“Le Rotte del Pane” is a project, ideated by Koor srl Benefit Corporation, developed in coordination with the Italian Navy and in partnership with the Creative Knowledge Foundation and many other supporters.
The project aims to globally share and promote Italian excellence through bread and the baking process. In this context, the Amerigo Vespucci Ship will become an ambassador of traditional and creative Italian knowledge, hosting bread artisans from various Italian regions that will work alongside the ship’s kitchen staff. The ship will stop in 28 countries across the 5 continents, and during these stops in coordination with the Italian Navy there will be ship visits open to the public and institutional dinners organized with Italian embassies that will also involve the UNESCO Creative Cities Network.
During these events bakers on board of the ship will make fresh bread with a focus on eco-sustainability, quality, and the ancient and well-established Italian bread making traditions.

The objective is to set a concrete and tangible example of cultural exchange, inclusion, sharing of traditional knowledge, sustainability to better preserve the environment and promote health, for which Italy is the spokesman in the world. Thanks to the collaboration with the Creative Knowledge Foundation, which created and promoted the ‘Breads of the Creative Cities’ project for the UNESCO Creative Cities Network, “Le Rotte del Pane” project sheds light on the cultural significance of bread and how it serves as a unifying element among peoples.

In collaboration with the Municipality of Portoviejo, Portoviejo UNESCO Creative City, and the University of Manabì CK Foundation is working on a new and exciting project to set up a development plan for this Ecuadorian region.
The format “The Future…is under your feet” with its four steps of implementation (mapping the territory; heri-telling; learning-by-doing and fieldworks; sustainable models for local development) is the basis of the development plan with the goal of favoring the transmission of the traditional knowledge of a community onto future generations for a responsible growth and an inclusive and sustainable development within the frame of the Faro Convention and the UN2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
Step one: to analyze the creative assets of the region and build a digital library of the local knowledge keepers, their ingredients and recipes through the Creative Knowledge Platform.
Long-term goal: to restore an ancient building hit by the earthquake in 2016 and create a innovative gastronomic laboratory where students, chefs and farmers can work together in order to keep the ancient gastronomic traditions of this City alive.

Creative Patterns is a project promoted by Como -UNESCO Creative City of Crafts & Folk Art- with the support of CK Foundation. Textile artisans, designers, students, and creative professionals from UCCN cities (all clusters are invited to participate) will collaborate on this multi-cluster project dedicated to cultural creativity, inclusion, and welfare.
They will design and build products (clothes, soft furnishings, designer objects) using a collective reserve of shared skills, traditional expertise, folkloric influences, and innovative technologies.
In collaboration with the Silk Museum and local social cooperatives, educational workshops to bring children closer to the world of crafts and textiles as well as other initiatives to support the most vulnerable groups of society will be launched.
To encourage ‘creative cross-contamination’ between peoples and cultures, at first the project will focus on the Silk Road and the Spice Routes and involve the UCC of Crafts and Folk Art and Gastronomy, then all the other clusters.

The CREATIVE TEXTILE(S) PROJECT is an exemplary application of the Declaration of San Cristobal de Las Casas (Mexico, February 2018) that has defined a method to exchange knowledge and traditions in complete respect of local and indigenous cultures.
On April 3, 2019 in San Cristobal de Las Casas five pieces of silk fabrics (donated by the City of Como) were hand-delivered to five women artisans from the villages of Chenalhó, Huixtán, Oxchuc, San Juan Cancuc, Zinacantán to be embroidered with the traditional techniques and local Mayan symbols. Silk designers from Como were challenged to reinterpret the traditional Maya motifs to produce a selection of silk fabrics with a contemporary and unique style.
The finished products were put on display during the 2019 XIII UNESCO Creative Cities Network Annual Conference in Fabriano (Italy).
A related event, held in Archita (Romania) on August 3,2019 expanded outside the UNESCO Creative City Network and proposed the creation of cultural hubs, in which new generations of artisans (Knowledge Keepers) can be tutored and trained.

