Open Universes of Imagination,
Fantasy and the Arts of Invention
The UAIFAI Project
UAIFAI – Universos Abertos à Imaginação, à Fantasia e às Artes da Invenção
Launching at the XI Games for Change Latin America Festival in November, 2023 (15th to 19th) at the “Little Beach Arena” of the School of Communications and Arts at the University of São Paulo, Brazil.
Matchmaking & Networking by the “City of Knowledge” project at the Department of Film, Radio and TV, School of Communication and Arts (CTR-ECA), the Graduate Interdisciplinary Program on Humanities, Rights and Other Legitimacies at the Faculty of Philosophy, Literary and Human Sciences (PPGHDL-FFLCH) and at MBA Program on Innovation and Entrepreneurialism at the School of Arts, Sciences and Humanities (EACH), University of São Paulo.
Launching the “The New IMF”, a real world role playing game in the hybrid metaverse of an “Iconomic Monetary Fund”, a social fintech platform for the creation and circulation of “Peace Coins” and other creative currencies for the Acceleration of SDGs and the Celebration of World Peace at the XI Games for Change Latin America 2023 Festival
Critical views on the role of games, entertainment, leisure and culture in the creative economic transformation of the world.
Workshops, lectures, discussion of public policies, mini-course on “Introduction to Iconomics”, participation in the creation of the IMF, “Bazaar in the Cathedral” Pavilion for hybrid donations, exchanges and sustainable consumption of products and services in a circular metaverse and two nights of “Rave for Peace” with live music, DJs, VJs and experiences with the ancestral, decolonial and audiovisual human experience.
Awards in the competitive phase with acceleration of nascent industries and disruptive start-ups focused on playful engagement in social, educational and political causes and purposes.
All this and much more happens at the Prainha (the “little beach arena) at ECA-USP between the 15th and 19th of November, when the “Open Creative Occupation” (OCA) takes place with activism, art and practical knowledge in preparation for COP30 in Belém do Pará and, immediately , engaging and connecting to the the “Tupinambá Womb” under the leadership of Yakuy Tupinambá.
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Ludic Intelligence beyond Artificial Intelligence.
Gut-Brain Games and Spirituality.
Multiplication and acceleration of SDGs leveradged by ludic rebellions.
More diversity and overcoming our attention deficit for justice, peace and sustainable development.
Monetization of peace and pacification of money.
Innovative financial circulations that make sense and will foster an acceleration of local and global development overcoming the pandemic, militarist, intolerant, illiberal, imperialist, racist, dumb and fake forms of information, fanaticism, fundamentalism and corruption of the democratic public sphere.
The XI Festival Games for Change Latin America mobilizes an unprecedented, international support network for the formation of an “iconomy”, that is, a knowledge economy that is founded in value chains indexed to the expansion of social inclusion through arts, culture and peace, invention, fantasy and imagination.
Over the course of 5 days, starting with a celebration in Brazil of the Republic, the UAIFAI Games for Change Latin America Festival mobilizes a network with chapters in the USA, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Institutions with strategic educational impact such as the Paulo Freire Institute in Brazil and the “Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie” around the world connect to research centers such as the Sustentarea of the Faculty of Public Health, the Interdisciplinary Humanities Postgraduate Program , Rights and Other Legitimacies of the Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences (both at USP).
Activists, educators, audiovisual professionals, game designers and public policy makers, arts, culture and technological innovators engaged with high social and environmental impact will illuminate thematic sessions, the presentation of projects, the pitching of “start-ups” as well as other emerging, creative, innovative and sustainable entrepreneurship platforms such as the “Trampoline Network” and the MBA program in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the School of Arts, Sciences and Humanities (EACH), also at USP.
Integration into the Software and Hardware Aficionados Workshop (WASH) network will allow elementary and high school students to interact virtually and in person through creative, emancipatory and diverse design, programming and playing.
The mobilization around decolonial digital emancipation practices in which the future is created by celebrating ancestral sources revolves around the issuance and circulation of Peace Coins, a project created in Japan and which since 2019 has been developed in partnership with Games for Change Latin America and the “City of Knowledge” research group at the Department of Cinema, Radio and TV at the School of Communications and Arts at USP.
The “City of Knowledge” is a project originated after a public call by the Institute of Advanced Studies at USP in 1999. Except for “lockdown”, the launch of the UAIFAI network celebrates 21 years of projects, research and social engagement by projects of the “City of Knowledge” research group.
The Festival also hosts the installation of the Iconomic Monetary Fund (IMF) at the Institute of Iconomics, a non-profit entity that enables the operation of the “City of Knowledge” with independent, sustainable and social creative currencies among other projects such as the Games for Change initiative in Latin America.
In the world of knowledge, the center is everywhere. The UAIFAI network kicks-off by activating national and international partnerships to make change happen through ludic intelligence, arts and ancestral wisdom, knowledge, culture and the ethical celebration of our most venerable heritages and spiritualities.
