Open Space Conference – Masterplan Danau Toba

We started to invite for an Open Space Conference (OSC) for the 28th March until the 1st of April. Evverybody who want to develop an Ecotouristic future of Lake Toba is invited. It take place in the wonderful new Resort ¨Pondok Berata Dapdap¨. The owner give the space to create a structure that Lake Toba is getting a wonderful Paradise.

Event Objectives

Lake Toba is known as the world’s largest caldera lake formed due two volcanic events tens of thousands of years ago. Lake Toba has an extraordinary beauty and uniqueness, and also great economic potential that can be utilized by society optimally. In April 2014, Lake Toba has been established by the President of Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono as National Geopark Park. In 2017, the Government of Indonesia changed Geopark Caldera Toba to be designated as a member of UNESCO’s Global Geopark Network (GGN). In addition, the Government of Indonesia has also issued Presidential Regulation No. 49 of 2016 on the Management Authority of Lake Toba Tourism Authority (BOPKPDT) and confirmed the personnel of BOPKPDT Executing Agency on 30 November 2016.

The Master Plan as a reference with the stakeholders (Government, Local Government, Community, Community, Private, Academic) in the development of Lake Toba tourism becomes a necessity that must be immediately built in the applicable legislation. Therefore, we want to help organize the participation of stakeholders to give material, contribute ideas and the existing process and hope into the planning process so that can be utilized in making master plan development of Lake Toba tourism in a comprehensive and integrated way.

This activity is referred to as “Open Space Conference” . The name of the activity is in harmony with its practice directly and directly through the website. We as the host of the event will support all participants. However, personal equipment and transport Go-back (PP) from place of origin to place of event is borne by each participant. In addition, we remain open to parties who will contribute voluntarily to the event to run well and smoothly.

We started this event with a Facebook Invitation. If you have Facebook, you can look at the event here.

We created also an Invitation, which you can use to invite important people. You can put this on your header and invite for the event. Download this document here.

The rundown of the whole OSC we planned in the following way:

How to do the Open Space Conference?

  1. The people are getting invited to the event by Facebook. In Facebook they click: Take part. Here they can already contribute to the preparation by posting articles and other materials.
  2. Some people will bring food, others will bring large paper rolls, and other ones will make sure that enough Tuak is available. And also gitarres for singing. For this we use Facebook.
  3. People come in the morning of the 28th. Some people give short pitches where they stuck with a problem and look for solutions to create the ecotourism destination.
  4. Then the initializing moderator will ask for and collect all the themes the participants want to discuss. Everybody can write a theme on a paper that everybody can see what he want to work on. The authors of the theme/paper bring them to the central wall and share it with all the others who then decide which theme group they want to join.
  5. After that the first session of the workshop starts: Those who want to make a workshop stands up, take one of the themes and says:  I want to work on this and I am going to the Room under the Dapdap Tree. Who wants to join? Then the next one take the next theme, until all are committed to a theme.
  6. In the dapdap room there is a huge paper. The theme comes in the middle. From this the moderator collects ideas from the group participants. He writes all ideas down as a mindmap on the big paper. To each branch other ideas can be written down. This continues until no more ideas come up. At this point of the workshop there is no discussion yet whether an idea makes sense or not. All ideas are getting written down, and who also is the author of the idea.
  7. When no new ideas are coming up, people vote on those ideas. All the participants can vote for ideas the like. So the question is: who thinks this is a good idea? At the end, each idea has a number of positive votes.
  8. Next is to make a photo of this paper and the moderator has now the job that all the ideas are getting written down on a computer together with the votes, starting with the highest votes. These results are getting uploaded directly to the webpage www.laketoba.net., including the paper foto.
  9. The people go back to the open space area, have a snack, talk with other people, or go directly to another workshop, where they want to contribute their ideas. At any time one can see on the main board  in which room which theme is getting worked on.
  10. There will be food at this place, and it will be cooked there. Everybody is invited to help by cooking or cleaning dishes or helping out in other ways. Things that need to be done are shown on a board where everybody who like to do something can register.
  11. For the things we need, we collect the money. We will have a drum where everybody who can support can donate monay, so that we can buy food and drink, and other things we need. Donations will be available right from the beginning, because people will support the event with a donation before it starts.
  12. In the early evening all the results are getting presented with a data projector, so that all the people can see what has been achieved so far already. After this it is an open evening, where we can play music, continue with discussions, enjoy the fresh palm wine or fruit juice until we want to call it day.
  13. The next morning after swimming in the wonderful lake or doing some yoga and after breakfast, the second conference day starts like the day before with the question: what theme you want to work on, choosing from one of the collected themes the day before. After the first day new things will have come up or things have to be seen also from a different view. Then the workshops starts again.
  14. The whole day the workshops continue as described. Everybody can take part in theme discussions where he/she wants to give inputs. And everybody can leave a group anytime. One enjoys to talk with others or is doing cooking or just takes a break. In the evening the results are getting put together again.
  15. The second evening is the same like the evening before.
  16. The third conference day will be done in the same way as the previous two days.
  17. On the fourth day there will be another question: ¨Who wants to go for a special theme and wants to be a moderator for the future?” The person will stay at the place with the paper where he want to work on. Then the next one says, I want to take care of this and stays somewhere in the field maybe close to the other or far away. This process is repeated until everybody who wants to be a moderator has found its theme and place. The moderators have to create groups with a minimum of five and highest lf 10 people.
  18. They have two hours time to setup the final ideas that should become part of the overall plan (masterplan).
  19. These results are generated and documented in the same way as the three days before. They will be shown in the final presentation.
  20. The final presentation will be reported life in the Internet. Everybody can see this. And later everybody can download this in the internet.
  21. The fifth day we will celebrate then the the Easter Sunday with a praying for Lake Toba and with a huge breakfast!

If you want to take part and you don´t have a Facebook account then just send us an email to r@laketoba.net

If you want to see the Event Location, then you can look at our Airbnb page