Livelab is a non-profit organization, a living lab of social innovation that develops and applies technologies and strategies from collaborative games to achieve positive transformation. It aims to promote means to awaken and free the creative and entrepreneur spirit of individuals and communities so they can promote initiatives of local transformation and inspire other people and other realities to replicate this practice, thus contributing to an impact in scale.
The idea of a lab that we present here is not about a physical space, limited or composed of facilities and equipments for scientific researches. Livelab, driven by the potential of humans in collective, is a space in movement – alive – created for the invention, experimentation and sharing of knowledge, practices and technologies that foster interpersonal and collective development.
Such devices developed by the association – games and journeys – are tools for boosting community mobilization, social transformation, and leadership development. In this regard, we understand that the dynamics of games and traditional community playing, when amplified by current Internet and social media connected technology are powerful instruments for mobilization and engagement of civil society on social causes.
The association was founded in October 2014 and acts to strengthen civil society, peripheral communities and businesses. We’ve been developing methodologies and conducting pilot events and experiences to mature and reinforce our goals.
Nowadays, the association is focused on developing and applying the X Journey methodology, that aims to promote youth protagonism all over Brazil. Our methodology has as a guiding principle experience-based learning. Throughchallenges, we propose a sequence of activities aiming interpersonaldevelopment. The guiding principles for the actions to be performed are the individual’s potential to articulate surrounding people and the availability to act locally, in other words, we work with methodologies that fit each place, solving local challenges with the available resources.
The construction of those methodologies happen in an interdisciplinary way. We aim to value collective experiences and especially articulate people with different backgrounds to act anywhere, mainly in communities in a socially vulnerable position. The previous experiences of the creator and methodological coordinator of X Journey, Edgard Gouveia Jr., with the organization of National and Latinamerican Encounters of Architecture (ENEAs and ELEAs); the Fishing Museum of Santos; the “Warriors without Weapons” from Instituto Elos; the “Oásis” methodology and “Oásis Santa Catarina”; and the collaborative game “Play the Call” demonstrate and state the potential of this proposal, since they were all based on civil mobilization, popular manifestations and digital tools that are ever so present in the contemporary daily life of several cultures.
At last, we believe that these developing technologies can foster and strengthen the necessary autonomy for several groups that aim to act socially and, at the same time, enhance individual skills and talents that are so important in order to connect with a challenging social ecosystem. Therefore, we tease potencial groups and provide methodologies and strategies for the communities to find their our entrepreneurial spirit.
