Democratize the practice of open innovation for the benefit of society
The mission of the non-profit association Open Geneva is to promote and stimulate open innovation in the Greater Geneva area by bringing together a community of more than 3500 innovators, bringing their ideas to life, communicating their projects and supporting their development.
Open Geneva supports inclusive innovation, for all, and encourages the development and acceleration of concrete solutions to improve everyday life and society!
6th edition of the Open Innovation Festival: the highlight of innovation in Greater Geneva
Open Geneva organizes and coordinates the Greater Geneva Open Innovation Festival since 2017. This innovation event is intended for all those who want to commit to the future. Dozens of hackathons, workshops and conferences take place in Greater Geneva to find solutions to challenges related to social innovation, sustainable development, global health, media and digital transformation.
The Festival in a few Figures
A strong communication dedicated to the Festival
4 journalistic explorations “Les visages discrets de l’innovation à Genève”
March 2022
1200 accounts reached, including 630 non-subscribers
14'830 impressions
299 profile visits
101 publications
39'140 impressions
212 new subscribers
Media support from our partners
A presence in public space
A strong presence on social networks to animate an engaged community
SDG Innovation Bootcamp
The Festival, a unique place
to learn to innovate
In the early days of the Festival, Open Geneva and UNITAR offered free online training modules in French and English to invite their communities to learn more about organizing hackathons and innovation events.
Thanks to these dynamic and interactive workshops, Open Geneva and UNITAR were able to share their experiences, skills and meet the 35 participants from Switzerland and elsewhere who were connected to each of the 5 training sessions.
Thanks to the partnership agreement between UNITAR-Open Geneva, 20 training certificates were delivered following this bootcamp.
A rich and varied program
A Festival program that reflects the Open Geneva innovation community
A flexible platform
4 strong themes
The Festival is a program of events proposed directly by international organizations, entrepreneurs, students, private companies and associations. Each one was able to organize an event on the theme of their choice, to meet their own objectives and in the desired format (online, face-to-face, hybrid).
To register events, Open Geneva has put its digital platform at the service of the Festival: the Sparkboard. This platform offers a great flexibility to the organizers regarding the registration of events: no deadline, even a few days before the Festival, to propose an event, autonomous management of information communicated to participants.
The Sparkboard also helps to create a strong sense of belonging to the Festival by inviting all event participants to join the platform.
The Festival covers 4 themes to address current issues:
Sustainable development�Social and societal innovation,�Media and digital transformation�Global health
The opening of the Festival with the Geneva Trialogue
Since 2021, the Open Geneva Open Innovation Festival opens with the Geneva Trialogue. Organized with our partners UNITAR and the University of Geneva, this event brings together the private sector, international organizations and the academic world for a moment of co-creation. This year's theme, "Open Innovation for Education", focuses on the role of education in achieving the SDGs.
With open innovation as a compass, the 80 participants gathered at the Campus Biotech and the 60 connected online were able to exchange and develop new educational and learning approaches to achieve a positive social and environmental impact, in a spirit of sharing and co-creating practical solutions.
“Thank you for this opportunity to bring together such a diverse group of partners into this brainstorming session that yielded concrete and useful results” - BASE Foundation
Some key events of the Festival
Interviews, columns, videos: what if you started?
At Tour RTS
I'm taking part in this workshop to discover the job of a journalist" - student of the orientation cycle
"I create podcasts where people tell me their life story. These are sometimes difficult. How to conduct an interview in these cases? - entrepreneur
An interview is above all a human experience and an exchange, as was the case in this workshop which brought together participants from different backgrounds around Tania Chytil, a journalist at RTS. It is by practicing that one becomes better. A young student was able to use the knowledge transmitted by interviewing participants of one of the events of the Open Innovation Festival.
"Explaining the behind-the-scenes of an interview, opening up the exercise to everyone is for me essential so that people understand how we work, as well as passing on my tricks, my experience acquired over all these years. Moreover, the exchange is super enriching!" - Tania Chytil
Some key events of the Festival
Hackathon Level +
At Voisins St-Gervais
Being over 50, having a resume full of rich experiences and not finding a job? Many "seniors" experience this.