“The goal of the proposed PARRHASIAN HERITAGE PARK (PHP), Greece is to sustain an area of cultural significance, outstanding natural beauty and rich archaeological site while encouraging local communities to continue living and working within the protected landscape”.
Together with local research centers, universities, non-profit organizations, the civil society and volunteers CK Foundation has joined the project and contributes to its effort with the Creative Knowledge Platform, which is used to describe the TK systems of the local communities within the area of Arcadia, Elis and Messenia.
Stories of the local Knowledge Keepers and their unique knowledge and expertise will be narrated through websites and multimedia platforms to engage park visitors and residents alike in understanding and appreciating the uniqueness of the area.

Ingredients and spices, commonly used nowadays around the world, were only known locally until the 16th century. With mercantilism and the discovery of new routes, by land and sea, people started to exchange new ingredients and cross-pollinate recipes and techniques.
The Voyage of Ingredients project will collect historical and contemporary information about different ingredients from three continents (America, Asia, Europe) starting with three countries (Mexico, Turkey, Spain) that vastly experienced the exchange of food crops, and the fusion of ingredients and cooking techniques. Three UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy – Merida, Gaziantep and Denia – will use the Creative Knowledge Platform to collect all data in an open access digital resource library and share their stories, resources, traditional practices and knowledge about those ingredients.

For thousands of years, people living in the Orobic Valleys (shared between the Italian Provinces of Bergamo, Lecco and Sondrio) have based their economy on a sustainable use of their natural resources, agriculture and livestock, and have leveraged their unique Collective Intelligence to produce seven artisanal cheeses – the so-called “Principi Orobici” (Agrì Valtorta, Formaggio Tipico Branzi, Formaggio di Capra Orobica, Formai de Mut, Bitto Storico Ribelle, Stracchino all’Antica delle Valle Orobiche, Strachìtunt DOP).
By using the Creative Knowledge Platform to collect the stories of the Knowledge Keepers that play an essential role in the artisanal cheese value chain, CK Foundation has started the Artisanal Cheeses project that has completed Phase 1 with the publication of the interactive dual-language book “The Cheese Valleys. The Birthplace of the Orobic Cheesemaking Tradition”, the design of one cultural itinerary in the Cheese Valleys and seven booklets (one for each artisanal cheese) that have been the basis for the designation of Bergamo as a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy in 2019.
Currently, the project has moved to Phase 2 with an open invitation for all the artisanal cheesemakers that local experts have identified as “respectful of the tradition” in order to collect as many members of the Cheesemaking Value Chain as possible to include participants from the UNESCO Creative City Network and their surrounding territory.

ALEGRIA (Advancing Livelihoods in Equity by Growing Resilience in Agriculture) is a regional project in Tucson, Arizona and its aim is to shift the response to chronically under-resourced communities from safety nets to sustaining nets that are designed, built, and sustained by local families and organizations. Through codeveloped models, ALEGRIA advances work in five interlinked program areas which integrate: Racial & Gender Equity; Generational Approaches; Climate Resilience and Sustainability in an overarching framework. ALEGRIA addresses broken and unhealthy food systems by cocreating community-based approaches using a “zero barriers to access” strategy. With a broad group of BIPOC and low-income partners, ALEGRIA will share strategies and ideas that are rooted in deep cultural practices and knowledge while leveraging modern technology and expertise to feed body, mind, and spirit. ALEGRIA project’s team think that many of the solutions to the issues faced everyday by under-resourced communities lie with those individuals, organizations, and communities who represent those long-standing cultures and yet who live with food insecurity and racial inequities every day.

Historic agricultural practices have played a dominant role in shaping landscapes, creating a heritage that must be understood and preserved from a point of view of sustainable development.
A multidisciplinary approach that combines landscape archaeology, historical studies, geosciences, and computer-based geospatial analysis and modeling will be used to understand long-term landscape change.
CK Foundation will contribute to the efforts of this project with the Creative Knowledge Platform (CKP) – a software platform that focuses on the importance of traditions and culture to build a database of multimedia content (texts, videos, images, audio recordings) in one digital library hub.
The platform will be used to publish periodic updates of the project in plain language and to convey a message on the importance of environmental sustainability and awareness on heritage conservation to a broader general audience.

