this December
diplomats from around the world
meet once again
to sit
and talk
about climate change
But 20 years of UN climate summit and talkings
haven’t stopped CO2 levels from rising
Instead, global emissions have doubled
since the first since the first UN climate meeting in 1995
While our rainforests die and the Arctic ice melts
our politicians prepare for yet another talk
this December in Paris
So we came up with a different idea
We call it POC21
A proof of concept that the future we need
can be built with our own hands
POC21 brings together 12 sustainable,
open source hardware projects
for 5 weeks of colaboration,
co-living and development
to build the tools we need
for the world we want
We see a lot of potential
and creativity of innovators, 'makers'
who build sustainable products and solutions
but we think that right now they maybe lack some basic
design support, communication support,
tech support,
a different set of skills or tools
that can help bring them to the next level and possibly to scale.
12 developing projects were selected
to take part in POC21
each aims to combat or adapt to climate change -
with access to energy, food, livelihood or sanitation
all are open source - anyone can study, build upon
or help improve them, even you
Low-Cost 3D-printed Water Filter
DIY Resilient Energy
Modern Lo-Tech Living Kitchen
Automated Permaculture Greenhouse
Bio-inspired Energy-Saving kettle
Portable Solar Generator
Understanding Energy Use & Generation
Solar Concentrator
Mobile Energy Modules
Energy-Saving Circular Shower
Urban Agriculture Kits
Fossil-Free Farming
WEEK ZERO: SETUP
50 team members, participants and volunteers
arrive early to help prepare the camp
We didn't know what we were getting into.
Now I can imagine how the settlers in the early ages felt when they were setting up a village.
In fact the Chateau is not used
so we cleaned everything we put electricity everywhere
we put smoke detectors in each room, mattresses everywhere…
Basically we are building a structure of 30 tents
It takes around half an hour if you’re used to doing it
At the beginning it was like 2 hours.
Don’t be fooled by my pants
I know what I’m doing
OK, my pants may be right then
It was a little bit crazy, everything had been brought from outside
which means wood to make the building for the kitchen and a small house for the showers
we brought all the cables, all the electricity from outside.
We brought also all the stuff for the kitchen : fridge, oven, etc…
Happy?
Yes, we still need some showers, some signage,
wifi, electricity, and some desks to work on.
It’s going well. Oh, and the kitchen too.
The setup week was really extreme
we had really a lot of things to do, we were running everywhere
the challenge was to get down, breathe,
and be comfortable with the people who were coming
because it was really stressful
and we didn’t want to give that kind of stress to the participants.
I had no idea what was awaiting me
it was something I've never done
it was like before the first day at school in my life.
it's pretty impressive, man!
so we will just do a short walk and show you the area.
actually, the idea for POC21 is the idea for Open State.
The starting point for Open State
which is the Berlin part of the POC team
was with two friends and colleagues,
Dominik and Simon.
At some point we met on the River Spree in Berlin
and thought about what is actually the impact we can have
on that topic of climate change and sustainability
in this way too short lifetime.
The climate crisis is kind of like
this tsunami that you see on the horizon
You're still kind of laying at the beach, enjoying your drinks
and you know it will come
and you feel paralyzed.
We always thought about
creating social situations which would be midterm
like some weeks at least.
More than just hackathons, conferences, or workshops
Enable people to join forces
bring together different cultural backgrounds
different perspectives, experiences, and skill sets.
But the problem was always
you need a space for that
and you just need a huge team that can actually do it.
Ouishare was built as a collective
to bring together entrepreneurs, researchers
people generally interested in
peer-to-peer and the collaborative economy
we do events, we do research
we try to foster collective thinking
and incubate new projects
around the the collaborative economy,
open source,
and peer-to-peer in general
since the first OuiShare Fest in 2013
Ben & I have been working on
the subject of Making and Distributed Manufacturing
Hello everybody,
thanks Ben for the kind introduction,
At some point
Dominik was invited as one of the speakers
and the two stories fusioned together
When I read the website about POC21
I thought it was like a dream come true
because everything that I like
and that I value about life,
like sustainability, making,
co-living,
and cooperating with other people
It was a like a dream come true.
I see huge value in bringing together
the open source and tech mindset
with the iteration of processes and
the more socially-focused group work, community-building aspect
and I think when you bring those two together
they have different value sets
but they really interact well when they come together.
