Game|Changers — Gardening Learning Ecosystems in Between Steady University and Industry Structures

This is a backup of this LinkedIn post.

Finally, the story of ad-hoc education and research program GameChangers Russia is published as a scientific article: ‘Ad-Hoc Education&Research Approach for ‘Gardening’ Learning Ecosystems’ in Subaltern Knowledge in Cultural Practices: Fostering Fairness, Cooperation and Care. Ed. by Milena Dragicevic Sesic, Sarah Cordonnier. University of Arts in Belgrade 2024 (p. 265-286).

Here I explain how the approach was applied for ‘An introduction to the IT Industry’ course which further became a sort of fractal structure with a core team and alumni starting their courses: from biotech, fablabs, and big data to design, future of education, social entrepreneurship, and enterprise architecture.

 Further, I consider how this experience could be applied to deal with multicrisis creating long-term cooperation between universities, ecovillages and other grass-roots ecological and regenerative initiatives, nature reserves, and indigenous people groups.

The publication became possible thanks to “Sharing subaltern knowledge through international cultural collaborations” (SHAKIN’) project that is a European collaboration supported by the EU’s Erasmus+ program: Strategic Higher Education Partnerships for Innovation. See my note about this project.

Here I wanna mention Visnja Kisic and Goran Tomka (Forest University) who supported me on all the stages of participation in SHAKIN and Dima Orlov who supported my stay at the Forest University Residency. Special thanks to Pavel Luksha for advocating for the Learning Ecosystem vision.

Then the gratitude list goes on with those who’ve been involved within the Game|Changers’‘Ecosystem’.

Cofounders Nikolay Vyahhi and Vladimir Aluferov. The core initial team: Anna Chernysh, Aleksandra Kurysheva, Ekaterina Vyahhi, Anna Shikhanova, Maria Yavorkskaya.

Ivan But, Alyona Markovich, Lena Yarmanova, Mikhail Vink, Pavel Votchitsev as the continuators of the framework. 

Academia supporters: Marina Sukhorukova, Tatiana Gavrilova, Andrey Terekhov, Boris Novikov ... 

Industry: Kirill Petrov, Vasily Markov, Veronika Vetrova, Inga Petryaevskaya, Slava Nesterov, Marina Varzar, Andrey Breslav, Oleg Byakhov, 

Development and Higher education institutions: Igor Agamirzian, Eugeny Kuznetsov, Isak Frumin, Alexey Novoseltsev, Igor Egorov, 

GameChangers tracks Roman Musatkin, Kseniia Petrova and Aleksei Pogibelev, Igor Asonov, Julia Karashevich, Maksim Arzumanyan. 

Andrew Paterson for hosting Education Engineering Days in Helsinki 

NёrdCamp key organizers Anastasia Tsvetkova, Katia Lebedeva, and Yegor Naumov. IT Table Tennis Cup - Alexandra Vachnadze.

Design Sergey Karashevich, Grading System Olga Ianiuk.

And all the numerous experts like Vladimir Gorovoy, Anna Degteva, Andrei Afanasiev, Yury Lifshits, Tatiana Lando, Phillip Delgyado, Dmitry Kachmar, Alexey Nikolaev, Ilya Antipov, Denis Stark, Oleg Stepanov, Andrey Breslav, Alexander Shtuchkin, Vitaly Vlasov, Vitaliy Yanko, Alexander Klechikov, Dmitry Pavlov, Elnara Petrova, and many more…!

and all the alumni including Alexandr Kim, who was a master of our cosy atmosphere. Currently, he has been in pretrial detention for over a year in Russia, without any progress in the case of the liability of platforms such as booking with his platform for excursions Sputnik8.com.