Edgeryders is...

I understand it as a community

we are from all around Europe and

in a daily basis, collaborate through an online platform

it's a gathering of people who have diverse backgrounds and skills

but are all capable and

have a commitment to making the world better in some way

And a fairly aligned conception of what 'better' means

for me it is a community and a structure

to foster open consultancy

the best way I can explain it is

in terms of a shared response to systemic crisis

if you switch on the TV or you read the news

you see ecological, economic, and socio-political crises

that our society seems unable to

generate credible responses to

and really it's beyond the ability of any one person

any one decision maker, to be able to address them

you need collaboration on a massive scale in order to do that

1500+ community members
CONNECTED - DIVERSE - CONSTRUCTIVE - OPEN - COMMUNICATIVE - CREATIVE

we're in a city in the south of Italy called Matera

this is the location of this year's Living On The Edge

a community-driven, community-organized, community-populated event

Matera is the place that has

proved a lot of forward-thinking and courage because it chose

to support one of our main community-borne projects 
which is called the unMonastery

10-20 diverse residents

co-living, co-working 
3-6 month residencies

focused on local community projects

we are here to strengthen the ties with
the local community

and find ways in which we can build

and co-design this project and see if it
can be replicated in other parts of the

world as well

the idea for the unMonastery

came about in a room about 30 people

from quite disparate communities like
social innovation, hacking,

makerspaces,

squatters, activists, and artists, who came together
with the realization

that in order to continue to do the work that they
were doing and not burn out

and not become alienated there was the need
to build

infrastructure on which to do that work

the unMonastery is basically a structure

that enables you to not worry about
roof over your head,

food, and be able to invest in
that pre-market,

blue skies, 'you don't know the solution yet

so you're just trying to solve the problem'
phase of the innovation process

I think our unplugging from everyday life
for

period is a very potent way to get
perspective

and to achieve something that would
otherwise get distracted or stuck

Focus for the unMonastery

so the three primary issues

that the unMonastery is focused on is

high unemployment; a massive amount of
unused

housing stock and commercial stock throughout Europe

and with the onset of austerity you see the
rolling back of state service provision

and the need to plug that gap

if we are to continue. And then there's two other
things which

are less primary, but that's brain drain
from small towns and cities to capital cities

there's the desire to roll that back in some way.

there's a focus on resilient processes,

infrastructure, and ways of working that can

be sustainable in the event of future

and existing crises.

unMonastery Matera Projects
February-May 2014

Community WiFi Mesh Network

Multi-generational play and learning

Re-engineering Matera's water cycle for urban farming

Open source system to drive solar panels

Real-time public transport information

How can Edgeryders and Materani work together towards these goals?

this is a big question -

how can we create solutions for

local problems, being global?

I don't know, but I believe we should try

but it will be a challenge

resilience is a deep thing

it can't be induced

it's not taught

there's no such thing as a teacher of resilience

it's the community that acquires, over time

the knowledge to learn how to react to catastrophic events

to economic crises, to social crises

but it's the community that does this.

as I see it the guests have to integrate themselves with the community

it can only work if they integrate themselves

Matera should experience

what the Edgeryders are bringing to this city

but the edgeryders should get to know our spirit

we came here -

one on the taglines on our posters was 'with minds wide open'

which for me it means that we are looking for
different angles for collaborating with

the people here

and we not only... we want to feel
well received, but we are also looking to

be proactive in establishing connections with the people here and

paying specific attention to what their needs are

and how exactly we can work together

if the people of Matera and the Edgeryders

have the same point of view

it will be a wonderful thing