As teenager, I spent many hours listening to this German rock band called "Die Ärzte” and in one of their songs, the main theme goes something like this:
“It is not your fault that the world is as it is, yet, it would be your fault if it stays that way”.
It is enough to watch the news any given day, or simply to pay attention to the less fortunate around you to realise that there is a lot of suffering, hatred and injustice in the world. Change is desperately needed.
When Obama ran his 2008 campaign on “Change”, he made a very clear case that, obviously, he wasn’t talking about “negative change”. When initiatives, such as Change.org chose their name, it was clear to them that nobody would misunderstand their intentions and think: “They may want to change the world for the worse”. When we say change, we mean positive change.
“Time is neutral"
There is one speech by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., called “The American Dream”. It is a little less known than his famous “I have a dream” speech but to me it is even more powerful and I admire it. In his plea against racial injustice, he makes the point that time won’t bring about justice by itself. Time is neutral. What is needed to bring about the desired change is that people stand for what they believe in and actively make it happen.
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
Margaret Mead
If change doesn’t occur naturally over time, then individuals have to make it happen. Somebody has to decide: This has to change! Things can’t go on like that. Somebody has to assemble the courage to stand up and say: I will do things differently. I think something else is possible and I’m willing to commit myself. I am willing to take responsibility. This, to me, is the definition of leadership. You don’t need to be a world leader or a celebrity to show leadership. Incredibly important changes happen in the small details of every day life. How much kindness do we show to the people around us? Are we making the groups we come in contact with a little better?
Leaders for Change
No change ever happens without this kind of leadership. Change is an abstract concept and if we want to make it actionable and be serious about it, we have to pay attention to people, because they are the agents of change. Every one of us can and should strive to be a “Leader for Change”.
Why WikiStage as a network for change?
As video platform and network of conference organisers, what we can do is to celebrate Leaders for Change and give their ideas and initiatives a stage. Our hope is that by directing the spotlight on those who decide to publicly speak out about their ideas and convictions, others will get inspired and feel empowered to bring about change themselves.
We connect leaders and ideas in the real world at WikiStage events and online on the WikiStage.org video platform. Visitors of the website can see the best talks of a speaker on his or her profile as well as the other videos that have been recorded at our conferences. We attribute each video to a larger debate with a hashtag, for example #ClimateChange or #HumanRights and allow users to upvote their favourite videos for every cause.
The “Wiki” in WikiStage
When visitors upvote videos for a debate, they collectively decide about the best ideas and contributions on any given topic. Thanks to your vote, the best videos rise to the top of the wall of that debate. It is the community who ultimately decides what inspires them and whose ideas deserve to get the most attention. Thanks to other user’s votes, we all now have a way to quickly learn about the most important contributions on the issues. Simply by watching the top rated videos, we can learn about different perspectives from the brightest minds who spoke in public about the issue.
We can do more than just “vote"
Similar to our democratic process, some will simply vote and some will want to shape the debate more actively. There are many forums and social media websites on the internet where anybody can share anything. At WikiStage, we have chosen our format: we connect people at real life events and share the ideas on our platform with videos. If you want to become an active part in one of our debates, we invite you to become an independent WikiStage Conference organiser and to give a stage to those people who you believe deserve to be heard. After you obtain our license through our website, our non-profit organisation will guide and advise you to help you create a meaningful event with valuable contributions - and the best thing: the license is completely free.
Whose ideas are we discussing in our public discourse? Yours?
To find out, simply look at the topics that are being discussed: Switch on the TV and you'll see that our public debates are dominated with talks about government institutions, controversies about political leaders, debates about taxes, military spending and immigration. Who gets excited about this? Of course, these are very important topics in a democracy but are they the only ones? Where are the visions for the future? Where are new ideas?
Of course we need to talk about how to administrate our society, but it's a very limited debate if we only talk about administration - we need to talk more about innovation!
The dominance of administration topics over innovation in our media landscape reveals who is in charge: the previous generation, not the next one.
Look at Talk Shows and conferences: The same old faces are invited over and over. Everybody knows exactly what they will say already and you can easily watch for hours without learning anything new - without taking away any stimulating idea or vision. All that happens is the same old patterns of the same old arguments reapeating themselves endlessly.
In countries that rely on brains and innovation rather than natural ressources, we need to give more space to a new generation with bold and unheard of ideas. This young generation of the world grew up with a sense of the possibilites of the digital age. In contrast to their parents, they grew up with the internet and social media and they are determined to be the ones who will use these technologies to shape a more desirable next century.
This young generation might not be in power and might not have the ressources but they are the startup entrepreneurs and the innovators of tomorrow. Our aging societies are well advised to gives us more space and a stronger voice!
When I graduated from university in Paris, I could feel this change of the Zeitgeist when I saw where my classmates wanted to go for their first job. While the majority of graduates in the past was looking to work for the big institutions and prestigious employers, my friends oriented themselves towards innovation hubs, digital companies, and some ventured entrepreneurship themselves.
It was in this spirit that WikiStage evolved as an event format and a platform created and curated by young people to give a stage to bold new ideas and to meet the innovators of tomorrow. WikiStage is our way to empower this next generation to share their "Ideas for Change" and to enrich our public debates with this badly needed fresh perspective. Since then, students and organisations in over 10 countries have used the WikiStage platform for their events and we can't wait to see where the journey will take us next!
In the year 2017, I was just a normal university student. The highest of my dreams was to get good marks and spend my summer by watching series and going to the beach.
Only one year after, I found myself among the organizing team of the best cultural event in Jijel – the WikiStage. My inspiration to join a WikiStage Community came from other WikiStage events, such as WikiStage Algiers and WikiStage Batna in Algeria, and other events like WikiStage Paris and WikiStage Cairo outside of Algeria.
Since that day, the hard work has started, lack of sleep has come, and the stress got his pick… We got so many neglections, so much ignorance, and so much criticism. But all those obstacles didn’t stop us and didn’t put us down. Those negative sides just made us stronger! The support of our community gave us one more reason to give all our best to make this event happen. We wanted to show them who we are and what the WikiStage really is.
The big day was on September 1st, 2018. The day we have been waiting and working hard for - the WikiStage Jijel event day. "Stories Worth Telling" was the theme of our conference.
The organizing team started the preparations in the Culture House at 8 AM. The whole team was divided into few smaller teams: team for the check-in, the team for controlling the technical work, the team for organizing the coffee break etc. At 11 AM, we opened the gate to welcome the audience. We were so surprised when we saw the crowd! We have expected 450, but there were 600 participants, which was a great success for us. The check-in was well organized, the audience was very respectful and was following the instructions. The speakers came on time, as well as the photographers. At 12 PM, as it was planned, the event has begun. The animator started with the opening ceremony and gave the audience extra energy and excitement before the speakers’ WikiTalks.
Everything was according to the program: we had 6 speeches, 2 debates, a coffee break, and a musical performance.
The WikiTalks overcame our expectations. The speakers gave us a great amount of inspiration and motivation by sharing with us their "stories worth telling". We closed our event with a raffle in which we got eight lucky winners!
