Possibility to Transform the Current System Through Social Entrepreneurs
Kastamonu Entegre hosted the talk on “Inclusive Design” during the fifth session of Bridging Nature and Life Meetings. The latest developments about information accessibility, social entrepreneurship and system transformation in Turkey and in the world were shared during the session featuring Çiğdem Aslantaş, the Bongo Art Project founder and interior architect, and Ezgi Özkök Sefer, Ashoka Türkiye Country Director, as the speakers.
A global brand of the wood-based panel industry, Kastamonu Entegre entertained Çiğdem Aslantaş, founder of the Bongo Art Project, and Ezgi Özkök Sefer, Country Director for Ashoka Türkiye, in the fifth session of Bridging Nature and Life Meetings held at KEAS Concept Studio. The talk that took place with the huge turnout of companies from architecture and design industries addressed the theme of “Inclusive Design”.
Social entrepreneurs working for an equitable world
At the talk that asked the attendees “Would you describe yourself as ‘changemaker’?”, Ashoka Türkiye Country Director Ezgi Özkök Sefer shared some examples of the projects run by social entrepreneurs who play an important role in the change of the current system, and said, “As Ashoka, the world's first and largest social entrepreneurship platform, we need ‘changemakers’, namely social entrepreneurs driving the change, who have the skills to adapt more easily to the positive changes we want to see in societies in the new world order as well as to new ways of doing business and new methods of connecting with each other. By creating an equitable and inclusive world where everyone has the same opportunities, we need to make all people feel valued, accepted and empowered.”
Museums accessible to and touchable by all
On the other hand, Çiğdem Aslantaş, founder of the Bongo Art Project that created Turkey's first Visually Impaired Museum Learning Space at the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, stated that there are over 1 billion disabled people based on the data from the World Health Organization and these individuals are unable to make use of the museums, and said, “In Turkey, visually impaired individuals cannot receive training on shapes, while hearing impaired individuals cannot use science, art, technology and history information due to the sign language limited to 200 words. We started from visually impaired individuals in our social entrepreneurship projects that aim to develop physical and digital museums so that museums, which are very important learning spaces, are accessible to all. And with support from a total of 25 stakeholders, especially Kastamonu Entegre, we have implemented Turkey's first Visually Impaired Museum Learning Space at the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations. We continue the museum accessibility model that we started with visually and hearing-impaired individuals, which is tailored to each disability group, now with the autism spectrum.”
The Bridging Nature and Life Meetings will continue to bring together architects, interior designers and industry professionals at the KEAS Concept Studio under different topics.