Trying out many new things
but also giving processes some time
and letting people learn about
interaction and communities.
When we started
we came into a camp
that is about developing 12 projects.
What I personally didn't think about
is that it requires a lot of people
to do it
It's a small village
and a small village
requires a lot of organization
We are more than 100 people
living together during more than 5 weeks,
so we need to attribute tasks
and everyone has to take their part to work on it
so there are different tasks
like toilet care,
kitchen clean,
cooking heroes,
garbage crew,
and night guardians
Basically with this co-living stuff
we are sure that we can live all together in a proper way
people from the logistics team
are sitting until 1 or 2 in the morning
taking care of the travel, accommodations,
somehow running the whole thing
there are people that buy supplies
and all having the thought in mind
that it should be sustainable, it should be local.
so, sustainability requires
a lot of logistics
this is the organic compost
just for food waste
so everything that we don't give to the chickens
goes in here
and it's made from palettes
and re-used cardboard
dry toilets are a good solution
because they don’t use water at all
Generally toilets use 9L
every time we flush,
and that’s drinking water.
many people were not really aware
of how it works
and it’s a very...
personal thing
and they had to get used to it
We were a bit scared of the reactions
but there was no other solutions
and it went quite well
We have a lot of wood
and leftovers from different building operations
and we keep them
to use them for furniture
and for construction
We have mainly vegetarian meals,
we try to reduce meat as much as possible
because meat is responsible for a lot of carbon emissions
We want to be as coherent as we can
while respecting people’s habits at the same time
We have vegetables and fruits, from local and organic places
we went to pick them up
on Sundays
we go to pick up some fruit at the farm
which is 10-15 km from here.
WEEK ONE: Participants meet with designers & engineers to discuss their projects
The first week was there for shaking them up,
saying,
"Hey, nice project but
we are not here to develop that like it is
because then you could just do that at home
so we have all kinds of skills sets
and interesting people to mingle with
and to rethink what you're actually doing."
it's interesting how
each project is at a different stage of development
some of them, they have to still work very hard
on making sure they are answering the right questions
because their initial assumptions
may start from the wrong point
there are some projects in which you say
OK,
you just have to think about
how to take it to the world
it’s done
it’s a great idea,
a great working prototype,
even in some cases
it’s a product that's commercialized
in other cases
you think OK, this is totally wrong,
this product shouldn’t exist in the world
but,
your design principles are great.
I'm part of the Nautile project
which is a bio-inspired kettle
that is a test case project for methodology
showing how we can
systematically redesign products from everyday life
with bio inspiration
to make them more sustainable
what we have now is a model
it's an hypothesis
we need to make it real
we had a discussion with Tomas Diez from FabLab Barcelona
on the feasibility of 3D printing the kettle in ceramics
at a reasonable price,
which is not the case
In the end we kind of agree on the fact that
the design we boiled down from many principles
was not the right one for what we want to do
what we have to do now
is really re-prioritize all our objectives
and get back to a new realistic product
we can then detail design,
and produce over the next few weeks.
wWe are here at POC
developing open source open agriculture kits
that can be downloaded
and CNC routed - cut -
out of plywood or other sheet materials
and assembled really easily
some people like Simon said to me:
"I’m one of your potential customers,
and this is the reason
I’m not sold yet on what you’re doing."
because right now when I see myself as a customer,
it would still be a huge hassle
to download the files,
go to a FabLab,
CNC cut them,
get the pieces,
still then I have a very very simple raised bed
I'm kind of missing the added value
over just going to Castorama
buying 4 pieces of wood
putting it in my garden...
you know what I mean?
I'm just trying to help you, I really like the idea
the core of what you're doing
is the modularity, I think
that enables like a Lego system
I was confused for a bit about
"oh, does this mean we have to go back and redesign everything?"
and that was kind of a really ominous feeling
that made me actually feel really kind of nervous and scared
because we’ve done all this work
and do we have to now go back and redo it all?
And fortunately other people came along
and added on top of that, and were like
"just rethink certain elements of what you’re doing
and bring them to the next iteration,
the next line,
the next development cycle you go into."
