It took us one year to figure out what practice we should apply to make Urban Ideas Bakery, one of the Creative Cities project strands, a viable instrument to make our cities a better place to live, work and play.

The Bakery was originally visioned as a portable space travelling across borders, engaging local professionals and experts to find practical solutions for the benefit of local communities. Looking back at the inital concept and amount of work the team has spent to shape it, I reckon we'll get something very different - looking forward to Ted Matthews' presentation that will start in just ten minutes!

His initial words were: 'External input can spark innovation, and for this we have to bring in people from outside. However, the whole process has to be owned by the city, and this is how it becomes most effective'.