Disonancias

Mondragon Goi Eskola Politeknikoa

Mondragon Goi Eskola Politeknikoa is a comprehensive non-profit education cooperative that has been declared a public utility. Its main activities comprise training, research and technological transfer to companies and other public and private entities.

Its teaching activities began in 1943 and since then it has not stopped growing. Mondragon Goi Eskola Politeknikoa has been behind the creation of many innovative company experiences and has a great vocation for business: over 40% of financing for its R&D activity in 2005/06 came from companies. The education cooperative participates in the EU’s R&D programmes and collaborates with foreign universities.

The DISONANCIAS project will be carried out within the framework of the “Innovation and Entrepreneurship” team, a reference team in Europe, comprising nine people working in different areas relating to these fields.

Arrasate-Mondragón (Gipuzkoa). www.mondrago.edu/eps

Platoniq

Platoniq (Barcelona, 2000) comprises a group of cultural producers and software developers who carry out research into the possible social uses of technology and networking in the aim of improving communication strategies, self-learning and citizen organisation. The result of its work generates collective innovative tools and research methodologies, as well as a broad Internet audiovisual archive under open Internet licenses.

Highlights of its most renowned projects are Burn Station (2003), a distribution system for copyleft music that, via actions in public spaces, invites passersby to copy for free a selection of work of over 800 artists who distribute their work under open licenses; and the Bank of Common Knowledge, certain encounters in which people who are aware of the value of knowledge exchange meet outside of traditional hierarchical frameworks. During these encounters, entitled Knowledge Exchange Markets, they exchange experiences and ideas based on the demand and offer of citizens from places as diverse as Barcelona, Cambridge, Lisbon, Casablanca, Hong Kong, Jakarta, London, Singapore or Dublin. Platoniq has won various awards: at the Tránsito Festival of Mexico City, Transmediale Festival of Berlin and the UNESCO Digital Arts Award.