Institution: Association of Creative Initiatives “ę” Author: Dominik Cudny, Marek Brzeziński, Stefan Sajdak
Title: Kod Pokoleń (Generation Code)
Topics: cultural projects, civic engagement, QR codes
Characteristics of participants:

• inhabitants of Żoliborz Varsavian district,
• elderly generation – witnesses of knowledge and history of the district
• young generation who use the media every day (Żoliborz inhabitants)
• voluntaries (aged 19-30) involved in the project

Realization: 2012- 2013
Website here
Documentation: Youtube

Project summary

Generations Code is a project aimed at establishing a neglected dialogue between older and younger inhabitants of Żoliborz district. Main goals: – to encourage inhabitants to interact and break down barriers between generations – to connect tales from the past related to the reality that surrounds us. In order for these stories to be forgotten, realizers collected them and place them in the area of Żoliborz in the form of QR codes.

Recording memories of speci c places in QR were a symbolic attempt to communicate the older generation with the younger, with the help of new media. The code read from the smartphone were sent to the project page, where it was possible to see the memory hidden under the code. Users could also add their own stories about a particular place from personal perspective or simply add some curiosity. Inhabitants could see how many perspectives are in the closest neighborhood.

Project innovation

The project is not innovative. it used basics of new technologies and applications (dictaphones, QR codes, smartphones) that were used for achriving the histories and place them una public space.

The most important ICT competencies of participants
• competence to conduct interviews and archives of information using new technologies
• making a interactive map of personal stories of the districts
• digitizing photos and creating a virtual archive of Żoliborz history

How does the project developed media literacy of participants?
• the participants were able to relate QR to a particular stories of neighborhood
• use various smartphone options (QR scan, voice recorder) in work with people

Projects steps

1. Project promotion through media : Facebook, website, posters, presentations, conferences, to reach many senior citizens
2. Developing networks of volunteers and elderly people
3. Searching for stories and conducting interviews with the elderly
4. Coordinating the voluntaries work
5. Writing down the interviews
6. Coding stories inf QR and placing them in to the public space and project website
7. Promoting the new stories that had appeared

Festival of local socio and cultural projects in the Żoliboprz district