The Hague is Coworking

Win 5.000 euros for your initative!

 

Stipo and the municipality of The Hague are searching for ways to better incorporate co-working in the urban structure. Do you have a good idea how to? And would you like to excecute it yourself as well? Enter the competition now!

 

(Dutch text can be found here)

 

 

Foto’s: Marco Raaphorst //  Peter de Wit // Guilherme Ribeiro 

 

The municipality of The Hague has noticed a new development in the city: Co-working. More and more people are using laptops in café's, working from home and offices have increasingly taken on more flexible designs.

The municipality of The Hague believes that co-working offers many opportunities for the city. This nomadic style of working has made cities more lively: flex-offices have effectively lowered the barrier to communication and have thus enabled an easier means of working together and sharing information, which in turn has delivered economic/social capital.

To encourage these developments, the municipality of The Hague has asked Stipo to carry out 4 pilot projects vis-à-vis co-working. Ideas and initiatives already exist, but to further their potential and to put co-working in The Hague's spotlight, Stipo has decided to set up a competition.

Stipo's course of action distinguishes three essential elements to co-working, namely: location, digital and social.

 

1. Location: due to technical and digital enhancements, fixed working spaces are no longer self-evident. It is now virtually possible to work everywhere: from home, in a café, in sports clubs and even on the beach. The whole city can serve as an office. Where you choose to work therefore depends on how attractive the location is.
2. Digital: Laptops, mobile phones, e-mail, applications, social networking sites... Without all these products, co-working could not have taken off so quickly. Programmes that enable you to carry out your own administration, applications such as Google earth and TomTom that allow users to navigate and do areal searches, networking sites where you can meet like-minded people and devices that make it possible to have access whenever and wherever you like. In short: the digital element is an indissoluble component of co-working.
3. Social: Co-working brings together people from all sorts of career paths. This is particularly happening because the development of flexible working is not merely focussed on independent entrepreneurs. People from all over, working within governments and large organisations, are increasingly working more flexibly. These new contacts enable information exchange, increased connectivity and form a new type of collaboration.

The goal of the contest is to generate a name for The Hague as a co-working city. We are seeking parties that are willing to take on co-working in The Hague and who feel that, with a little extra help, they can ultimately produce a better product.

An independent jury-panel will award four prizes to four separate projects that the jury believe will stimulate co-working in The Hague. Each prize consists of a net sum of 5.000 euro. Special attention will be given to how contestants score on the three elements of co-working. One winner will be picked within each of the three categories. Alongside this, a fourth winner will be chosen as decided by the jury.

 

For competing in the contest fill out the competition form here.

The form must be completed before the 21st of april 2010, 23:59

 

Questions can be send to Lara.Simons@stipo.nl   

 

 

Foto’s: Cha già José // Alec Hidell // Marc John

Criteria and Prizes

Submitted ideas must fulfil the following criteria:

1. The initiative must clearly strengthen one of the elements of co-working in The Hague
2. The initiative must be innovative and creative
3. The initiative must structurally strengthen the development of co-working in The Hague
4. It must be feasible to set up/implement the initiative by September 2010.

Four winners will be chosen. Each winner will receive a prize sum of 5.000 euro exl vat.

Result

The prizes will be awarded by the Minister of Economic Affairs during the prize giving ceremony. All candidates will be expected to be present that evening.

The ceremony will also present a networking opportunity for those who are involved in stimulating co-working in The Hague. Besides promoting co-working, the evening will thus also serve as a means to form new connections and to learn from each others' experiences.

Terms and Conditions

1. Candidates may submit several ideas.
2. The closing date to register is 21 April 2010, 23.59.
3. The ownership of the intellectual property right of the idea will remain that of the submitter. The municipality (one of the jury members) has the right to approach the submitters of the ideas, however, in order to offer additional support for the ideas/projects at a later stage.
4. Nominated and winning contestants agree to collaborate and offer support for the publicity on the co-working contest initiative.
5. The website application form must be fully completed: it will be the basis on which the jury will make their assessment.
6. The submission of inaccurate and/or relevant withheld information will result removal from the competition.
7. If incorrect information is only discovered after the competition, this will result in the disqualification of the winner. The prize money will then be awarded to one of the other nominated candidates.
8. Although submitted ideas will be handled with utmost confidentiality, the organization of the co-working competition will not be held accountable for the misuse, theft or any other form of loss or annulment of ideas.
9. The prize money may not be transferred to third parties and serves to be solely used for the execution of the idea.
10. The co-working contest is a once-only competition, financially made possible by Stipo 
11. Nominated candidates are expected to attend the prize-giving ceremony on 28 April from 16:00-18:00
12. The plan must be feasible to set up/implement by September 2010.
13. The payment of the prize money will coincide with the execution of the idea.
14. Stipo will receive an insight into the true costs of the idea prior to 15 September 2010.
15. All costs involved in taking part in the co-working competition are on one's own account. The organization nor the jury-panel will be held responsible for these costs.
16. The prize winners will be obligated to fill out a minimus-declaration form. By doing so, the candidate will declare that the execution of his/her idea will not require excess of 200.000 euro (gross) of government support.
17. Stipo will be the deciding-body in cases where this regulation does not apply.
18. There can be no correspondence regarding the result.

 

Foto’s: Gregor Fischer // Magnus Franklin // Guilherme Ribeiro