The participants concerned by this problem take control of their employability and get out of their comfort zone, using collective intelligence. Thanks to their experiences and the points of view of people with profiles different from their own, they were able to prototype solutions to put an end to stereotypes and value the expertise of "seniors" on the job market.
Some key events of the Festival
Eco-Challenges
At Espace 3DD
Eco-Challenges are a simple, effective and immediate way to act as citizens in the face of the climate emergency. People with disabilities, students, people with chronic illnesses, people in professional reintegration or affected by precariousness, migrant women, members of Geneva International and parents. If we are all affected by the climate emergency, our emotions and reactions to this situation are very different. Open Geneva and the State of Geneva went to meet different groups of people to discuss their relationship with the ecological transition and the eco-challenges.
Touching, inspiring, raw and rich testimonies were collected. "I don't find it worthwhile to make efforts, as long as big business and governments don't do anything." "The climate emergency angers me."
Creativity is part of the solution. To close the week of meetings, participants were able to take action through practical and fun workshops aimed at reusing material (fabric, plastic...) to give it a second life.
Some key events of the Festival
Sustainable entrepreneurship hackathon
At SDG Solution Space - EPFL Innovation Park
"Learning by doing". Innovation and collective intelligence are not learned on the university benches. Master's students at the University of Geneva have taken up the challenge of organizing their own hackathon.
Getting out of their comfort zone, collaborating with private sector companies and setting up an environment conducive to sharing and innovation were the challenges they successfully faced. An experience rich in learning and putting into practice the concepts studied in class.
One of the conclusions: "Your last slide should not be 'Thank you'".
Testimonials from event organizers
"And you, why did you participate in the Festival?"
"It's great for testing new approaches with a caring audience!"
"For the richness of the event, the purpose/vision/sense and societal involvement, the quality of the organization"
"It's a great way to get involved in the hackathon community and gain visibility for the events."
"Thank you Open Geneva for organizing this great event. I think we collectively need the positive energy generated."
Why is the Open Innovation Festival unique?
It is local and intense
It is the place where it all begins
It is by and for the community
During the 10 days of the Festival, the events on the program are proposed by residents of Greater Geneva or by local institutions to put innovation at the service of the population's needs. The Festival activates the entire local ecosystem and involves communities by inviting itself to different places and spaces in the Greater Geneva area. The more events on the program, the more they attract participants and contribute to the attractiveness of the Festival.
The Festival acts as a strong moment of activation for innovation by creating this particular moment of meeting, sharing and putting into practice between communities. By putting collective intelligence at the heart of its approach, the Festival becomes the place where initiatives are created, meetings are held, ideas are exchanged and innovative projects emerge. Participating and supporting the Festival is a concrete way to boost innovation!
The residents or organizations that propose events on the Festival's program mobilize their community to act at their level on issues that are close to them. They make the Festival part of their own innovation agenda. The organizers create a positive local impact, and show themselves to be actors of innovation by disseminating tools and skills to their community and more widely.
The Festival invites to various places in the Greater Geneva area
Instead of concentrating, the Open Innovation Festival spreads. One of the strengths of the event is that it brings different spaces in the Greater Geneva area to life and animates the entire local ecosystem.
Some partners have opened their doors to host hackathons and workshops, encouraging new meetings and opportunities for collaboration.
Région Genève Rhône
“The 3DD - space for dialogue - is a place dedicated to participative and cooperative approaches proposed by the Department of Territory of the State of Geneva. It promotes the sharing of reflections, actions and useful resources to act together on the territories and the ecological transition. Our themes converge with those of the Open Geneva Open Innovation Festival. We are happy to host some of the events on the program to encourage citizen participation and cooperation.”�Espace 3DD - Concertation space, 2022
Festival partners, supporters of a citizen dynamic for open innovation
Open Geneva is waiting for you in 2023!