Brnopolis for foreign speakers

This blog is bilingual and our intention is to bring more posts and attract more comments in English this year. Let's start with a brief summary for those who need the basic introduction.

Brnopolis is an open Brno community of people in creative professions, and interested in international city development. The non-profit apolitical initiative invites and exchange opinions and experience through this moderated weblog, as well as face-to-face informal meetings held through the OpenCoffee Club, which meets in over 80 cities around the world.

Take Brnopolis as an informal communication platform, think tank network or ideas lab that brings like-minded people together to share ideas, contacts & experience. It also brings these voices to local government and policy makers in Brno and the region.

Why?
The city of Brno has enormous potential within Central Europe that is not being fully exploited yet. The city is a traditional hi-tech center with the unique position in education, research and development (see European Cities of the Future 2006/07 or The Rise of Knowledge Regions). However, it lacks openness to new ideas, contacts and opportunities, more diverse and cosmopolitan character.

Whom is Brnopolis for?
Sociology calls them creative class (the book Rise of the Creative Class by Richard Florida actually inspired us) - entrepreneurs, researchers, artists, managers, cultural events organisers, university lecturers and students, architects, lawyers, doctors, computer programmers, representatives of media, financial services or design & advertisements, etc.

The special target group are expatriates living, working or studying in Brno. So far we have organised two meetings with them (see summary & photos from April and June) and conducted a survey among foreign students. This year we plan another expats meeting and a series of posts introducing their lives in Brno.

In addition to expats, we are looking for people with strong relation to Brno living abroad (at least for months) who would answer a few questions comparing their place and Brno. We would also appreciate finding more partners for networking with Vienna and Bratislava creative hubs.

What else do we discuss here?
Cafes and other places of authentic street culture: what places do we attend, International projects funded by EU programmes: how to apply and what to use funds for, City of universities and knowledge: where are talents and creative hi-tech jobs, Writers and bloggers: citizen journalism in the era of web 2.0 social networks.

Do you know someone who may be interested?
Would you like to join us at Brnopolis? Subscribe to RSS or mails, drop a note to your colleagues or friends, give them the link. Contact us at info (at) brnopolis (dot) eu.