Athens 2019

Our first workshop happened in April of 2019 , in the beautiful city of Athens! We were introduced to our first set of would be Ambassadors, and they were FANTASTIC! The SciCulture team were finding our feet with this new adventure, and this team took it in their stride, and we cannot thank them enough for being amazing! We laughed, we cried, we explored, we grew.
We designed our course around the principles of design thinking with each day being dedicated to each step of the process, Emphasise, Define, Ideate,Prototype and Test. We divided the attendees into groups to ensure that there was a mix of backgrounds and skills throughout, following workshops on design, science and entrepreneurship they were tasked on using these new skills to communicate ideas in new and innovative ways, followed of course by social activities. It was definitely a week of working and playing hard!

Minou Schillings – Athens Ambassador

Life begins at the end of your comfort zone. The SciCulture program kicks you directly to the end of that zone. The program challenges you to wander outside of your own profession, question your assumptions and broaden your horizon. It is the ideal program for anybody who believes that innovation and creativity thrive in cross-cultural, cross-sectoral, cross everything environments.

Minou Schillings
Athens Ambassador

Abigail Galea- Athens Ambassador

SciCulture offers a platform to meet new people, share ideas and discuss solutions to societal problems. The memories and friends that I’ve made through his project will stay with me for the rest of my life.

Abigail Galea
Athens Ambassador

Matthew Cilla- Athens Ambassador

Sci-culture has helped me to broaden my horizons and to not stick with just one area of expertise, but to be more open towards experiences and opportunities. It has also taught me how to organise my thinking and creativity as well in my daily life

Matthew Cilla
Athens Ambassador

Argyris Stravelaki Mardas- Athens Ambassador

“It made me richer as a human and a scientist. I learned valuable information and met incredible people who not only keep in touch but keep up with what we started, making the vision of Emotional Education a reality.”

Argyris Stravelaki Mardas
Athens Ambassador

Bergen 2019

After the success of our first workshop, we were very excited for our next chance to put what we have learnt from Athens and make an even better experience for the attendees. Burgen is certainly different to Athens, but no less a beautiful city. We were introduced to a very different, but no less brilliant group of people, all very excited to engage and learn how to use design thinking and incorporate the ideas of others into their own.
Using the framework from our previous workshop we built upon it to continue to tailor the SciCulture course for our Ambassadors. We crafted workshops that did not just introduce the concepts of design, entrepreneurship and science, but also unite them from their inception. Why preach about collaboration if we were not demonstrating this in our workshops! So tutors combined their knowledge in these fields to create a unique experience for our would-be Ambassadors.
This time we were able to see a world a little different to our own with an immersive VR experience and through the animated films created of our Ambassadors.

Shaher Moseley- Bergen Ambassador

Throughout the very intensive workshops, I learned to embrace my limitation and others’. Instead of having one way to investigate, the possibilities are only limited by imagination; I learned throughout SciCulture that limitation of scientific tools are bound by the limitation of self-expression and can be unlocked only through art. I learned that the unknown is a friend rather than an enemy. And I also learned what unity of differences is. It was good to witness what the marriage of arts and sciences would be like. And like any project ever existed, there are always areas of improvement.
Shaher Moseley
Bergen Ambassador

Amy van den Hooven- Bergen Ambassador

The SciCulture experience was one that I’ll never forget. Coming from a design background it was a great opportunity to meet and work with people from different disciplines across Europe. It was both intense and extremely rewarding! From dancing to making stop-motion films, this week was packed with fun and hands-on workshops. I learned new methods and skills that I am now using in my Master’s program. The best part of it all was the friends and connections I made through the course. It was a very inspiring group of people!

Amy van den Hooven
Bergen Ambassador

Charlotte Chivers- Bergen Ambassador

“The course was intensive, inspiring, varied, and at times, uncomfortable. We were encouraged to participate in activities outside of our comfort zones and embrace divergent ideas within our groups. For example, whereas I previously avoided conflict when working in groups, I now feel more able to embrace it due to experiencing how great ideas can emerge as a result of heated (but productive) debate.”

Charlotte Chivers
Bergen Ambassador

Nika Levikov- SciCulture tutor

“I was amazed at how quickly people produced coherent and engaging works of art/theatre performances in their diverse groups with no prior experience using the materials at hand. The expected trepeditation around trying something completely new and foreign seemed to have gone amiss.”

Nika Levikov
SciCulture tutor

Rotterdam 2021

Innovation in education was at the heart of this 5-day intensive course. The transdisciplinary course challenged the participants to develop an innovative proposal for how a future city could be developed that helps address the global challenges that humans will inevitably have to face, related to sustainability and human and non-human wellbeing.
The whole course fosters a “what if?” approach: how could things be different and how can we encourage them to become so. To challenge their views of present and future cities and develop possible solutions, the participants went through a Design Thinking journey, rooted in 5 steps: Discover, Define, Develop, Deliver and Communicate.
First, we discussed the wellbeing of cities and their future (Discover). On the second day, the groups defined the challenge they wanted to address and to develop potential solutions. Following this they then had to explore the possible scenarios and outcomes of these ideas. The fourth day (Deliver) gave participants the opportunity to look into their projects through an entrepreneurial light, and by the fifth day our participants were ready to Communicate their ideas, presenting their innovative approaches on the future wellbeing of cities.

Stavroyla Kypraiou- Rotterdam Ambasador

Some of the outcomes our group experienced from the SciCulture online course were, learning how to build effective communication bridges and to collaborate better with people from different backgrounds, and to respect each other’s opinions, as it leads to better interactions and acceptance of the ideas of others.

Stavroyla Kypraiou
Rotterdam Ambasador

Carson Reiners- Rotterdam Ambasador

SciCulture is the ability to have different people in a room, not imposing ideas or perspective, but all have a voice. It is an opportunity to discuss something that maybe you don’t personally relate to, but when you start to bring in all different perspectives and information you learn a little more. You can start a dialogue that kind of starts to strip away some of these walls, barriers and terminologies that divide us.

Carson Reiners
Rotterdam Ambasador

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