PhD Module in Slovenia: A Strong Intimation of forthcoming Integral Impact
11 September 2018: 10 Participants of the Trans4m Da Vinci PhD Program on Integral Development gathered for their final module in Slovenia, hosted by BC Naklo, an inspiring integral educational provider
Participants in this particular PhD cohort came primarily from Africa and the Middle East, representing countries such as South Africa, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda and Jordan. The three days module served to share and mutually co-evolve the progress each individual participant has made in his or her research-to-innovation journey – with a particular focus on the application of Integral Research, integration of emancipatory literature and the concrete actualisation on the ground via the CARE trajectory. Particularly powerful were the specific cooperation engagements that participants had forged out among themselves to increase their particular impact and to mutually support each others’ research-to-innovation.
The progress that individual participants, together with their local ecosystems, have reported upon, promised major integral innovations emerging over the coming two years, for example in the fields of:
- For South Africa: Women Empowerment and Integral Enterprise (Premie Naicker); a new collaborative form of Economics (Collabronomics), embedded in Community Economic Development in South Africa (Emil Nothnagel)
- For Jordan: Community Engagement in Integral Education in Jordan (Laila Abdul Majeed)
- For Nigeria: Integral Education and Integral Healing (Sister Esther Shebi)
- For Zimbabwe: Integral Enterprise (Chipo Ndudzo); Integral Agriculture (Smart Phiri Zongololo); heritage-based local economic development as per Nhakanomics (Daud Taranhike); Integral Social Development (Wellington Mutyanda)
The module took place at BC Naklo, a biotechnical educational center in Naklo, some 30min away from Slovenia’s capital Ljubliana. Over the past years, BC Naklo and Trans4m had cooperated on various levels, as BC Naklo had acted as a host to former International Conferences on an Integral Green Economy, as well as as welcoming former Trans4m PhD groups. Being one of the early movers within the Integral Green Slovenia movement, BC Naklo served not only as an excellent host and integral educational role model to learn from, but its leadership also engaged in an active exploration of collaboration potential with all present members of the Trans4m Community. This exploration led to a number of specific ideas and project suggestions, that will be followed up in the forthcoming weeks and months.
The module was partly joined by Trans4m’s PHD (Process for Holistic Development Candidate) Ama Nyarko-Jones from Germany, sharing her progress on building up an Ujamaa-inspired Integral Fashion Enterprise in Tanzania.
In addition to the profound interest that the leadership of BC Naklo, represented by Director Dr. Marijan Pogačnik and Dean Dr. Franc Vidic, took in the work of the Trans4m Community, the PhD cohort was particular impressed by the concrete applications of Trans4m’s Integral Worlds Models that BC Naklo teacher and researcher Dr. Liliana Vizintin, together with some of her students, had developed over the past years.
For Trans4m’s co-founders Ronnie Lessem and Alexander Schieffer, supported in Slovenia by Trans4m Junior Fellow Christophe Haesler, this module was a strong affirmation for Trans4m’s vision to embedd all its modules in an integral environment, and in each case actively engaging in co-evolving integral applications and concrete collaboration in a local-global integral space.
After the module in Naklo, the entire PhD group then travelled to Poljcane where the 4th International Integral Green Economy Conference took place – and where each PhD participant actively shared his or her work with a wide audience of local integral transformation agents.