The difficulty that you’re facing,
like in any other project,
is to be both open
to listen to advice,
new ideas
suggestions, discussions
to have that ability to listen
and at the same time
to have the ability to know what you’re going to do
and to be firm on realizing things
it’s a kind of schizophrenic ability
MAKING POC21 ACCESSIBLE: Opening up the camp
I think it's important we frame this for the public
just to reach out to these other groups of society
so it's easier for other people to just have access
because open source is one thing
but as long as it's closed into engineering circles
and super expert circles
it will not take off
bonjour and hello!
I’m Zoe from the POC21 Live Magazine
we’re standing at the gates of Chateau Millemont
and I want to show you around
just follow me
we’re going to the lounge now
we all meet here, all generations, all people
this is like our big living room I would say
here in the back you can see the showers
in the beginning when the showers didn’t exist yet
we had those solar shower bags
they were lying in the sun
then you could hang it up
and have a shower in the nature
now we have real luxurious showers
can we come and film you?
this is Phillipp and Mercé
we're making a Caprese
it’s like a tomato production factory here
let’s go to the Factory
this is the place where all the magic happens
and where all the machines are
basically a classical FabLab.
FabLab stands for FABrication LABoratory
it’s a place where you can find
machines and people
that can help you make almost anything
there are tools
to bring manufacturing closer to the users
and bring back the knowledge of making things to people
which we lost a couple hundred years ago
with the massive industrialization
that we are living in today
it’s basically about empowering people
through technology
to affect reality, to change reality
the FabLab at POC21
looks like any other FabLab in the world
you can use a laser cutter
to cut textiles, wood in small pieces
to make smaller prototypes
or some parts of larger prototypes
you can find a large-scale milling machine
that can help you cut pieces of metal, wood
which you can make from furniture to entire houses
or large structures
a CNC machine
is a milling machine that can place itself
with computer-based code
you design something on your computer
then you go through a program
that will generate G-code
which commands the machine.
one of the cool tools we have here
is a 3D printer
it uses a material in an additive way
so rather than doing like a CNC machine which cuts out
a 3D printer builds up
what we’re looking at here
is just a 3D model
once that’s ready we put it on a SD card
and we put it in the machine
and it’s ready to go.
we have a cable of plastic
that we heat up until it melts
then the 3D printer lays it down
in layers on top of each other
if you can imagine an object
and it’s physically possible
you can definitely 3D print it.
the FabLab network is 557 FabLabs around the world
it’s not only places with machines
it’s about the people behind them,
the community that is exchanging knowledge
about the future of fabrication
and specifically,
about the future of digital fabrication
one of the keys of a FabLab
is to have common equipment
that allows the exchange of digital knowledge
around the world
so I can design something here
in Paris
and just upload the content
and then in Cape Town in South Africa
they can download it, adapt it,
and manufacture it with the same tools
that happens in terms of minutes, of seconds
Week 2: Supporters & Mentors help the projects to refine their concepts
Not a lot of people think
from the very physical, technological principles
towards the end product
The strength of this format
is it brings a lot of people together
some are specialists,
some are generalists
and we try to enter with
all these different skills and abilities.
When we talk about sustainability
it's a way of thinking, of designing
it's not just about choosing the right material
I think my main role here is to help them
not just say 'this is the right material'
'use that or use this'
but to give them parameters
so they understand
the logic behind using one material or another
As we are project designers
we don't have any expertise in aquaponic
or kitchen or mechanical or anything like that
and this is why we are here:
to get people who know, really know.
I really talked with Bicitractor guys
and they did fly wheels
and mechanical stuff before
and so they said, okay you should do this and this
and then you can try that tomorrow
One guy from the TV channel,
how do you call that? -"Boom Operator"
The boom operator was looking at my drawings
and said, okay just a second
you should do this and this...
And even here it was constructive.
There is one phase in the project
that we need to be open
then after I think we need to be more closed to advices
because it's only five weeks
and it's very short so we have to go
at one moment we have to say, okay we do this
maybe it's not the best idea
but we do it
and we make it work.
We hope everything will work at the first try
but it will never happen
This is why there is one hundred people
to help you
to go fast and to re-do it again and again
within the five weeks,
but yeah that's my biggest fear
that the mechanical part, for example, won't work
or even the kitchen won't work
but it will work. it will work.
I hope so.
Some teams are in need of some engineering advice
and some teams are in need of design advice,
and some are just in need
of a haircut, right?
it's done?
how do you feel, Kim?
it's awesome. it's really good.
