“Thank you for such a great experience at Paros, I will never forget the atmosphere. I have come away with a deeper concept of music and life and have made many new friends from around the globe.”   Tom Neale, saxophone student PJA  July 2011 

I was collaborating with a well known Jazz music foundation to organize a Jazz Summer School on Paros island Greece, trying to build up on event driven tourism, as Paros is just such a great destination!  I had the idea of a “music village “ and had set everything in my mind to make this dream happen in Lefkes village, an ideal traditional picturesque village on the top of a hill with fantastic views. My work field as a travel agent would involve mostly taking care of all the organizational bits and pieces.

When this collaboration failed due to different reasons, only four months before the event was to be presented, I found myself in a very difficult situation of either trying to find another partner and continue or to quitting the whole idea. I decided to give it a try and had sent an SOS Facebook message to a very kind French musician and also double bass teacher at the Paris National Conservatory of Region, whom I had never met, but he had offered me some time ago his help, after he had seen my FB promotion campaign for the Jazz project then. He is connected to Paros as he owns a house in Naoussa.

From this Facebook link exchange Marc Buronfosse, became my partner in the creation of a fantastic music project on Paros island which is unique in Greece, the Paros Jazz Academy and Festival. For the moment there isn’t any other International Jazz Summer School in Greece.

It is an intensive 5 day Jazz music workshop. The experienced teachers and artists are all with international backgrounds and people come from all over the world to participate. We also organize a Jazz Festival with concerts around the island that attract visitors to Paros.

The feedback we've had summarizes the concept of the Paros Jazz Academy  “Thank you for such a great experience at Paros, I will never forget the atmosphere. I have come away with a deeper concept of music and life and have made many new friends from around the globe.”

We collaborate with the local Cultural associations/institutions on Paros for presenting our concerts eg.the Environmental and Cultural Park of Paros. We also promote the Parian culture by presenting a Jazz and Parian poetry concert every year in Lefkes village. It is in our ambition to establish a poetry competition by engaging the schools and students of Paros to write poetry for this event. M. Christos Georgousis, a well known writer and poet on Paros is leading this project and already this summer we will be presenting some of the students' poems in our event. The Jazz composition class students will compose music for the poems presented.

We started from scratch to create a sustainable and cultural tourism product that attracts quality tourism on Paros island and we have accomplished it by using the existing infrastructure facilities of the island eg. the community of Paros is supporting us by providing the School buildings of Lefkes for the lessons, and there are many lovely hotels and local restaurants we collaborate with.

www.parosjazzacademy, www.jazzfestivalparos.wordpress.com

Christina S. Fokianou

SmoothParos 2
Bootcamps

All of the bootcamps are in line with the core principles of innovative thinking and building sustainable projects.  The bootcamps will all have application for Innovaros and its projects but will be more general to incorporate any other attendees who are not members of Innovaros but who would like to learn the skills. 

Bootcamp 1: 29 April 14.30 - 17.30

Project management
This is a session on applying project management fundamentals to the design and development of new projects.  You will learn techniques for managing scope, budget, tasks, digital aspects and people.  This will include planning and timetabling for project start, management and completion.  This is what makes a project happen.

OR

Creating Innovative Content
This session focuses on creative methods of capture (audio/video/photo/text) for creating website or blog content that will get people interested.  We will go over planning blog posts that capture the ideas and ideals and the feel of real life and real time capture and reporting on events.  This is a chance to bring out your creative and imaginative skill set.  This will also include a review of Posterous and other software, smartphone apps, and other capture devices. 

Bootcamp 2: 30 April 10.30 - 13.30

Marketing, analytics and networking
You have a twitter account, and other social media, now how do you use these to market and network?  We will work on how to draw up the scope of the project and its desired achievements and target markets to show how to build a following.  We will also review how to understand the metrics on the relative growth and interest in your site (idea/project) in the public domain.

OR

Managing brands
How do you create and manage an online brand?  This bootcamp considers how to keep the original focus using digital tools and to ensure every project keeps their core ideas at the centre.  This session works on developing or extending a set of objectives and guidelines (like Innovaros' Charter) into public domain and how to ensure the the message and meaning remains reliable. 

SmoothParos2- Η τεχνολογία στην υπηρεσία του τουρισμού

Εργαστήρια με αντικείμενο τη χρήση καινοτόμων τεχνολογιών στην Πάρο από τις 29 έως 30 Απριλίου.

Η Innovaros καλεί τον επιχειρηματικό κόσμο και τους ενεργούς πολίτες της Πάρου να συμμετάσχουν σε ένα διήμερο αφιερωμένο στις καινοτόμες τεχνολογίες!

Μετά την επιτυχημένη διοργάνωση του πρώτου κύκλου σεμιναρίων πέρυσι την άνοιξη στο νησί της Πάρου οι καθηγητές πληροφορικής και media του πανεπιστημίου του Λονδίνου Jennifer Barth και Chris Bauer θα επιστρέψουν στην Πάρο για να συνεχίσουν το έργο τους και να μας μυήσουν στα μυστικά των καινοτόμων τεχνολογιών.

Κατά τη διάρκεια του πρώτου κύκλου σεμιναρίων οι συμμετέχοντες είχαν την ευκαιρία να ενημερωθούν για τους τρόπους με τους οποίους τα μέσα κοινωνικής δικτύωσης (social media) συμβάλουν στην προβολή τουριστικών προορισμών και κεντρίζουν το ενδιαφέρον μιας ολοένα αυξανόμενης μερίδας ανθρώπων που είναι συνδεδεμένοι με το διαδίκτυο και τις σύγχρονες τεχνολογίες.

Αποτέλεσμα των ζυμώσεων που συντελέστηκαν κατά τη διάρκεια των σεμιναρίων ήταν η δημιουργία της Innovaros που στοχεύει στη βιώσιμη και κοινωνικά δίκαιη ανάπτυξη της Πάρου μέσω της χρήσης καινοτόμων τεχνολογιών. Απτά δείγματα γραφής της Innovaros μέχρι τώρα είναι η συμβολή της στη διοργάνωση της Ακαδημίας Τζαζ  &  Φεστιβάλ  που έλαβε χώρα πέρσι το καλοκαίρι στις Λεύκες της Πάρου (και που ευελπιστούμε να γίνει ετήσιος θεσμός) και η ανάληψη πρωτοβουλιών για την ψηφιακή χαρτογράφηση του νησιού μας (για περισσότερες πληροφορίες σχετικά με την Innovaros επισκεφτείτε τον ιστότοπό μας: www.innovaros.com).

Φέτος το διήμερο των σεμιναρίων θα εστιαστεί σε επιτυχημένα παραδείγματα ανάδειξης τουριστικών προορισμών από διάφορα μέρη του κόσμου και θα αναζητηθούν οι τρόποι με τους οποίους η Πάρος θα μπορούσε να διδαχθεί από αυτά. Οι συμμετέχοντες θα έχουν τη δυνατότητα να επιλέξουν τα σεμινάρια που επιθυμούν να παρακολουθήσουν ανάλογα με τις ανάγκες και τις προτιμήσεις τους.

Κάντε κλικ εδώ για να δείτε το αναλυτικό πρόγραμμα των εργαστηρίων, το κόστος συμμετοχής και τους τρόπους επικοινωνίας μαζί μας.

www.smoothparos.com