Slides for my speech at the SURAP (SUSTAINABILITY OF RURAL AREAS IN PRACTICE ) Conference in Nitra, Friday 4th of December 2015.

1. SURAP NITRA 2015
Global Villages
How Global Communication
Supports Local Innovation
Examples and Conclusions
Franz Nahrada
Global Villages
Lab Vienna

2. SURAP NITRA 2015
The Theory
● If we really want to stop rural decay:
● Rural Areas need more education and have less.
● Rural Areas thrive on cooperation and integration.
● New technologies hold vast decentralizing potential
● Urban and global knowledge are more accessible than
ever.
● Local resources are more prone to cyclic integration
than ever.

3. SURAP NITRA 2015
●Rural Areas need more education
and have less.
● Rising standards of urban life together with increased
mobility attracted many young people out of rural areas.
● If standards of urban life have to matched,not in identical
but equivalent ways, a few people have to be skilled to
perform many tasks. (example: care)
● The educational system is focused and accumulated in
cities; this vicious circle can only be broken by
unconventional means.

4. SURAP NITRA 2015
●Rural Areas need more education
and have less.
● Solution Patterns:
● Access educational resources online
● Build multifunctional local support centers for
learners, learning groups and learning
communities.
● Create intermediate environments for young
people to try, fail and learn in finding their place in
the region.

5. SURAP NITRA 2015
The Theory
● If we really want to stop rural decay:
● Rural Areas need more education and have less.
● Rural Areas thrive on cooperation and integration.
● New technologies hold vast decentralizing potential
● Urban and global knowledge are more accessible than
ever.
● Local resources are more prone to cyclic integration
than ever.

6. SURAP NITRA 2015
●Rural Areas thrive on cooperation
and integration
● It is a question of life and death of rural areas to manage
mutual dependencies instead of assuming that competition
can resolve the problem of already lacking resources
● Circular Economy is not only a way of waste management
and product lifecycle management, but also an economic
form in its own rights: How can everybody be included,
supplied and empowerded in a sustainable flow of material
resources? So that everybody is relevant ?

7. SURAP NITRA 2015
The Theory
● If we really want to stop rural decay:
● Rural Areas need more education and have less.
● Rural Areas thrive on cooperation and integration.
● New technologies hold vast decentralizing potential
● Urban and global knowledge are more accessible than
ever.
● Local resources are more prone to cyclic integration
than ever.

8. SURAP NITRA 2015
●Rural Areas thrive on cooperation
and integration
● Solution Patterns:
● Reliable Cycle Building is an economic form in its own
rights, used to exist as „moral economy“ and needs to
be redesigned around win-win situations. Example
Biogas and Tourism.
● Complementing Villages with specialised themes enable
rural microregions to match urban standards.
● School Campuses prepare young kids for village
themes. (Moosburg, Vorchdorf), Study centers give
access to multiple forms of higher education.

9. SURAP NITRA 2015
Still Kirchbach ...
● Bioversity, virtual university for biological
farming- reaching up to 60 locations

10. SURAP NITRA 2015
●New technologies hold vast
decentralizing potential
● Decentralized Automation (CNC cutter &
multimachines, Container Facories.
● Mature telematic systems (Telemedicine
supporting local practicioner and similar)
● Global Cooperative Open Source Hardware
Development (OSE, Farmhack etc.)

11. SURAP NITRA 2015
Example: School Campus
Moosburg

12. SURAP NITRA 2015
The Theory
● If we really want to stop rural decay:
● Rural Areas need more education and have less.
● Rural Areas thrive on cooperation and integration.
● New technologies hold vast decentralizing potential
● Urban and global knowledge are more accessible than
ever.
● Local resources are more prone to cyclic integration
than ever.

13. SURAP NITRA 2015
●Urban and global knowledge are
more accessible than ever.
● MOOCs and similar forms of Open Courseware and
Webinars (iVersity, Coursera, edX, Edudip, ...)
● Specialised Educational Support (Khan academy,
Wolfram, ETH Zurich for Math)
● Idea spreading by condensed talks (TED,TEDx)
● Streaming Video from Conferences and Lectures,
One by One Teaching and Consulting via Skype
● Learning and study groups, learners and teachers
communities, Open Educational Resources,

14. SURAP NITRA 2015
In theory.. but ....

15. SURAP NITRA 2015
A New Paradigm
● Market Failure ?
● Political Failure ?
● Or simply WRONG MODEL?

16. SURAP NITRA 2015
Example: „Village Innovation Talks“

17. SURAP NITRA 2015
The Theory
● If we really want to stop rural decay:
● Rural Areas need more education and have less.
● Rural Areas thrive on cooperation and integration.
● New technologies hold vast decentralizing potential
● Urban and global knowledge are more accessible than
ever.
● Local resources are more prone to cyclic integration
than ever.

