COMM’ON collaborated with Youthnest for the design and facilitation of “The effect of Brain Drain. Brain Gain on social innovation", a four day practitioners lab in Thessaloniki, that aimed to open a discussion on the global issue on brain drain and explore realistic and practical solutions.
COMM'ON after the invitation of Youthnest co-design and co-facilitated participatory workshops for the 10 participants of the lab.
The program of the lab followed 4 thematics:
- Knowledge exchange
- Brain Drain in Thessaloniki (local reality)
- Development of a European working group on the issues around Brain Drain
- Next steps, strategic focus of the working group
The vision behind the lab: Brain-Drain, the emigration of highly trained professionals is a global phenomenon that has affected several countries around the world. At the same time, Brain-Gain means an increase in the number of highly trained professionals entering a country to live and work where greater opportunities are offered. Since it is part of the human identity to travel and exchange resources, we consider both Brain-Drain and Brain-Gain particularly important for the development of humanity and the dissemination of knowledge around the world. However, in some countries young intelligent people tend to migrate, leaving behind a human-resource gap, in which the young people who stay back and want to innovate and bring social change in their communities struggle to work with. We understand migration as movement.
Focus Questions: _What can we learn from that?
_How can we adjust this phenomenon in our work?
_How can we embrace innovation in such an environment?
When: 6-9.02.2020
Where: Thessaloniki, Greece
Collaboration: Youthnest