I am a fresh man now.
Open Source Documentation
A dedicated team helps the projects
to create manuals & tutorials
All of the projects being developed here
are open source,
and documentation is a very important aspect of open source
to diffuse the idea
and make it accessible to other people
the idea is to show how the product is built
step-by-step
and also to show
the process of decision-making inside a product
because sometimes you'll choose one material over another
and there's a reason for that
showing this allows the community who will develop it
to go a step further, knowing already
ok, this material isn't good for this project, and why not
in the open source method of collaboration,
many people work together, on projects
whose plans, code
or "recipes" are shared online.
people collaborate like this to build
open source cars,
3D printers,
and even houses.
These ideas can spread around the world
and evolve quickly
as different people adapt and improve them.
If you imagine applying this speed and efficiency
of development in research
to such an issue as climate change,
you see that in a situation where you have very limited time
and a big problem,
and you really need to have the biggest team you can,
open source is like just the easiest and the most sustainable way to go.
The project Faircap started with very simple idea,
and that was to make a tiny filter
that you can screw into a bottle,
and you can take water from a stream,
from a lake, from the tap
and just drink straight from it.
I think there's a big benefit from doing it open source.
The information is open
so that it's easier to understand how it works.
I think that's empowering people,
not just telling them,
"Yeah, this cleans water and that's it."
But, "This cleans water because we're using this,
and maybe in the future it's going to be improved".
The second aspect, I think, it's also an economic aspect,
because by sharing this online or with different designers,
a lot of people can collaborate
from the scientific point of view, from the design point of view,
to make it easier to use,
to make it low cost to produce.
It's not easy to talk about what you're doing
when you work in open source.
People don't understand,
people think it's, either they don't know what it is,
or they think it's some kind of
thing you can't make your living out of,
or it's maybe a hobby for some of us.
The things that are happening are being shared laterally through networks,
blogs, wikis, mostly online.
They go from community to community,
but there's still a mass audience out there that doesn't get that.
I think one of the reasons we don't see it
is because we are addicted to bigness:
big companies, multinationals,
and what's happening now is distribution.
It's lots of small projects coalescing together.
I think there's a lot more of us out there
than we know
if we can start connecting up
some of these networks and communities
who want to work in this quite new way
that's based in positive social values,
egalitarianism, entrepreneurialism,
autonomy, collaboration,
it's going to be super powerful and exciting
and I think the movement is already global
and we just need to find each other.
At POC21 the projects are super diverse.
They are all happening at different stages of development
but when I have gone and talked with them,
the thing that has been really interesting to me
is this combination of
I have this kernel of an idea
but what I really want
is for this broader community to build off of it.
SunZilla is designed to replace
conventional diesel generators
in remote areas
or outdoor events.
We want to be more modular,
so the battery is in a separate box
depending on your energy need,
you have a bigger box with more solar panels,
or a smaller box with less solar panels
One module we'd like to be developed
is a water purification module.
All the plans are open,
and you know exactly what you have to do
to make a module which fits to our system.
and you can even adapt the code
to make it perfect for your needs.
That is effectively a platform
for other people to innovate on top of
that’s really different
to how industry thinks most of the time
there’s a way of taking what they are doing
and saying okay,
we want to see this spread
and to see it spread we need to share our knowledge and share our insights
and encourage and invite other people to innovate with us.
When we close those models up
and we say 'oh, this is very protected' and everything
it means that it doesn't scale
but we are in a hurry, a serious hurry
we are in a life transforming hurry right now.
It's easy to think sustainability is
society's problem
or someone else's problem,
but actually it's sort of all of us,
what we do day-to-day.
We often think in terms of these 2050 or 2030 goals
and that actually puts the problem in the future
like, "we can keep living as we do now,
but by 2030 we'll have fixed it."
Actually it's not these 2030 goals that matter,
it's cumulative emissions.
In order to limit our chances of exceeding two degrees of warming,
we need to reduce our carbon emissions by 40% by 2018,
70% by 2025,
90% by 2030,
and 100% by 2035.
To reach that kind of de-carbonization
in the energy sector,
we obviously have to
ramp up renewable energy.
In the last six years,
solar capacity worldwide grew
from about 17 gigawatts to 177 gigawatts
and wind doubled
from 120 to 318 gigawatts
I’m interested in how do we connect
to this big picture, to the energy transition,
which is really what Open Energy Monitor is about,
showing you how much energy you’re using
and how much energy is coming from these different renewable energy sources.
