Proof Of Concept: 100 Geeks, 5 Weeks, 1 Future

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?