Economic empowerment instead of cultural support
The following interview was conducted with Art and Architecture Magazine under the pretext of Startup Architecture Weekend.Interview with Navid Ganji under the pretext of Startup Weekend Architecture and Building
Most architectural institutions and associations are formed with a supportive approach to the community of architects. But in the meantime, we should mention another approach in the intellectual atmosphere of such associations, and that is empowerment. In the empowerment approach, the institution, the association, the assembly and any institution that has been formed following the union concerns, tries to go one step beyond explaining the boundaries, creating dialogue and reflecting the mobility and dynamism in the target society. Skills enhancement, job creation and… are among the measures that are on the agenda of institutions in the empowerment approach.
The Institute for Strategic Studies in Architecture, in collaboration with the University of Tehran Fine Arts Campus and Awarenesss, recently held a program called Startup Weekend Architecture and the City, which can be considered unique in terms of empowerment approach among institutions and planning institutions in Iranian architecture. And called the first in its level. On this occasion, we had a short telephone conversation with the director of this institute, Engineer Navid Ganji, to get more acquainted with the goals and future plans of this program.
Navid Jan, first of all, how was Startup Weekend born?
As you know, in the world, an event called Start-up Weekend is held every year and in a wide range all over the world for 54 hours with the aim of turning ideas into solutions that also lead to entrepreneurship. We have also been created under the entrepreneurship program of the “Good Architecture” project, which has been created for two years with the aim of creating public awareness in the field of architecture and the city and using the potentials of experts in fields other than architecture, to explain the process of specialization and focus We focused on the central issue in the field of architecture and the city in this platform in order to simultaneously empower the architecture and urban planning community in our business field with the central issue approach and to provide the ground for solving the problems of the city and architecture. Take advantage of the potential of other disciplines and create an innovative culture for society to achieve new businesses.
Who was with you in this program?
In the process of forming this event, in addition to benefiting from the potentials of architectural centers and media, we tried to benefit from the potentials of the IT field and active accelerators in the field of startups. As a result, in general, the honor of the presence of more than 12 instructors in the fields of architecture, city, web development and even anthropology and business strategy, along with the presence of 9 speakers at the opening and closing days, from the range of architects, urban planners and officials Relationships were selected on a micro- and metropolitan scale.
What were the problems in your way?
First of all, I call it a challenge. Well, because this is the first time this program has been held, there were some major challenges in front of us, among which we can mention the imbalance of different professions to participate in this event. For example, graphic designers and web developers were not present in the program due to the number of architects. Also, one of our main challenges is the lack of mutual understanding in the architectural community due to the different culture of holding such an event with similar events, ie expecting participants in an event. Entrepreneurship, which is also held on a global scale and is based on experience and training, was so different from events held in the form of workshops, training classes and competitive events in this field that I think it is embedded in the culture of communication. The architectural community is splitting, for which I have no judgment at the moment.
In any case, we are trying to introduce this ecosystem along with its culture to create opportunities for startups in the architectural community, so willingly or unwillingly, there are many problems and challenges in this way that we experience in order to improve. We looked at the next event.
There were criticisms about the program’s awards. what is your idea about this?
Let me explain this, according to the rules of the Global Start-up Weekend, which we approved to hold this event and accepted their rules in all areas in accordance with existing policies, paying any cash to participants is an illegal act. Comes and leads to the revocation of our license, so we turned this threat into an opportunity and talked to several accelerators to support the winning plans, the result of which is the unconditional entry of the top three teams in the three valid accelerators, which are initially services Such as providing space, technical and business support, and بر will be provided to the winners, and after ensuring that the team is serious about turning their idea into a start-up, they will also receive financial support, which is the total amount of these services. Probably more than 5 times the prizes we originally intended for our dear participants.
Of course, let me correct one word here, basically the word “winner” in my opinion, when the meaning of teamwork, failure and success and the central issue is understood, is a trivial word and the third world that we Iranians are more than anywhere else. We emphasize on another, this word is not in any way in line with the culture of startups, and in our opinion, all 11 teams that entered this process and tried and tried, are the winners, and we are in our future events that are planned under the entrepreneurship program. “Good architecture” is held and for all of them, regardless of their points, we have suggestions that we will present in time.
Do you seem to be trying to stand on your own two feet and not get much help from anyone?
Incidentally, we are trying to cooperate with private and government structures to achieve our goals and our social responsibility. In this event, we also got help from several architectural media, the scientific center of architectural technology of the University of Tehran and و Architecture is not developed to be able to get much help from anyone.
None of the consulting engineers and offices?
In my opinion, consulting engineers and offices should incidentally use this and similar events for further internal transformation and differentiation in their field, otherwise, with respect to all architectural offices, structures that could not change their method for more than 5 decades except alternative AutoCAD and 3DMAX instead of drawing boards can not help dynamic entities.
If they want, we are ready to help them….
Is this program ongoing?
Yes sure. We just got to know how it works. We gained experience. In the next programs, we will definitely have more workshops with more specialized approaches in the field of content. We are changing the format a bit from Startup Weekend and we are currently working on a system that can localize the subject of opportunity-creating events in the field of entrepreneurship and IT with an architecture and city approach to our culture and bring it to other cities through a mechanism. Let’s develop Iran.
We are also consulting with one of the centers for development and entrepreneurship to create a memorandum in the form of which we can with a mechanism process of receiving ideas from the community of architects to solve the problems of the city and architecture continuously so that the ideas can Implement and provide the necessary services, including related financial, spiritual and physical services to this community. Our main problem is to solve the problems of the city and architecture from the perspective of other perspectives on existing paradigms.
What is the approximate time?
My prediction for the second event is the first quarter of 1397, which at the same time we have some good surprises for the architectural community, in the field of entrepreneurship and investment in this field.
Did you have a meeting with the program?
Yes! As I said, another of our tasks was to convey the challenges of architecture and the city to the participants, and we also had to provide them with related case studies to enter the field with a more open mind; After that, in two sections, we raised the issue and presented case studies, which were presented by Dr. Hamed Mazaherian, respectively; Engineer Mehrdad Zavareh Mohammadi, Engineer Behnam Karimipour, Engineer Mehran Davari, Engineer Mehran Gharleghi, Engineer Alireza Khodaei and Engineer Sina Mokhtari spoke and then in the form of a panel, representatives of the City Council, Tehran Province Building Engineering System, Urban Development and Improvement Organization and … Were present that Engineer Seyed Javad Mirhosseini, Dr. Haidar Jahanbakhsh, Engineer Mehran Haghbin and Engineer Mehrdad Zavareh Mohammadi, respectively, expressed the existing challenges and urban policies and, of course, answered the questions of the audience.
On the closing day, our judges met the specific criteria that exist in the field of startups by combining three architects (two of whom were two architects, managers and policy makers, and one architect from MIT and the founder of an accelerator) and two Non-architects, activists and founders of startup institutions judged the ideas.