In partnership with the Osservatorio UNESCO di Napoli and with the collaboration of teachers and students of the Hospitality High Schools of Napoli, Bergamo e Brescia, this project will highlight the strong bond that ties People, Products and Places and characterize a Landscape of Ingredients that extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the Alps.
The Creative Knowledge Platform will be used as a digital hub for organizing the information that teacher and students will collect (virtually) during the school year 2020-21 and preparing dedicated websites, booklets and an e-book to present the results of the project.

The goal of this project is to sustain the work of artists and artisans that live in a natural landscape of high cultural significance (the City of Carrara) and encourage them to become the drivers of a sustainable development of their territory.
Conceptually inspired by the book “Hands at Work: Carrara Marble”, the project is composed by 3 phases and centers onto a close collaboration between the artists and artisans, who live in the area and work with Carrara marble, and the local community.
The outputs of phase 1 consisted of nine videos (dedicated to 9 different artist and artisans) and one itinerary. Besides, all those artists use the Creative Knowledge Platform to narrate their experiences of working with marble.
The phase 2, which started on June 10th 2021, is open to all the artists and artisans that works in Carrara region and use the Creative Knowledge Platform to narrate their work and techniques, explain why they choose to work in Carrara, and which are the issues they face every day. Their answers will be useful to write the “Declaration of Carrara on the Role of Artists and Artisans”, a document that highlights the role of artists and artisans in the sustainable development of territories. Artists, artisans, local associations and no profit foundations contributed to this declaration, which was signed by the Italian UNESCO Creative Cities od Crafts and Folk Arts during the first Creativity Forum in Carrara (September 2021).
Phase 3 started during the “Creativity Forum: Carrara for the Creative Cities” (September 24-26) with an international call to all the UNESCO Creative Cities that share the traditional knowledge of stone working and techniques.
During the forum the Carrara Charter and the “Declaration of Carrara on the Role of Artists and Artisans” were officially presented. The first one contains guidelines and actions for the regeneration and sustainable development of urban centers; the second one, signed by the UNESCO Creative Cities of Fabriano, Biella and Carrara, focuses on the role of artists and artisans as engines in the regeneration and sustainable development of territories.

This project initiated to support the candidature of Carrara into the UNESCO Creative City Network for the cluster Crafts and Folk Art in 2017.
It bears witness to the creativity of quarrying and working the white marble since ancient times, and transforming it into a whole range of products in the field of art, architecture and design.
In the book “Hands at work: Carrara Marble” that accompanied the candidature, the Creative Knowledge Platform was used to highlight three artists that have been working with Carrara marble, and to describe many of the creative and practical steps they went through to make a fine piece of artwork from an unrefined block of marble.

This project seeks to strengthen the economic sustainability of local food business enterprises of farmers, ranchers, gatherers and artisanal food makers in the Southwest of the United States by providing marketing strategies and resources to increase their presence in new and existing markets with a producer-to-consumer online marketing platform and mobile application.
Farmers, Ranchers, Gatherers and Food Artisans will use the Creative Knowledge Platform, a portal designed to reinforce the value chains associated with local food production.
Stories, videos, photos and interviews of Knowledge Keepers (Farmers, Ranchers, and Gatherers), Makers and Food Artisans will be collected in one “digital library hub” and made available online.

“Drumming is the most primal expression of music that’s been with us since prehistory so I think it’s a great platform to work from. […] Every city will have a drumming story”
This project was announced by Kansas City, UNESCO Creative City of Music at the UCCN XIII Annual conference in Fabriano (June 2019, Italy) and focuses on the cultural heritage and creativity of the Drum and of drumming to be recognized as historic and modern musical heritage and to express a culture of creative resistance to racism and inequality.
ITKI US is contributing to the project with the Creative Knowledge Platform that will be used to narrate the stories of the Drum in a unique and multifaceted way starting from the beat (unique to each city and culture), the literature and the history of that specific culture to end with the crafting of the instrument, which is an essential part of many indigenous cultures, and the performance of many musicians and composers that use the drum to express their cultural heritage.