COFFEE IN VIENNA
Discussing ideas for a changing world
About
Coffee in Vienna is a YouTube channel that shares inspiring stories of transformation from around the world. Against the background of dramatic technological and social changes, and formidable ecological and economic challenges, we look for ideas and cases that show new directions for re-imagining our future.
The content of the channel is located at the intersection of journalism, research and education.
We have four fields of exploration:
1) promising imaginaries of the future,
2) interesting places of creativity,
3) new generation of social innovation, 4) transformative potential of digital platforms.
While our focus is international, we have a special playlist with “Ideas from Austria”. We highlight innovative projects - from technology to social innovation, from culture to education. Through our english language reporting, we hope to reach out to an international audience.
Our YouTube channel is complemented with a blog where we share relevant content from other sources.
Mission
We are building an open repository of hopeful ideas for a changing world as online education resource (OER) Our aim is to contribute to the global discourse and connect people interested in learning from each other.
As a counter-weight to the overriding volume of negative news flooding our media channels, minds and social spaces, we bring positive news offering a vision for a better world. We want to create hope instead of fear.
Our way of telling the stories
All our stories begin and end in a Café in Vienna. We mostly conduct interviews with interesting protagonists, physically in the cafe, or virtually through the Internet. We then often embark on filmic journeys to other parts of the world, but always return to our café in Vienna.
Sometimes, we physically travel to other places.
Our interviews are both emotionally entertaining and intellectually stimulating. They are replete with atmospheric images and animated graphics. We provide downloadable PDFs with transcript of interviews or summary of stories.
Why "Coffee in Vienna"?
In almost all cultures, throughout the entire history of humanity, places of gossip and encounter have played a paramount role as a place for human interaction.
In great places of innovation, places of serendipitous encounter played a very important role…from Athens to Silicon Valley, Florence to Seoul. In Vienna, the legendary cafés of the fin de cieclé (1900) played a key role in turning the city, at least for a brief period of time, into the intellectual capital of the world.
We take inspiration from that historic moment, and wish to re-imagine the café as a place of exchange, learning and urban creativity in the 21st century.
Topics
The cases we explore are often at the intersection of architecture, urbanism and strategic spatial planning. The central topic of our exploration are new imaginaries of the future and new places of creativity. We have a special interest in understanding the intangible aspects of space - aspects that are often ignored or are simply unknown to planners.
While we look into the future, we don't forget the past. We want to draw inspiration from some of the great places and lessons of history.
Principles
Our research and reporting is based on the principles of "constructive journalism", which means our stories are
a) looking into the future;
b) keeping focus on global and local challenges
c) reporting about constructive efforts to find solutions;
d) creating hope instead of fear.
We abide by the ethical principles of journalism and maintain a scientific spirit in our investigations.
Methods
We apply methods of arts-based research, videography and mapping techniques. We draw great inspiration from the methods of “participatory action research”.