Co-creation Forum Lanzarote 2023

In September, the Rising Tide Foundation in partnership with Universidad de las Hesperides and with the support of Universidad Francisco Marroquin (UFM), hosted the first ever “Expect the Unexpected” Co-creation Forum in Lanzarote, Canary Islands.  At this forum, we invited organizations that run exciting projects related to our Freedom in Practice focus areas and are currently facing obstacles or challenges to receive advice from a selected group of global experts (collectively known as the “brain trust”.) Numerous fascinating discussions occurred during this two-day event, and countless unique solutions were proposed. 

Yet, this was not just any co-creation event. During the forum, we employed the tried and tested methodology pioneered by UFM through their Antigua Forum project. This approach is unique as it embeds core classical liberal principles into the project acceleration itself: self-organization, emergent order, collaboration, and free exchange.   

The highlight of the Lanzarote Forum was learning and hearing from six project owners from across Europe who came to the event to receive feedback from the brain trust in hopes of finding solutions to the barriers or obstacles they face. These projects included:

  • “Property Rights for All” (Albania): Through this project ICG Research aims to address the challenge of chaotic land titling processes in Albania that have deterred private investments, caused conflicts and limited the development of the real estate market. The project will address this problem by allowing equal access to information to all citizens through an open web platform and propose necessary improvements in the legislation and the legalization process from an operational standpoint to increase efficiency and improve performance. 
  • “Breaking the Ice in Education” (Slovakia): The worst 50 schools in Slovakia educate 20,000 children who will graduate without a basic level of literacy. This project aims to counter Slovakia’s stagnating state education system by establishing charter schools as an option for parents and specifically for those with children in underperforming government schools.  
  • “SIGNAL” (UK): The SIGNAL methodology eliminates poverty by activating the potential of participants and, in turn, their households and communities. People self-assess against a series of multi-dimensional indicators, represented by three images and simple explanations, that enable an individual or household to complete a self-evaluated survey.   
  • “Global Energy Institute” (Europe): Energy policy is poorly understood, even by specialists in the field. This confusion results in abysmal policy decisions that focus solely on reducing emissions, often at the expense of the poorest in our societies. The Global Energy Institute will combat this problem by developing and expanding high-quality data sets on renewable energy performance worldwide and conveying the resulting arguments to policymakers and investors to encourage energy and climate policy reform. 
  • “Freedom Games” (Poland): To counteract illiberal and populist ideas, there is an urgent need for more open discussions that promote the values and ideas of freedom, democracy, the rule of law, and openness. Held annually in Łódź, Poland, the Freedom Games serves as a large-scale in-person and online educational event that reaches citizens in Poland and abroad. The project’s strategic goal is to reinforce further European dialogue on vital issues from the liberal perspective. 
  • “Youth for a Single Market” (Serbia): The political and economic fragmentation of the Western Balkan region after the wars of the 1990’s still creates obstacles to peaceful coexistence stemming from mutual interests. This project will create grassroot support for initiatives in the region that would eliminate obstacles to economic cooperation.  

Each project owner has signified that their projects will substantially improve because of participating in the Lanzarote Forum. We will continue to work with them in the weeks and months ahead as they implement the ideas that were co-created throughout the weekend in Lanzarote.   

Here is what a few of the project owners had to say after attending the Lanzarote Forum: 

A magnificent, exciting, and challenging experience. Fantastic group of people, stimulating conversations, inspiring recommendations, perfect logistics. One of the best events I have ever attended (and I have experienced already quite a few!).” – Lanzarote Forum Project Owner 

Lanzarote Forum was excellent. Genuine intellectual adventure. I left inspired and energised It helped me to look at my project from different perspectives and showed me all the things we didn’t take into account when preparing our project.” – Lanzarote Forum Project Owner

Inspiring and flipped challenge into exciting opportunity.” – Lanzarote Forum Project Owner 

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