Commons Startup Support Programme “La Comunificadora” launches in Barcelona
La Comunificadora
La Comunificadora is a programme from Barcelona Activa to impulse collaborative or sharing economy projects consisting of training, mentoring and support to get financing. We look for commons-oriented projects, in other words: business models that combine a p2p collaborative production model with the wish to produce commons-oriented community projects with shared knowledge. Projects that propose an open or participatory governance while looking for economic sustainability of the project.
The commons is winning terrain as a viable alternative to the classic management models and it is certainly not small the number of successful projects that has developed in the last years in the fields of free software, open source hardware, digital fabrication, open data en circular economy.
La Comunificadora is a programme from Barcelona Activa realised together with Platoniq, Foundation Goteo and the Free Knowledge Institute, and a large group of people and organisations working for the collaborative economy, free culture and commons movements. Barcelona Activa is Barcelona's local development agency with a plethora of services for startups and enterpreneurial people. A programme focused on the economy of the commons was missing, until now...
The deadline for project proposals is the 27th of October 2016. Before that, on the 25th of October, there is an open information session with an introduction to the programme, to open business models and case studies, with support for projects wishing to submit their proposals.
On the 4th of November the selected projects will be communicated. The start of the programme will be November 8th and it finishes on the 26th of January 2017.
The training sessions will be in the morning on Tuesdays or on Wednesdays. The group meetings will be in the afternoon / evening on Wednesdays or Thursdays.
To submit a proposal click here.
If you have an idea or an already running project that could need help to evolve, submit it for consideration to become part of the programme!
Actions of the programme
La Comunificadora is a programme that combines five training modules (45h) with personalised mentoring of project leaders/teams (10-15h depending on the project). It is complemented with a collaborative environment with other projects, face-to-face meetups and online collaborative work.
Training modules:
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Module 0: open, prior to selection of projects (1 session): introduction to the programme and the collaborative or sharing economy, the economy of the commons, open business models, principles and case studies
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Module 1 (1 session): business and sustainability models; knowledge management, open and free licenses, governance and production models
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Module 2 (2 sessions): free-as-in-freedom and collaborative tools, their ecosystems and networking (digital platforms, management tools, Internet of Things, digital fabrication, blockchain, DAO)
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Module 3 (2 sessions): co-creation workshop, generating a business model appropriate for the selected project, with the Wotify toolkit
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Module 4 (1 session): Entrepreneurial skills and competences; typologies of legal entities, economic management and building your team
Group mentoring module:
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Module 5 (1 session): Financing. Resources to obtain economic support. Crowdfunding workshop; case studies and preparing of campaigns for projects participating in the programme.
Personalised mentoring:
- together with the tutors, each project will define a mentoring itinerary with one or more mentors according to the projects needs.
Note: all interested are welcome to join the first (open) session at October 25th, where we’ll introduce the collaborative and commons economy as well as the programme. People from La Comunificadora will be present to help submit project proposals. For this first session you should register at the form at Barcelona Activa.