The Warsaw Workshops are an event that will take place in Warsaw, Poland in March 2010, as part of the British Council Creative Cities programme.

The purpose of the event is to help:

• Create an elite flight-school of emerging urban entrepreneurs
• Develop the management and delivery skills of new social businesses and producers of urban projects in Europe and South East Asia
• Leverage best practice on behalf of the Creative Cities programme in general and programme in Poland in particular

The modern business world has up until now comprised of the private for profit, public/government and non-profit sectors. But today there is a blurring of the lines between these sectors: and there is also a burgeoning global movement, known as social enterprise, which straddles all the other sectors.

The purpose of the Warsaw Workshops is to support the diversity of social entrepreneurs now active in this sector:

• Business leaders
• Local government officers
• Civic activists
• Cultural entrepreneurs
• Urbanists/members of think-tanks or policy bodies

And to provide these people with a programme that is :

• an empowering experience
• offers practical advice that can inform their successful implementation of projects and businesses in the future
• bank a ‘stock’ resource of best practice that can be referred to and replenished after the event

Think of the event as a garage or surgery for the design and delivery of urban social businesses and projects.