During this two-day workshop in San Sebastián, with the help of the ENLIGHT alliance and its support team in EHU, AKTIBA-IT (Antonio Casado) hosted Femke De Backere from Ghent University and Erik Olsson and Alvin O’Sullivan from Uppsala University for a focused working meeting on the future of the Innovation Game and the ENLIGHT Playbook.
On the first day (June 2), the group reviewed the structure of the August Uppsala edition, discussed how the Innovation Game model could be made more transferable, and agreed that the playbook should remain practical and minimal: a clear guide containing only the essential elements needed for other teams to understand, adapt and run their own version. The group also explored how to recognise future editions as aligned with the original Innovation Game approach, while making sure that the broader community of contributors, including Sarah Bowman and others involved in the current edition, are properly included in the process.
On the second day, the morning began with a playtest of the InnoGame card game designed by Alvin and Erik. The group played for around ninety minutes and completed two rounds, enough to understand the dynamics and identify useful improvements. The rest of the morning focused on connecting the August calendar with two key workshop blocks: Alvin’s game design workshop and Femke’s design thinking workshop. The team also adjusted the Friday session on group dynamics, now framed as “compassionate communication tools”, to be facilitated by Antonio with a short practical exercise on I-statements. This created more space in the programme for Erik’s half-time peer feedback session.
In the afternoon, the group visited Tabakalera, the largest contemporary culture centre in the Basque Country, where they met with Arantza Mariskal and Mikel Edeso, responsible for Medialab and the public programme. Tabakalera showed strong interest in InnoGameX and offered support through hosting selected sessions, helping with dissemination, involving expert staff in training activities and contributing to pitch juries. Its facilities were considered especially suitable for experimental, public-facing and interdisciplinary work, and Tabakalera expressed willingness to formalise its collaboration during autumn and winter.
The workshop ended with a shared roadmap for the ENLIGHT Playbook. The playbook will be written collaboratively in a shared document and published in December, either as a PDF or HTML version hosted through Ghent University. The December publication will help fulfil the ENLIGHT project goals, while broader dissemination will wait until 2027. The team also agreed to meet online again in late July, participate together in the Uppsala Summer School (August 3-14), and hold a further online meeting in early September to consolidate the next steps.