Succeeding At Being A Part of The Global Movement By Local Civil Strategies

More than 300 people from different disciplines came together to produce innovative solutions to the coronavirus crisis in Hack the Crisis Turkey, which was made digitally under the direction of ATÖLYE last week. ATÖLYE, the founding partner of the Teacher Network and imece, sets out from the determination that, as in Hack the Crisis Turkey, all sectors can collaborate and produce fast solutions to today's global, complex and urgent problems.

We asked Emre Erbirer from the ATÖLYE team how new, flexible and fast action initiatives like ATÖLYE “perceive doing business” and about their impact on the coronavirus crisis, as well as their view of civil society and what they target with Hack the Crisis Turkey. Erbirer says that Hack the Crisis Turkey is “a tangible product of social benefit oriented co-production process”.

You define ATÖLYE as a trans-disciplinary innovation platform. How do you collaborate with other sectors including civil society organizations?

As ATÖLYE, we believe that we have brought a new understanding of doing business to the century we are in. Our world is going through a destructive change in which the short and medium term results cannot be foreseen. The crisis environment we are in is one of the most concrete examples of this. All problems such as political instability, social polarization, an ambiguous future imagination, and volatile and uncertain economic policies arise not only in our country but also on a global scale. In addition to all these, the world continues to give an alarm as the human population continues to increase.

In today’s highly complex world, organizations are also facing an ocean of “complicated problems”. At this point, the ways of doing business, established collaborations and strategies of the past century remain insufficient and idle. As ATÖLYE, we develop cooperation with institutions of different scales in every field from public to local administration, from academia to private sector, from civil society to social enterprises. In the past 6 years, with the Education Reform Initiative, we have launched the “Teacher’s Network” platform with the support of the biggest six foundations of Turkey, and established a social innovation platform called “imece” with Zorlu Holding. All this is a result of the experience we have gained in different sectors and areas and the communities we have brought together.

“Civil Society Can Contribute To The World As Long As It Produces Together With Other Sectors”

Could you tell us about your view of civil society? To what extent is civil society involved in innovative initiatives in Turkey? How do you see its potential? Are there any NGOs you collaborate with?

Civil society is a field called “the third power” or “the third sector” together with the public and private sector in developed countries. We are well aware of this power and the importance of civil society. Civil society, as we have mentioned, can make a contribution to the world as long as it exists and produces together with other forces accompanying it. Nowadays, there are no sharp boundaries like the Academy doing research, private sector producing and civil society making advocacy. All these sectors are intertwined with each other and produce solutions to complex problems together. At this point, they need structures such as ATÖLYE that operate trans-disciplinarily and that establish inter-institutional connections and develop strategic design interventions.

In the past six years we have implemented many activities, programs and projects at different scales with civil society. We established the Teacher’s Network with the Education Reform Initiative and received the support of Mother Child Education Foundation, Aydın Doğan Foundation, ENKA Foundation, Mehmet Zorlu Foundation, Sabancı Foundation and Vehbi Koç Foundation. We’ve worked with institutions such as Entrepreneurship Foundation, Habitat Association, Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts, and TÜSEV in different events and programs. We designed trainings for global non-governmental organizations such as UNDP, UNHCR and UNFPA.

 “Hack the Crisis Turkey: Product of Collective Value and Social Benefit Oriented Co-Production”

Can you tell us about the Hack the Crisis Turkey experience you lead? What did you target at the beginning? What did you achieve?

As ATÖLYE, we prioritize taking special measures to improve the economic and social conditions of the communities in the areas where we operate and to consider their well-being. The Hack the Crisis Turkey event which we have realized with the aim of enabling the discovery of new opportunities that can be created in the crisis by taking participation and solidarity to the center, has shown an exemplary success in this sense.

The event which was organized in the digital environment that was led by ATÖLYE and imece with Ara Studio facilitation and Coronathon Turkey’s local network partnership between 27-29 March 2020 had demonstrated the importance of the balance between local-scale civilian strategies created against the impact of the crisis surrounding the world in an unexpected moment, and of being part of a global movement. While imagining and realizing a sharing, production and solution field that we aim to be intensely participated in such a short time, we envisioned the dynamism and excitement of the process we are in, as well as our opportunities for learning and development together. We once again experienced the importance of relying on a fast-paced organic and participatory structure, being open to feedback, and building trust.

Hack the Crisis Turkey had received more than 400 applications. Throughout the process, 40 teams created by 130 individuals prototyped their ideas and developed their projects. Over 500 people attended the 11 speeches and trainings we held that were open to everyone. 56 different institutions supported the Hack the Crisis Turkey event in different ways and 130 “mentors” and “creators” supported the teams in their project development processes. More than 50 people from the ATÖLYE community took part in the event. Beyond all these numbers, Hack the Crisis Turkey showed us that we are on the right track as a tangible product of co-production focused on collective value and social benefit.

“Mutual Design Is A Must In Handling Challenges”

How effective are such innovative initiatives in finding new solutions to existing problems? Can you give specific examples? What is the potential of Turkey in this regard?

The problems of the world and the century we live in are complicated. The VUCA concept, which has entered our lives in the 2000s, defines the period we are in as “variable, uncertain, complex and ambiguous”. This requires us to take steps to recognize the complex nature of the problems and to address them correctly while bringing new solutions to existing problems. However, coping with these challenges is no longer in the hands of a single institution and common design is a must. At this point, we need to use design as a tool to make abstract expressions concrete while developing new solutions to problems.

