This week, Jan Marcinek from Czech Republic launched his crowdsourcing platform, Visionnaire.co. Why do I blog about this? Because I have interviewed Jan for my thesis a couple of times in the past, and discovered a passionate and talented young man who wanted other creatives to get the same opportunities than he got. Jan, alias Kryspin, is indeed a successful crowdsourcing participant, and wanted to launch a local platform in the Czech Republic. Now, he did just that. Here’s a short Q&A with Jan.

Jan Marcinek, works and lives in Prague, Czech Republic, where he is copywriter for Havas (photo via Visionnaire.co)

Jan, could you present yourself?

My name is Jan Marcinek, and I studied film school in Pisek, a little town in the Czech Republic, where I also learned screenwriting and directing. After graduation, I was looking for a job, but it’s always difficult in the Czech Republic to find a job in the film industry, because there are a lot of film schools. You know, filmmaking is a freelancer job, so sometimes you have time to make something different or some videos just for yourself. That’s how I found eYeka and tried to make some videos for contests, because it is interesting for me and a lot of other people.

I was lucky and won some competitions, which is good for me because it’s easier to tell bosses that I won this contest, that I was in Hong Kong, Kenya and so on just because some companies liked my videos. People look at me in different ways right now, which is very good. And I now work at Havas Worldwide Prague, the biggest agency in the Czech Republic, and I work as a copywriter.

When, and how, did you start participating in online contests?

I think it was 3 or 4 years ago, I found the portfolio of one guy in the Czech Republic, and he won one competition on eYeka. So I looked up eYeka and discovered the platform, I registered, made a first video, and another video… Making videos is a dream for me, I enjoy it. So I did a couple of competitions and one day, I think it was for Digital Banking, I won a prize. It was perfect for me, because at that time I didn’t have a job and I could buy myself an Apple computer to improve my creative skills.

So after that I did different competitions, like for Air Asia and Kempinski. These were one-month competitions, and after 2 days I discovered that I won in both these competitions, so it was very funny for me, because I could combine Kempinski Hotel stays and Air Asia flights. I was in Dubai, and Hong Kong. It was a great success right from the start!

Why did you start Visionnaire.co?

Because a lot of people in the Czech Republic didn’t know about co-creation, and they don’t know what it is about. I think it’s good to bring concepts that work elsewhere in the world, to the Czech Republic. I would like to bring co-creation here, because I think there are a lot of film schools, art schools, and it is hard to succeed in the Czech Republic, so I think co-creation could help them. Because eYeka helped me, why can’t I help someone else?

It is hard for creatives to succeed in the Czech Republic, and I think co-creation can help them

So this project has been started two years ago, and I work on it in my free time. And I am also working for the Young Lions Competition, from the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival. I met a lot of young creative people there, and as I was making interviews with them, I found out that none of them had heard about the competition before they came there, it’s strange because we make a lot of advertising about this, and a lot of people don’t know that they can join, meet clients, make entries and win Golden Lions, which is like an Oscar for advertising.

So that is why I created Visionnaire.co, to make people look for opportunities by joining some contests themselves. And, you know, I like details: That’s why I used the Visionnaire.co domain – it’s based on the co-creation word.

The end of the “Visionnaire.co” domain name comes from the word “co-creation”

So, tell me, what does Visionnaire.co start with?

I’m happy and proud that Visionnaire is public with a first online contest for Komercni Banka, the Czech Société Générale. People have to make video or print for the G2 bank account which is targeting a young target audience.  The winner will get 30,000 CZK, approximately 1,000 Euros, and a Louskacek Award.

Thank you Jan, and good luck with Visionnaire.co, a competition website for creative people to show their talent!

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PS: Jan submitted a great video presentation to eYeka’s “Tell Us Who You Are” contest in 2011. Check it out: Kryspin – “Kyrspin”: winning video in our “Tell… by eYeka