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Time: 19:00, Saturday, July 25, 2026
Format: Zoom
Language: English (with Vietnamese interpretation)
Registration link: https://luma.com/1jkp0uuz
[Event exclusively for Vcil Community Members]
What makes a city livable, a place where we feel we belong? From an agricultural foundation, Vietnam has surged forward to form dynamic economic corridors and urban supply chains, bringing the urbanization rate to 44.3%. This trend is becoming increasingly pronounced in the country's major cities.
Yet modern cities seem to be missing the essential ingredients for people to live happy, sustainable lives. Cities appear to be replicating the same development model, all revolving around the same relentless churn: bustling shopping centers, sleek skyscrapers, fiercely competitive job markets, and a school system detached from local culture and ecology. But what if a city itself could become one vast learning campus? What if every street corner, every home, every neighborhood turned into a lecture hall, and every resident became a teacher? What would a city look like if it still held onto its cultural and ecological character — a place where every resident feels affection and a sense of belonging?
These "what if" questions are precisely the shared vision that the global "Learning City" movement seeks to answer — a powerful shift away from consumerist, centralized, competitive, resource-depleting cities toward cities of collective intelligence, of a passion for learning and lifelong learning, of an indigenous gift culture, of a life lived happily and in harmony with the place we inhabit.
"Learning City" is a name close to Vcil Community's heart, as the community and its members have organized the monthly "Learning City" festival in Đà Nẵng, Vũng Tàu, Hồ Chí Minh City, and most recently Hà Nội — where we step outside traditional classrooms and turn every space, every corner of the city into a place of learning and equal exchange among citizens. Above all, the festival is an opportunity to build community, to weave networks of information-sharing, collaboration, and mutual support across localities.
This July, "Learning City" in Vietnam enters its eighth month since it first began. Ahead lie countless possibilities for the movement to imagine, contribute to, and co-create. So what futures might unfold in the "Learning City" — in each city, and in Vietnam as a whole?
To explore this question, in July's edition of Nếp Mới we will travel through a global lens and lived experience to learn about two of the world's Learning City models: Shibuya University Network (Japan) and Udaipur as a Learning City (India). Together we will discover how communities in entirely different cultural contexts are breaking through inherited limits, and in doing so creating community spaces rooted in human development, ecological awareness, and genuine happiness.
Representative from Shibuya University Network (Tokyo, Japan):
A "university" that owns no building and no fixed campus. No exams, no grades, no measurement, no assessment, and no single right answer. Shibuya University Network sets out to turn the place we live into an enormous classroom, and through it to create an abundant, inclusive society — one where learning makes us more human, more purposeful, and more joyful. It is also a place where residents can make friends, exchange ideas, learn freely, and renew themselves each day.
Founded in 2006, Shibuya University has completely redefined learning in the city by turning the megacity of Tokyo into a free, open lecture hall. Operating on a "zero-campus" model, it makes use of and widens access to underutilized public spaces, transforming them into community learning campuses. Its members have held classes in cafés, izakaya pubs, bookstores, hair salons, and parks. The sessions are never one-directional — those who share and those who attend co-create together.
To date, this entirely free learning model has drawn more than 45,000 participants, hosted over 1,600 unique courses, and sparked the "Sister University" movement spreading across Japan (from Kyoto to Fukuoka) to heal the loneliness of urban life.
Representative from Udaipur as a Learning City (Rajasthan, India):
Launched in 1999 by residents of Udaipur, the initiative was born as a learning laboratory for reimagining and localizing urban ways of living, addressing the city's problems of pollution, violence, inequality, and loneliness. Ultimately, it seeks to co-create Udaipur as a singular version of itself, carrying its own identity — rather than turning it into a megacity or letting it wear a label like "the Venice of India."
The initiative runs on the core ideas of reimagining education, reimagining development, regenerating indigenous knowledge, and building community and ecosystems. Learning City is therefore a space that opens a network of learning opportunities to everyone, focusing on ideas that nurture intergenerational learning, ecological regeneration, spiritual growth, and the resilience and sustainability of the local economy. To realize that vision, the initiative mobilizes different resources within the community, invites the participation and co-creation of diverse stakeholders, and acts from a place of sacred service — seva (a core philosophy across many religions and spiritual practices in India). These are the resources it draws on to meet Udaipur's complex local challenges.
The initiative rests on four main pillars:
The above is only a broad introduction to these two Learning City initiatives. To learn more, you can visit each initiative's own website — and above all, join Nếp Mới to hear directly from their founders and stewards, and to ask them your questions!
See you at Nếp Mới #16 later this month!
Inspired by the Vietnamese word "Nếp" — signifying the inherited patterns of culture, habit, and everyday life — Vcil Community created Nếp Mới to open a space that nurtures new ways of living: ones that prioritize sustainable well-being and the regeneration of true wealth. It is a community space designed to help people recognize and break outdated patterns, learn from collective intelligence, and reimagine how we live, connect, and learn.
Each month, community members go deep into a different theme. Nếp Mới invites scholars, experts, and practitioners to share insights on essential topics that touch our lives. Participants have the chance to join in dialogue, deepen their understanding, find solutions to personal and collective problems, or begin work that matters.
New Ways will invite scholars, experts, and people with practical experience to share about essential and familiar topics in life
