Graciela Nava Guerrero,
Rafael Silveira,
Man holds digital tablet in his hands by Karolina Grabowska. This file was licensed with the Creative Commons License CC0 Public Domain.
In order to achieve our future vision (explained in Section 1.3), we developed two different pathways that follow diverse strategies (to be explained in detail at Section 4.4).
We elaborated these pathways taking into account the research presented in the previous chapters and are developed following the collaborative approach of hybrid innovations.
We considered the fact that innovations are already being done in the island, and that to achieve our vision they should aim to spread the innovative attitude among Texelaars and expand the knowledge developed in the island. Considering this we developed two technological solutions that were further elaborated into two pathways.
In order to provide two feasible alternatives, we addressed each of the pathways to a different direction. While the first pathway focuses on creating innovation knowledge in Texel and then expanding it, the second one creates and external network to them expand the innovation in the island. This approach gives us alternatives to face this challenge in different ways, if one of them shows itself not feasible.
Each of the pathways is based on a technological solution; in this section we explain two groups of technologies that could be used to take the system from its current to its future state.
The first Pathway, is based on the technological solution of the Texel Innoveert.
The Texel Innoveert is a combination of three solutions that follow each other and that happen yearly during the full pathway.
This solution is based on the idea of stimulating an innovative attitude on Texel, and providing enough connections and resources for Texelaars to develop their ideas.
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Showcase event |
This event would present to Texelaars the innovations being developed in the island. In addition, through a voting system 3 innovations will be selected at each year to be further developed. |
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Experimentation |
The selected innovations are then tested using subsidies or sponsors funding. In this phase, the municipality collaborates with the development of the innovation allowing the non obedience to all the regulations, in order to minimize the legal barriers. The innovator is stimulated to test his ideas in a failure allowed environment. |
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Showcase presentation |
After the experimentation phase, the innovations are presented to the general public (Texelaars and visitors) and also to entrepreneurs and firms in a festival or market environment. This allows innovations to be absorbed by the market, or to Texelaars find funding and become entrepeneurs. |
This events would initially take place only in the island. With the growth of its importance and recognition we expect that after 2020, it can also be hosted outside Texel, exposing the Texelaar’s innovations to a bigger audience.
Since its beginning, the Texel Innoveert will encourage Texelaars to start innovating; with the events, it will attract a public that is interested in the innovations happening in the island. This will expand the network of Texelaars allowing them to start developing new innovations not only by our proposed technological solution, but even by themselves.
Regarding the challenges we formulated in section 2.4 on presence, Texel Innoveert answers these in the following way. The focus is clearly on situated agency, because new innovative ideas from Texelaars are elected each year. This stimulates everybody interested in innovation to send their idea to Texel Innoveert with the chance of receiving resources, support and funding. Second, a yearly rhythm is created in Texel involving as many locals as possible in a low-threshold festival or market atmosphere. By making the process and the results of sustainable innovation visible, environmental impact is enhanced, because people feel inspired by the good ideas and results of others.
The second technological solution, the Sustainaversity, is formed by several smaller technological solutions, as explained below.
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Workshops |
Prepared by pioneer innovators, the workshops would show current sustainable innovation in Texel to visitors as Texelaars. |
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Yearly workshop calendar |
Texel as an island would assemble a yearly calendar of workshops. Every month would be dedicated to one topic, such as closing water loops, energy efficient households, sustainable farming, etc. |
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Sustainaversity MOOC |
Pioneer innovators and new innovators would develop modules for a MOOC. The online platform would enable testimony from the island and from abroad. It would provide room for interaction beyond the island and it would also promote Texel abroad. This is likely to lead to new visitors coming to the island and those visitors, would have the particular interest to learn about sustainability. |
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Dynamic Sustainaversity MOOC |
This part of the technology is key to the interaction. It invites new Texelaars to start innovating in order to make it to the MOOC. Although the MOOC would not make profit by itself, it could be linked to other subsystems in the island and make profit in that way. |
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Experimental spaces for innovation |
In the long term, visitors would come to Texel not only to take part in the workshops or just get to know the island, but also to find experimental spaces to innovate. Texel would be known as an innovative and sustainable knowledge center. |
The sustainaversity would expand Texel’s network, encourage more Texelaars to talk to each other and to change the system themselves. Moreover, it would provide room for businesses, which would connect to the sustainable entrepreneurship subsystem. In the following diagram we summarize the type of presence that each component of the sustainaversity targets.
Regarding presence, Sustainaversity focuses most on synchronizing performance, by offering education in a specific speed an yearly rhythm. Everybody joining the MOOC feels connected to Texel and their knowledge in some way or another, maybe even inspiring them to visit the island. By involving Texelaars to prepare the content of the course, situated agency is enhance, since these people feel they can have impact on the process. Environmental impact receives least attention in this pathway.
As stated in the begining of the chapter, each of these technological interventions is part of a pathway to be further elaborated in Section 4.4. The next section will discuss presence in our future vision, after the pathways are concluded.