18. SURAP NITRA 2015
●Local resources are more prone to
cyclic integration than ever
● Better use of resources (Solar Geo, Smart(!) Biomass,
Green Plant Chemistry, Upcycling technologies, heat waste
as local energy source)
● More knowledge intensive than the waste economy.(Rob
Hopkins: „Upskilling“) Need for managing intermediary
processes by physical interfaces and human engagement.
Need fornew creative solutions in all walks of life, even if
the local everyday history provides a rich textbook of ideas.

19. SURAP NITRA 2015
Places of Access and Learning
● Arrange learning in a way, that groups of people are
encouraged to discuss application and potential of what
they are learning. Create local learning centers where
people can do common viewing, listening and replying to
online content, whilst also digesting internally ….
„Education and Encounter“
● Have local intermediaries present and moderate who act
as representatives of local and global knowledge alike.
(eg. Minimed)

20. SURAP NITRA 2015
Case Study Kirchbach
● Background: 1600 Inhabitants in 6 Local Communities
LA21 - Municipality
30 Full und Part time - Farmers
Local businesses and services robust
School, Library, Parish ...

21. SURAP NITRA 2015
Case Study Kirchbach
Guest Rooms
„Mini Hotel“
Offices,
Educational
Center &
Coworking
Service
Center
Wining and
Dining Cellar
Of course renovated by local businesses /Wood Chip Heating / barrier free access

22. SURAP NITRA 2015
Case Study Kirchbach
C
● More than 100 lectures
from Graz University
Increasing number
of local audiences

23. SURAP NITRA 2015
Still Kirchbach ...
● Days of Utopia, simultanous event with a large education center in the west of
Austria

24. SURAP NITRA 2015
Result Kirchbach
● 9 years of succesful local event creation
● Proof of concept in terms of demand and
participation.
● No coordination with municipality
● Burnout and massive breakdown of proponents
● New owners will most likely continue the
concept.

25. SURAP NITRA 2015
Campus Osttirol
Tthe most peripheral region in Austria, rather
small – in terms of 50.000 inhabitants -,but still a
NUTS 3 region well outside the typical range of
150,000 to 800,000 inhabitants. 3 big valleys.
Small Town Lienz 12000 inhabitants. Strong local
center.

26. SURAP NITRA 2015
Campus Osttirol
* Although Lienz has several educational
institutions, an institution for higher (scientific)
education is missing. Exodus of gifted young people
is only one of the results.
* We suggested a process of regional awareness
building about the possibilities of Higher Education
via Internet and screened various models of
implementing higher education in the region – to find
„design patterns“- supporting participation of local
actors.

27. SURAP NITRA 2015
Campus Osttirol
● „Our goal with the roll-out of a pattern language is to
increase "passive competencies" of all groups involved,
which means to understand the complexity of the field they
are acting in, understand the different options they have to
reach their goal, understand the thinking of other people,
professions and groups involved, get aware of win-win-
constellations and opportunities, get a clear understanding
about long-term sustainability and possible "side effects" of
solutions.„ (Leitner, Nahrada, Röthler, Ziegler)

28. SURAP NITRA 2015
Campus Osttirol
● Pattern Cards for Handling Design Patterns

29. SURAP NITRA 2015
Campus Osttirol
● Perspective Cards to Contextualize Patterns

30. SURAP NITRA 2015
Result Campus Osttirol
● Indirect result: politics and institutions reacted to
increased awareness and created some higher
education offerings with cooperating universities, for
example mechatronics.
● The actors process is still going on, a climate of
experimentation has been created and we want to
continue the process by instigating local actors to
use the full potential of cooperations to create
examplary courses and discover synergies inside
and outside the region.

31. SURAP NITRA 2015
Thank you for your attention!
● To continue the dialogue
● Please join:
● https://www.facebook.com/groups/globalvillages/