Capitol PechaKucha Nights: A global platform for ideas and innovation
Photo by Fitsum Belay at House of Sweden Vol. 14
Direct link to the Capitol PechaKucha website.
PechaKucha –Japanese for the sound of conversation– is a nonprofit organization that taps into a demand for a forum in which creative work can be easily and informally shown. The brainchild of Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham, Klein Dytham architecture, Tokyo, began in 2003 as a forum for designers to meet, network, and show their current work to the public, and has since spread to over 400 cities across the world.
Launched by Bita and Rouzita Vahhabaghai of ita Collection, in Washington, DC in March 2007, Capitol PechaKucha Night brings together Washington’s leading creative thinkers and doers to share ideas that matter in any discipline — architecture, fashion, film, technology, science, humanities, business and entertainment. Also referred to as “Twitter for the visually inclined”, the PechaKucha Night presentation system allows presenters 20 images each shown for 20 seconds – giving 6 minutes 40 seconds of fame before the next presenter is up. Talks are concise, the interest level is constant, and more presenters receive the opportunity to share their work.
In 2010, PechaKucha teamed up with Architecture for Humanity for the rebuilding of Haiti in February and March with over 200 PechaKucha events taking place, making Global PechaKucha Day for Haiti the world’s biggest single distributed conference to date. The money we raised allowed Architecture for Humanity (AFH) build a school for all of us to be proud of in Haiti which will be open by the end of the 2011: http://www.pecha-kucha.org/presentations/220. We did it again in 2011, and participated in Global PechaKucha Day: INSPIRE JAPAN to raise money for Architecture for Humanity’s reconstruction efforts in Japan. A recording of the great posters, photos, stories and presentations that contributed to this global event will be made into an INSPIRE JAPAN e-book.