The Teacher’s Network and Imece, the two platforms we are the co-founders of, are precisely the initiatives that emerged from this need for embodiment. The Teacher’s Network is fed by the interactions with different disciplines, and forms a learning community that is produced by everyone who is part of the Network. At this point, while developing new solutions to existing problems, it benefits from other disciplines, its multi-stakeholder structure and the platform’s own internal community. “Imece” is a social innovation platform that we are the founding partner of. It opens up space for new solutions to different audiences and communities from the public to local governments, from the private sector to the civil society to develop innovative and sustainable solutions for social, ecological and cultural issues.

Are there any other successful examples of innovative initiatives in Anatolian cities other than big cities?

Turkey hosts many problems due to its nature, geopolitical location and history. The name of our platform “imece” (which means collective work in Turkish) is derived from this. The collectivity culture, which comes directly from Anatolia and from the essence of Turkish people, is a way of acting on solving complicated problems in our culture for centuries. The important thing is how we adapted this culture and this way of work to today. Therefore, there are many successful examples in this field in Anatolia. The only problem is that they are not as visible in the big cities due to the certain barriers (individual, environmental, financial, transportational, communicational, etc.).

Coronathon Turkey was one of your stakeholders. What is the difference between Hack the Crisis Turkey and Coronathon Turkey? Will you keep on carrying out such activities?

The works for Coronathon Turkey and Hack the Crisis Turkey were started at the same time. As ATÖLYE, we were among the partners who supported Coronathon Turkey. We realized Hack the Crisis Turkey a week after Coronathon Turkey and we’ve included Coronathon Turkey to our event as a local network partner. Many mentors and teams from Coronathon Turkey took part in Hack the Crisis Turkey. Both events had emerged for similar purposes and with an aim of social benefit. We can say that Coronathon Turkey and Hack the Crisis Turkey were two similar events in many subjects such as content, flow, stakeholders, focus areas and there were two activities that diverged from each other but were constantly fed from each other.

The European Commission will host a pan-European hackathon in close cooperation with the EU member states, by bringing civil society, innovators, partners, and buyers together in Europe to develop creative solutions to overcome Coronavirus-related challenges. ATÖLYE is a partner and the “National Curator” of this hackathon titled #EUvsVirus, which will be held with Coronathon Turkey between April 24-26, 2020. Our work and announcements about this hackathon will continue in the coming days.

“The Ability To Find Solutions To Global Problems Cannot Be Laid On One Single Structure”

Can new types of initiatives such as social entrepreneurship become stronger on their ability in terms of finding solutions? Do such initiatives have global collaborations in Turkey?

Social entrepreneurship has become a popular concept in recent years. But besides its increasing popularity, the issue of what this concept means and what it does remains uncertain. Along with this popularity, trivialization of the concept is in question as well. Regarding the concept of social entrepreneurship, I recommend the article “Social Entrepreneurship: Concept Definition” (“Sosyal Girişimcilik: Kavram Tanımı” ) of the social innovation publication of Stanford University SSIR, which was brought to Turkish by “imece”. At this point, as I’ve said before, the ability to find solutions to global and urgent problems can no longer be attributed to a single person, an institution or a structure. It would not be right to put the burden of the solutions of the problems on the shoulders of social entrepreneurs. Especially since we are talking about a structure that has not yet been established in Turkey, social entrepreneurship can find solutions to global and urgent problems only with a strong cooperation between public, private and civil society.

New, flexible initiatives that take rapid action form many different networks in cooperation with their global examples. ATÖLYE has been a part of the kyu Collective as of last year, which has been formed by gathering organizations with great elaboration. Hack the Crisis is one of the most obvious examples of this. Hack the Crisis, organized in cooperation with Garage 48 and Accelerate Estonia, has turned into a structure consisting of 30 teams working in different fields with 96 ideas coming from more than 860 people in 6 hours in Estonia. The Global Hack took place last weekend with the support of 40 hackathons. There is EUvsVirus launched by the European Commission on April 24 – 26, and ATÖLYE and Coronathon Turkey from Turkey are also part of this network.

A New System That Should Be Adopted As Soon As Possible

Could it be possible that the activities being carried out in digital environment and the solutions concentrating on digital channels because of COVID-19 produce faster and more effective results? 

The COVID-19 crisis has left individuals, communities and systems under a multi-layered impact. The spread has brought a new and fast adaptation to routines and comfort areas in many areas from health to social life, from economy to education. At this point, the activities and sought solutions that started to be organized in digital environment have found themselves as an acute solution to the crisis we are in. While many institutions were not even aware of the phrase “digital transformation”, they found themselves among virtual activities, digital guides or remote work kits. This unfortunately brought about a process that more idle and traditional institutions see as “temporary” and try to adapt with the systems they are accustomed to. However, this transformation was an opportunity for some institutions. We will only be able to see the impact of this process and whether it is producing faster and more effective results in the coming years.

What would you suggest to people or institutions with innovative ideas and projects for problems? What ways should they follow?

I advise them to always start with research. They need to fully grasp the issue they are dealing with as a “problem”, define the problem clearly, and identify the beneficiaries of the solution they have developed. After clearly determining the research question, they have to switch to the designing stage. When you use designing as a problem solving method, you have the chance to transform an abstract expression into a concrete structure. Then you move on to prototyping and testing this concrete structure. This brings you the possibility of direct interaction with the beneficiary. At this point, issues such as establishing radical collaborations, adopting a participatory design approach and learning together will be the things to consider on the path you need to follow.