Syntezia Open 2024

AI advisory

AI advisory

Syntezia Open 2024 — France
Eco-Responsible Open Lab
The 2024 French edition of Syntezia Open was organised as part of European Maritime Day / #EMDInMyCountry, with activities in Lyon and Haut-Bugey.
The edition focused on developing innovative responses to environmental challenges while bringing people together through co-creation, experimentation, design fiction and learning activities
LYON — URBAN HEAT & BIODIVERSITY
On 31 May 2024, the event took place in Lyon and focused in particular on urban heat islands and the role of hedges in protecting biodiversity.
The aim was to explore practical responses to the effects of heat in urban and industrial environments and to consider how natural elements such as hedges can contribute to more resilient environments.

HAUT-BUGEY — WATER & THE ENVIRONMENT
On 21 September 2024, Syntezia Open continued in Haut-Bugey near Nantua, alongside World Clean Up Day.
The programme included shoreline clean-up activities, an escape game and a learning expedition, combining environmental action with exploration and collaborative learning.

CO-CREATION AND EXPERIMENTATION
The 2024 edition continued Syntezia Open's approach of helping participants move from questions to ideas.
Facilitators combined:
Creative writing
Design fiction
Experimentation
Participatory workshops
Networking and team building
Participants could bring their own ideas, enrich them through new methods and perspectives, and leave with a project, a team, documentation and practical lessons that could help them continue their work.

INNOVATION PAPERS
The French edition also included a call for research and innovation papers around the circular economy, with the opportunity to submit contributions in French or English for review by the Syntezia Open scientific committee and a second peer review by a publishing house.
THE AIM
The French edition demonstrated Syntezia Open's approach to combining environmental awareness, collective intelligence and practical experimentation.
Rather than treating sustainability challenges as abstract questions, the event sought to bring people together to explore them, exchange ideas and identify opportunities for concrete action.
What results have we obtained in previous editions?
Carbon-free and active mobility
This was the theme of the 2022 edition, which took place in Geneva, and which allowed us to welcome the participants to the Geneva hotel school, for a day of pragmatic actions, which allowed us to generate around thirty innovative ideas and submit 5 complete files of radical innovations to seek funding.
We encouraged participants to take measures to come to our event in carbon-free mobility, and we were pleased to note that the parking lot remained empty throughout the event.
We want to keep the same approach for all future editions of syntezia open.
Meetings and exchanges between partners and participants
Feedback on the experience of previous Syntezia Opens tells us that participants appreciated being able to meet new people, network, and initiate a constructive dialogue on real issues. Consortia were created or strengthened during our times of informal dialogue, and allowed the teams formed to participate in calls for projects with the systems of Switzerland and the European Union to be able to carry out their feasibility studies, the validation of their value proposition, their prototype or their tests prior to placing their solution on the market.
Singular and original content, a new media that is emerging
During syntezia open, we share testimonials from innovative project leaders who have created businesses. We also conducted interviews that we broadcast in the All Inclusive SDGs podcast.
A gendered and balanced budget
We operate with parity in our organizational team and with a gendered budget.
We also measure the participation of women and men to ensure we have diversity in gender, background, experience, achievement and discipline.
Our carbon footprint under control
We measure our carbon footprint and we do our best to minimize the carbon footprint of our eco-responsible Syntezia Open event, and to raise awareness among participants about eco-friendly actions at every opportunity.
Zero waste, zero waste
No food was thrown away during the 2022 edition.
No leftovers, no waste!
We now know that it is possible and we intend to do it again!
Short circuits and local currency
By introducing Lake Geneva into the circuit at every opportunity, we are working on our scale to promote the local economy of the Lake Geneva region.
Bees, butterflies and little birds!
Because the protection of all forms of biodiversity is important to us, we have worked to disseminate flowers that bees, butterflies and birds love.
Innovative ideas, teams
This day resulted in several ideas being generated, and several of the teams were formed during our event.
Funding request submissions
Some teams have chosen to submit funding requests to see their projects financed and sustained.