Thanks to everyone who attended the first ever international Trans-Local Entreprenuer Forum on Thursday Nov 26th. On zoom, of course!

After getting to know each other a bit, we had a brilliant presentation from Nao Suzuki about the Isumi Local Entrepreneur Project, on the Chiba peninsula in Japan, which is creating the conditions for regenerative enterprise and economic transformation. We then had a brief open space session with topics on Global Regeneration Colab network, CoDev – a collaborative development methodology, Food & Fiber, Complementary and Blockchain currency.

And then, three solutionary entrepreneurs pitched their projects to the ‘community of dragons’ – all of us in the audience who were eager to provide support. First up was Spark It Liverpool who have a lovely approach to transforming street parking into popup shops and community spaces. Next was TiQuest who are building a solution to help locally-owned shops eliminate waste, as well as own and manage their own data. Finally, Bern Unverpackt, a zero waste coop pitch their project. All had a ‘trans-local’ element as they seek to connect across their local borders and spread their innovations. Our ‘dragons’ responded with ‘investments’ of money, expertise, connections, virtual hugs and lots of love.

It was an experiment and it seemed to work. All in all, about 40 participants – not bad for a prototype event on zoom!  And we had about 40 ‘investments’.  We’re already thinking about next time! Participants said: “this is the best zoom I have been too!”, “this was absolutely fantastic!”, “What a lovely experience!”

To connect with the international REconomy Community of Practice, you can join the Facebook group, follow the Facebook page, or the Twitter feed.  You can also visit our OpenCollective page and become a supporter.