The Izmir Mediterranean Academy, Branch of Izmir Metropolitan Municipality:
The Izmir Mediterranean Academy (See: izmeda.org) is both a think-tank and a democratic platform for realizing Izmir’s new vision of improvement, which was defined during the Izmir Cultural Workshop back in 2009. The workshop involved scientists, artists, and intellectuals from Izmir and around, who produced all together the new vision under the guidance of the Izmir Metropolitan Municipality. This vision rests on three principles. First, that Izmir becomes a city of innovation and design, and gains the capacity to drive these forward in the future; second, that Izmir, establishes even closer ties with other cities in and around the Mediterranean; and third, that the city reaches a level where it can set an example for democratic and participative practices in urban policy making. Following this vision and principles, the Izmir Mediterranean Academy, Branch of Izmir Metropolitan Municipality, was founded in 2012, and it has been realizing a variety of activities through its programs of ‘Culture and Art’, ‘Ecology’, ‘History’, and ‘Design’ since then.
As one of these activities, Izmir Mediterranean Academy collaborated with the World Design Organization (WDO) recently and acted as the bidding entity for Izmir’s candidateship for the World Design Capital (WDC) 2020. Continuing the collaboration with WDO, now the Izmir Mediterranean Academy organizes a World Design Talk (WDT) and World Industrial Design Day celebration on 29 June 2018.
Reference
- Izmir Culture Workshop(2009), Izmir Metropolitan Municipality, Izmir Mediterranean Academy, ISBN: 978-975-18-0200-2. Retrieved June 6, 2018, from here.