On Thursday, 10th October 2013, Green Waters was invited to attend a meeting "Duurzame Dates" organized by the city council of Rotterdam. The invitation was due to the interest raised by the first draft of our project "Winning Initiatives For Sustainable Economies (W.I.S.E)".
In total there were 50 other participants, including entrepreneurs, NGO’s, multinationals and several Netherlands government departments, making an interesting panel of experts.
The event started with an introduction by Alderman Alexandra van Huffelen (Rotterdam). Alexandra van Huffelen looked back at the four previous events and gave a short introduction of the day’s programe, reflecting on what the fifth edition project could mean for Rotterdam. After that all the participants could give a short presentation of their project.
Green Waters Project Representative Peter Bakker presented project W.I.S.E. and gave a short introduction about the foundation.
Duurzame Dates panel, including experts from Rabobank and Peptalk010, discussed project W.I.S.E.. Afterwards a decision was reached that Green Waters would make an official date for further talks. It was also suggested to make implementation partnerships with other organizations that were present. One of the potential partner is Peptalk010, based on their project ‘Werkwaarde’, which shows similarities with W.I.S.E.
At the end of the day a workshop about networking as a tool for organization improvement was given by the "Kamer van Koophandel". Ideas and tips for improvement were exchangeed, which could lead to operational improvement.
By joining this event Green Waters has built new relationships which shared useful tips for project W.I.S.E and the foundation.
The next step is to arrange a meeting with the alderman to present project W.I.S.E. and talk about how it could lead to an actual implementation by the city council of Rotterdam!