Once I did an energy audit on lighting
it really surprised me, like
"Wow, that's a lot of energy"
and people leave the lights on all the time,
so it really impacted me
when I did that and I had the knowledge,
I go around now nowadays turning off the lights wherever.
Now, with the water, I have the same thing
like, again
"Wow! That's a lot of energy!"
like, you can't have a solar photovoltaic shower.
You'd need 10 square meters of solar panels to do it,
in real time
The other part is what often call
"power down" or "energy efficiency"
We can achieve huge reduction in energy demand,
almost 75% through
electrification of transport, of heating
and better insulation and draft-proofing in buildings.
This is tricky, but it's also very, very simple.
If we can decrease our consumption
but maintain our quality of life,
then that's a start
Everyone will say,
"oh, take shorter showers"
or "take cold showers"
but
I don't want to!
you know? I'm used to this.
and I've just made the tech
so it's possible to do that.
Here we have Showerloop, the prototype,
it’s basically just a shower
you can run in a loop.
You can use your hot water
that you already got from the outside
and cycle it as long as it stays hot
to save a lot of heat energy
that’s the awesome part of it -
we’re not just saving water,
it’s really about energy.
Water comes from the bottom, the pump,
gets pumped through the filter,
comes up through the showerhead,
and you can shower in a cycle.
Instead of a normal shower using 100 liters of water,
Showerloop only needs 10.
Maybe it can have a larger impact
by changing people's mentality
you'd take a shower like that in the morning,
and if you know how it works
maybe you start looking around, asking
"Hey, why doesn't that work the same way?"
We are here with different projects,
working around energy
or using energy
we don’t want to work on different islands
and just ignore each other
so here at POC we have the opportunity to work together
so let’s work together
and make one interconnected energy system
showing that we can be autonomous
with only renewable energy supply.
Week 3: from concepts to action
So, what should do first?
The exhibition.
yeah, OK,
let's talk about the exhibition
At the end of the camp, the castle grounds will be opened to the public for the POC21 exhibition
I can see several issues that we have to decide on
POC21 is the same as all the 12 projects
we should run through the process
that we try to get our projects through
what is our vision?
and how are we going to show our vision?
I think the overall atmosphere should be that it can be believed
as a 'proof of concept'
like an atmospheric puzzle
where when you leave, you understand
ok actually, there could be a whole lifestyle around this
I saw so many things, many of them not perfect
but from the feeling,
ok something's developing into a complete picture
I think the projects are making a lot of progress
right now, what we need to be careful about is to meet the schedule
and move from divergence
and a lot of new concepts for the projects
to converging into the final prototypes and the exhibition
it’s going to be the main focus and challenge for the remaining days.
People are really starting to get physical
so they come from out of their concepts and papers
and some people, like the Bicitractor guys,
you can hardly get them out of the Factory
because they’re welding and sawing, all the day
The Bicitractor is a tool
for small-to-medium fruit & vegetable producers
to perform small tasks
like weeding, hoeing, opening a line, or sowing seeds
We've spent two weeks working in the Factory
8, 10 hours a day
and that's what you see here
that's the main frame
this part here
the big rectangle
the seat
the pedalling station
and the transmission axis
we're working on the steering right now
I'm here with the $30 wind turbine project,
which is a vertical access turbine
that you can make for yourself
with basic tools and skills
using recycled materials
it basically puts the ability to generate power
in people's hands
and everyone needs it!
This is actually the first one I've made myself
since the first prototypes back in 2013
since then it's just been watching other people make them
in the workshops.
So these bottom three vanes were made by hand
in 3 and a half hours
these top ones were done by CNC machine,
the first ones to have been done with the machine
and they were printed in a couple of minutes each
and then assembled in 90 minutes.
So the full 6-vane version,
you could do the whole thing in 4 hours.
Instead of just collecting the sun like flat plate collectors
which produce warm water
domestic hot water for example
if we want to have energy at higher temperature
then you need to concentrate the light.
We use mirrors that reflect the light
on a pipe
in which water flows
transforming into steam
We can use the steam for the various uses
like food processing,
sterilizing, cooking.
