with over 9000 members on 5 continents. He shared a personal story of his inspiration, struggles, failures and successes in making the Hub and other insights along the path of his journey.

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How to manage your cultural project and ‘herd cats’


A discussion hosted by Ted Maxwell

Ted’s frame of the workshopPreparation is super important, so to a certain extent one should apply lots of the tricks of the generic project management trade. However, “the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry” is particularly relevant in this context because cultural projects involve people with lots of ideas and vague goals. Therefore the main solution is for people to learn how to react to changing circumstances… learn by doing!

The problems raised by the group

“I nearly ended up with a children’s concert without any children present.”

“I’m always jumping from project to project and have to start from scratch with new teams.”

“I managed 20 designers. I called them 20 monkeys because they were so hard to organise.”

“as creative people, when we manage projects we get overwhelmed with details… we get drained”

“our brains are not programmed to be project managers...how can we speak like managers? It’s a new language...like Chinese!”

We picked out 2 big problems being faced within the group. Half the group worked on one problem while the other half worked on the other

1. How can we work better with new teams?Dima, Mohammad and Ahmed worked on this question and presented some ideas back to the group, which can be summarised as:Understand your team, get to know them, set expectationsSet tasks which include building trust, accountability, planning (use checklists, continual evaluation)Focus on outputs including feedback, filtering and the goal of investing in good people

2. How do we build a bridge between creativity and project management?Sarah, Ghada, Fareeda and Maha worked on this question and presented some ideas back to the

group, which can be summarised as: Courses on project management targeted at “creative people”Workshops, experience and knowledge sharing, mentoringonline tools and other packages of ways to manage good delegationoutsourcing (and learning from specialists) ‘Suck it up’ i.e. sometimes just have to roll with frustrating processes (e.g. British Council and its love of forms!) because the bigger goal makes it worth it

Everyone finds cultural project management difficult, and over the course of the workshop we uncovered a lot more common ground when it comes to the difficulties associated with it. By the end, the group had come up with practical solutions for two big problems and we left with lots of positive actions to take:

“I’m going to treat people equally, overcome emotional clashes”

“I’m going to add creativity to my regular project management work”

“I’m inspired by the thought about training and how it can be used to ‘force my team’... I’m going to ask people to make a little presentation to me before I work with them”

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A discussion hosted by Fiddian Warman

This session was about how we can utilize technology in different spheres of our social and cultural life.

Using technology for art/creative spheres which varies from the environment we live in, to the clothes we wear and to artwork with light over building facades which is called “light Sculpture”

Many of us, the regular citizens has been exposed to different forms of digital art or we watch it in a TV programme without realizing that it is a whole complete world which have brilliant minds who are constantly thinking of bringing the next technology to our life not to facilitate a new use, but also to facilitate learning, to engage people in different and often sophisticated learning process by making it more interactive, participatory and enriching, to enriching our life as humans of having and utilizing very cultural products – and varied ones-.

The world of technology utilization goes beyond social media platforms; the most well known utilization of technological forms. It goes to actually enriching the different “cultures” and “mind set” we have on planet earth.

“I like the idea of mixing between technology and culture and during my work for example I work in the museum and it would be great to do light projections on interactive services and to spread such knowledge to regular museum visitors. I am interested in the area of creative coding and to introduce new ideas in digital culture to my local community”

“The open source role in controlling turning on and off certain buttons”

“Technology’s purpose is to make you feel better and to use things in a much easier way as it facilitates your life.”

“Using different platforms to connect and to exchange and spread knowledge about specific

Technology and Humanity


content such as the webinars and workshops. As for our work with British Council we are aiming to transform our image from English courses into a cultural centre. We are using a number of available digital platform tools and we need to learn how to use them.

“I use Linux in my work and I think it is the best thing for humanity. I use it for my daily life and it is fulfilling. The “Jordan open source association” they are an activist about open sources and data and we are promoting open sources… For instance, we are advocating for having an Open Government where we can access necessary documents out of transparency and accountability…Open data to the public is needed because they can review it, can edit it, review it and give it back.”

