About

What drives Poligon?

Poligon unites communities in Slovenia, which operate in the field of creative economies, social entrepreneurship and culture. These communities have developed as a response to the economic downturn and increasing precariousness of young professionals.

Cofounders of Poligon are Slovenia Coworking, Slovenia Crowdfunding, Kreativna Cona Šiška (Rompom) and Ljudje.si, who have invested over 5000 hours into developing and educating about coworking and crowdfunding over the two years before opening the centre in February 2014.

Poligon is run by Luka Piškorič, Eva Perčič, Marko Orel, Alja Stanko, Urša Dolinšek, our team of interns and many others, without whom this project could not have become a reality.

Poligon Institute

Poligon, institute for development of creative industries has been founded in 2012 as a response to the lack of governmental policies to support creative industries in Slovenia. Since it’s founding it has supported Slovenia Coworking and Slovenia Crowdfunding initiatives that successfully introduced and promoted concepts of coworking and crowdfunding in Slovenia to tackle the challenges faced by stakeholders in the creative and cultural fields due to changing social and economic circumstances.
In 2014 Poligon Creative Centre has been established in Ljubljana as the first Slovenian creative centre, operating as an autonomous platform for empowerment of freelancers, creative startups and communities. Poligon has also produced numerous conferences and other events to introduce new concepts and educate key stakeholders, organized exhibitions promoting Slovenian creatives internationally and produced several research and policy papers commissioned by government and municipality stakeholders. Recognized as one of the best practices in Europe, Poligon and it’s know how are regularly shared at numerous conferences and workshops around Europe and wider region.
Poligon operates as private NGO and so far doesn’t receive any public funding.

Poligon is a member of:
European Creative Hubs Network
European Creative Business Network
Network for Innovations in Culture and Creativity in Europe

Poligon Manifesto

1. Poligon is a training ground for self-employed professionals working in the field of creative economies, culture and social entrepreneurship.
2. Poligon is the first creative centre in Slovenia.
3. Poligon applies latest coworking methods with additional content. Its intention is to empower the self-employed and secure them a better future.
4. Poligon is an autonomous non-profit platform, which enables individuals to develop and work on their for-profit or non-profit projects.
5. Poligon is an open and inclusive platform, it helps connect individuals from various communities, profiles and fields of work.
6. Poligon’s values are based on values from worldwide coworking initiatives, including the following:
– open source development, as opposed to the conventional, secrecy based entrepreneurial culture,
– coworking individualism, as opposed to competitive individualism,
– interdisciplinarity, as opposed to specialization,
– action and active participation,
– focus on the process as well as the result,
– recognition of acknowledgment of individual contributions / copyrighted work,
– emphasizing the talented community, as opposed to the individual and
– spontaneity, friendship and trust, as opposed to formality.