The purpose of this electronics & software
is to keep the concentrated sun
on the main receptor
While the sun moves in the sky
the photosensor will give a signal to the Arduino board
to move every single mirror into position.
The Vélo M2 project is a multi-modular platform
where we use one bike
and we put different modules on it
It's to try new experiments
around renewable energy and bikes
in any environment.
Our energy module will be charged either by pedal power
or either with other renewable energy sources
so that we are totally independent of fossil fuel.
The bike has a free-wheel system
which prevents generaration of electricity
so Milena blocked the free-wheel system
now we pedal backwards and we generate electricity.
This is just a test, to see if everything could work
Let’s try it!
Can you see if everything is set as we did before?
Yeah
We are generating 0.05 amps...
Now it should work
Is this normal?
No...
probably not.
give it a couple of turns
yeah but it derails each time
yeah
This is one of the practical problems that are slowing us down.
Now that the electrical system is running
the mechanical system is not working anymore.
I think that we are totally fucking the derailleur….
We’re gonna go down to the construction side of the dome,
which is a wooden pavillion
with an inner tent
that will host the exhibition
for the 18th to the 20th of September.
The dome is a very lightweight structure
for the space it gives
it’s also one the major DIY structures that is done in the world
actually I guess it’s the biggest wooden dome in Europe
we thought a lot about
how to transfer everything that’s happened at POC
the ideas, what’s happened here,
and the collaborative process, into an exhibition
it’s rather complicated
to get that complex story across
to people that have never really heard of open source, co-living
or collaborative processes.
There's also the idea that
this is just an example for a better world
it's part of a whole ecosphere of open source projects
reinforcements arrive to help in the final sprint towards the exhibition
it's one thing when you see it from outside, on your computer
you can sense that there's a sort of chaos here
but when you arrive here, you really feel it
100 percent!
so we noticed that
being in such a busy work environment
sometimes it’s hard to find quiet and focus
the solution to this was to make a bunch of these crowns
the idea is that you can put one of these on,
and people know that you're trying to focus or want some quiet time alone
I guess we will have a floating exhibition!
We still need to build up the whole exhibition structure,
so that’s 80 cubes that we still need to assemble and stack
and we have to try and fit it in here.
the dome is actually smaller than we hoped
so we lost some space
and it’s already crowded
so the main task will be trying to fit it into the space
and as well finding a way that it all works out
even though we are like, one week behind
even though it seems like Mission Impossible,
I’m still optimistic
I don’t know why,
but I’m still smiling
and looking forward to the next phase.
Week 5: The final sprint
We plan to be ready in two days
It’s kind of the last stuff we have to do
in terms of construction
after that we have to bring the soil and humus etc
to make the beds,
but all the structure will be done.
This is the preservation module
it’s two ceramic pots with wet sand inside
the more heat you have in the room,
the colder it will be in the pot
so basically for an apartment,
you’re gonna have maybe 8-10 degrees.
It’s an alternative way to preserve fruits and vegetables.
It’s going super good.
We have the start of the bioponic system
and Valentin is working on the mechanical part
all the really heavy parts of the mechanical system
are already fixed.
and it’s only Monday!
unbelievable.
As everything is ramped up for the final exhibition,
everyone's in crunch phase,
there's a definite need for the community
to pull together -
really start getting everything taken care of
and working together.
I’m the intern here,
I'm learning how to use the drilling machine
and I have no idea how I’m doing!
he’s willing to learn,
he’s a good student!
So people will see your main profile board on this one
and your name up there -
and the bike will be here.
We're building a tower, basically.
Because the steel pole
which was meant to be holding the turbines
pretty much bent in half while we were trying to hoist the thing up.
So we're going a lot more robust,
which unfortunately means
doing it now, on the last night.
It's pretty late, now.
It's the second night
we're getting there.
We disassembled everything
and are reassembling the whole thing.
Every team has disassembled and reassembled their thing.
and what's your story?
why did we have to rebuild?
because...
I broke...
the door,
the wall, the back wall
where all the stuff was supposed to go
which was totally my fault
because I...
I drilled into glass...
and you can't drill into glass.
The best part is now we can choose the place
where we put our stuff
but it needs time,
and we don't have that much time!
We feel super tired.
But...
it's exciting, because we finished.
almost done.
The last three days..?
It was great!
getting something done
that was never expected to be done
But here we are, here it is, yay!