“I use the QR Code to increase the outreach of our Facebook page as we are trying to attract younger generation to be more interested in Opera”

We also mentioned the story of Aaron Swartz a hacktivist who invented RSS at the age of 12 and died when he was 26 years old in January 2013 he was advocating for open sources data and he founded the Watchdog.net.

We looked also at examples from SODA orgnisation and from their slogan one would learn a lot about

their mission with this regard and it reads; “Mashing up the physical and digital worlds for culture and learning”. They have done a number of projects varies from light sculptures, to device to showcase messages of affection instead of being engraved into trees in public spaces, to educational devices that are being used in museums and schools. To actually, meet a life example of “digital activists” who are detecting issues within the environment we live in; such as it is not okay to write on a tree –not to cut a tree- and therefore, you design a device where people can digitally write and share what they feel is a thing that worth reflecting about. It is a fantastic digital device, yes, but the cause behind this device is greater and it does makes us think.

This work has been created in the name of the goodness of humanity, neither for invention nor for fame.

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Forming good partnerships


Partnerships are about personal relationships that have the same vision and common philosophies and goals.

First: BE PREPARED• Research a partner with

Similar methodologies AND ideologies

• Do your homework about what they do and their organizations

• Pick the right time to open a dialogue

• Create a track record story of your achievements. A brief one.

• Accumulate accessible data about you and your work that is both online and physical

• Politics of partners and how they fit in with your other partners

• Identify the decision maker in the organization you’re pitching in advance

How to be when approaching partnerships:• Be Human before being

professional• Vocal• Brave• Credible• Transparent• Amicable• Look and Dress the part• Direct• Don’t beg, don’t demand, do ask

in a dignified manner

TOOLS:• Connect people

Your reputation will precede you, bank on it

• Shoot to the real decision maker of the organization if you can

• Please the ego of their subordinates

• Know your pitch• Have a strong vision• Network all the time• Sign up to newsletters, attend

events• Try to always allow yourself to

be at the right place at the right time

Don’t beg, don’t demand, do ask in a dignified manner

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“We humans learn best when in relationship with others who share a common practice.We self-organise as communities with those who have skills and knowledge that are important to us… A major act of leadership right now, call it a radical act, is to create the places and processes so people can actually learn together, using our experiences”

Margaret Wheatley, How to rapidly develop new leaders, in large numbers, 2002

British Council Creative Economy, Blurring The Lines -http://creativeconomy.britishcouncil.org/projects/blurring-lines/

British Council Creative Economy, The Creative Economy -http://creativeconomy.britishcouncil.org/resources_new/

Beautiful Solutions/This Changes Everything -https://solutions.thischangeseverything.org/

Business Model Generation + Canvass - http://www.businessmodelgeneration.com/

Creative Time - http://creativetime.org/

Cairo Observer - http://cairobserver.com/

Endossa - http://endossa.com/

Haiti Ghetto Biennale - http://www.ghettobiennale.com/

Hivos Mid East Creatives - http://www.mideastcreatives.org/

Impact Hub - http://www.impacthub.net/

Impact Toolkit, New Citizenship Project - http://www.impactguide.org/

Knee High Design Challenge - http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/projects/knee-highdesign-challenge

Leeds Creative Time Bank - http://leedscreativetimebank.blogspot.co.uk/

Little Sun - http://www.littlesun.com/index.php?sec=about

Makerversity - http://makerversity.co.uk/

Meetphool - http://www.meetphool.net/

Open School East - http://openschooleast.org/

The Outpost - http://www.the-outpost.com/

Play Your Place - http://www.playyourplace.co.uk/

United Nations Committee on Trade and Development, Creative Economy http://unctad.org/en/Pages/DITC/CreativeEconomy/Creative-Economy.aspx

Wooloo Human Hotel - http://www.wooloo.net/Human-Hotel

Zoomaal Crowdfunding - https://www.zoomaal.com/

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made by many cairo november 2014 - creative economy · cairo in november 2014. all participants in...

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