From the intestine to the brain, passing through the heart and the libidinal system, activating memories or celebrating ancestral spiritualities, a playful, ludic and ethically enlightened intelligence is the greatest strength of “Homo Lumens”, the active and engaged citizen (maybe on a cell phone) inspired by causes and purposes such as justice, knowledge, peace, democracy and citizenship, human rights, arts, culture, innovation and sustainable, creative and inclusive entrepreneurship.
The Festival in 2023 will operate as a hub for collaborative curators while promoting an unprecedented “matchmaking” and “networking” experience through the event’s exclusive virtual spaces.
A creative, circular and sustainable marketplace will emerge and thrive leveraged by playful monetization circuits using the “Peace Coin”. The greater the density, frequency and engagement participants with emancipatory projects during the Festival, the greater the participants’ access to IMF resources, reserving at least 50% of resources to support black entrepreneurs, artivists and vulnerable students with special needs, indigenous people, persons exposed to risks due to gender options or mostly children and youth that are subject to territorial vulnerabilities or access to internet and electricity, as well as international refugees.
Participating projects and citizens will also be able to exchange Peace Coins on the open market for products and services advertised in the event’s Exhibitor area. Just click on the “Exhibitors” icon and the ECA Prainha metaverse, with the OCA for COP30, will be explored in hybrid mode, both remote and local, including Connected Spaces during the Peace Rave and the ancestral experience sessions with the Tupinambá Womb, engagement in the “Youthopia” project or joining a global network to support quilombola mobilizations.
Sign up and also take part in the “Bazaar at the Cathedral”, a medieval-futuristic farmers market and trade fair where gadgets, junk and vintage models of games, games and other fun trinkets can be exchanged, sold and even rented.
How about providing an avatar created at the Prainha to participate in the Tropical Cosplay? Our hybrid event will guarantee the free movement and global visibility of cosplay protagonists so that they too will be awarded with Peace Coins during the Festival!
Anyone who accumulates enough Peace Coins in the first two days of the Festival will be able to use this currency to purchase tickets for the “Rave for Peace” (there will be “viradas” on the nights of November 17th and 18th, 2023, with trade fair, art gallery, experiential spaces and tents for experiential experiences, stage and show with artists, live music and diving into ancestry from the gut to the brain, through affections and expanding the free spirit of new “youthopias”.
Participants will taste ancestral gastronomy and cuisine as well as build their avatars with indigenous crafts. Foods that are medicines with a soul. Under the leadership of Yakuy Tupinamba, we connected the launch of the UAIFAI network to Tupinambá Womb Proposal and opened the call for projects for the “Intelligent Quilombo” (anti-slavery communities and rebellions in Brazilian history).
The Festival is a co-production with the CANIL group of students at the School of Communications and Arts of the University of São Paulo, 30% of the funds raised will be allocated to scholarships to support student retention, 20% to the strengthening of the CANIL project and 50% for the operation of the Iconomic Monetary Fund (IMF) and Games for Change Latin America.
Sign up! Earn Peace Coins!
Start exchanging peace, love, knowledge, culture and freedom of spirit with the participants in this network of hybrid places, real and virtual, in a playful “City of Knowledge” that is universal and at the same time local, promoting the ludic transformations that wars can only postpone, but never avoid.
Gilson Schwartz
Full Professor at the Department of Cinema, Radio and TV, School of Communications and Arts and in the Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Program Humanities, Rights and Other Legitimacies of the Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences of the University of São Paulo
President, Games for Change Latin America (since 2010)
President, Iconomia Monetary Fund (from 2023)
Columnist for Rádio USP (Iconomia) and commentator for China Global Television Network (CGTN), he was chief economist at BNDES, Fundação SEADE-SP, Brazilian Finance and Real Estate (BRFE) and BankBoston in Brazil, internationally recognized as a creator of “iconomies” and professor of “Introduction to Iconomies” at the Department of Cinema, Radio and TV at the School of Communications and Arts at USP (1st semester of 2024). He is vice-coordinator of the Master of Business Administration (MBA) program in Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the School of Arts, Sciences and Humanities (EACH) at the University of São Paulo. He was a columnist and editorialist at Folha de S.Paulo between 1983 and 2007, also serving as an economics anchor for Jornal da Cultura in the 1990s, and an editorialist at Diário Comércio e Indústria (DCI) with Aloysio Biondi. He created the first economics portal in Brazil in 1995, the “Brazil Investment Link”, a partnership between the American Chamber of Commerce of São Paulo (AMCHAM-SP) and the Center for Research in International Relations at the University of São Paulo. In 1999, his project “City of Knowledge” was selected in a public competition by the Institute of Advanced Studies at USP, and was officially launched as a network in a Solemn Session of the University Council in August 2001. Two months later, the Twin Towers fell in New York.