Yeah! We made it!
I also feel kind of proud
that we made it in such a short amount of time
it’s like - how do you say?
"made with a hot needle"
but I think it works.
2 minutes before the exhibiotn opening...
Welcome again, we're about to show you the exhibition
I’m excited that you’re here, that you're interested
and we can show you what we did
over the last weeks.
We already are 400 people this afternoon,
and 300 this morning
So many people came back and say
“it was super cool, I discovered lots of things.”
I really hope that the people who come here
and walk through the exhibition
really leave being curious about what happened here
and wanting to become part of this.
It's hard to predict
what exactly is going to come out of POC21
I know that the story has really gotten out there.
The media has been interested
and people outside have been interested.
This whole open source technology,
it can be a technical discussion
or people might not see its relationships with themselves.
I think it's been a way in for people to think about:
"How could we maybe develop products differently?
How can we collaborate differently?
Maybe it's not just companies.
Maybe it's more like movements, like networks"
I think this has been a great pathway in
for people to start thinking about these deeper issues.
to develop in open source
means to provide a base
so that it can grow more easily
you launch an idea
and people can adapt & replicate it
improve it and create new applications for it
For us, and I think for everybody that came here
the next stop is COP21
Then from there,
we will see if we really did communicate well,
if we did touch the public, and if we were taken seriously.
One of the things I mention in my own lectures
is the 'high road' and the 'low road'
The high road is: we convince the dominant system
to do some good things that reform itself
so that the transition will be smooth
if they don't do it...
the transition will be hard
but there will still be a transition
We look at history
It's not always easy
We see, at the end of the Roman Empire,
five centuries of chaos,
no cities, and no roads
if we do this today,
we will have billions of people dying
so I think is really
why POC21 is important
because it sends the message to the powers that says
"There's a solution here.
Help us.
If you don't help us,
it's going to be bad for everyone."
the wate will be filtered through the process
and go back clean to the fish tank
it is a closed circle
we use practically no water
the only water lost is through evaporation
here it should be understood
that this is about decentralization
for water, for energy,
for access to food
So right now, the SunZilla is powering
the outer circle of the exhibition
there are lights,
but there are also computers and monitors
and sometimes the velo m2 is charging their batteries
and there's a pump for the Showerloop.
So we're waiting for SolarOSE
to get off their butts
and make some hot water for me
that's all I've ever wanted!
a carbon neutral shower.
I always say that it's not for sale,
but we provide workshops so they can build it themselves.
Then we explain why,
because people have to build their own tools
and adapt it to their special needs
and then, they say
'yeah, you're right, go on, don't give up'.
POC21 was for me kind of a forced introspection,
that is very positive in a way,
I think it kind of liberated me
and made something more clear
than it was before I arrived
it was a very strong personal experience
And yeah, many links to maintain and nurture over the next few years.
I am hoping that this is going to strengthen me, and ...
I’m hoping I’ll be able to make this seed grow
and do something going back where I live
with people I’m around
Not necessarily reproduce it,
but take some from it and develop on it.
It was pretty exhausting
and very...
special
I never experienced something like this before.
For me it’s all about the community
meeting all these great people
having an understanding about how a community could work
practicing democracy,
practicing living together
For me... I want to free myself - and others
and here I got the courage to do it,
to really take the step and
do something
and not be afraid of not having so much money.
After a day like this,
you forget all the work
and the difficulties and the issues...
and I think,
there weren’t so many, in the end.
The last week was really exhausting,
I didn’t sleep so much,
but the last days
proved to me it was necessary
that it was really useful to do that,
to not sleep
The two days of exhibition,
I mean, it was perfect
we met so many nice people
and even if there was not words
just smiles and faces,
seeing our project and the other projects
People were like,
‘yes, another society is possible, this is possible’
'we’re happy to be here, we’re happy to see you’
and they said ‘thank you, thank you, thank you so much,’
and we were like
‘thanks for YOU to come and visit us!’
These two days,
I never felt like that before in my life.
I’m 25 years old,
I feel like I’m responsible for something,
I feel like I’m useful with my friends
and with the whole community of POC21
without being pretentious,
I think we can be proud of ourselves
and the last two days showed that
we are really, really, really happy.
Made with Free/Libre Open Source Software & built on Free Culture
is this for my Mom?
Hi Mom! how's it going?