Open Eco Design Collaboration
Hello friends at DemoTech,
We were informed recently of your work by a post at our forums:
groups.yahoo.com/group/solaroof
groups.yahoo.com/group/OpenEcoCollaboration
The post provided a link to your website and I have been exploring it with
great interest.
I am an inventor of solar construction methods for
building solar greenhouses, garden homes and ecoCommunities. Our methods
are new breakthroughs for low energy climate controlled structures with
modulated daylight and high night time insulation (removable liquid bubble
technology) for cold nights and shading for hot days.
These are liquid
solar processes that use soap solutions for the control of the properties
of the building envelope. The building envelope is transparent or
translucent and the radiation in and out is controlled as well as the
temperature and R-Value by using dynamic liquid technology that can
respond to the climate and environmental control conditions.
These are patented technologies that I have been working on for more than
twenty years and the original, broad patents have expired or are near the
end of their life. I was deeply concerned that our conventional business
appoach to bring technologies for sustainable living to the market is not
working and I therefore have adopted the opensource path to building
collaborative communities that make a sustainable future possible for all
of humanity.
I have worked towards simplification and the DIY approach so
that the methods will be accessible, affordable and adaptable to all kinds
of situations.
I am now focused on building an opensource community around these solaroof
methods and we have active forums that are working on the technology and
also the broader social transformation that is needed. I would like to
link up and join with you in your effort to bring about this collaboration
that can provide solutions more quickly and hopefully on time to save us
from the crisis that are not to distant - the "overshoot & die-off"
disaster that is forcaste if present trends continue.
I am therefore very pleased to associate with your program of
collaboration and I would like to find ways to connect and merge our
activities. I include some thoughts on the challenges of collaboration
below. There are also some useful links in the text:
OPEN INVITATION TO SUPPORT THE SOLAROOFGARDEN WEB COMMUNITY
The solaroofgarden community is sponsoring a GrassRoots initiative for the
collaboration and sharing of know-how for DIY (DoItYourself) projects that
individuals and families can undertake to build sustainable homes and
communities. Under the GrassRoots Initiative our Sponsors and Partners are
contributing to the implementation of solaroofgarden projects by the
members of our www community who are most in need and have the least
means.
Our Members are encouraged to form Teams to implement these
projects at the local level.
HERE IS OUR GOAL:
I wish the Team Members to be able to collaborate and communicate with the
general Membership through intranet services that permit the individuals
to publish their project plan at a Team Website, which is then accessible
to other Members who can give advise, feedback and financial support. The
Teams are to work as North/South collaborations with Advisors selected to
join the Team by polling the members of the Team.
These interactions are
essential to the vision for wide spread projects and for the provision of
the necessary Global support and encouragement to the Local Team Members
as they implement the GrassRoots Project.
WHAT WE WILL ACHIEVE WITH YOUR SUPPORT
Many of the solaroofgarden Members in the developing world may not be able
to afford the cost of ISP services, such as an email account and access to
an intranet where they can author and publish WebPages that will permit
the collaboration as envisioned above. Therefore the kind of services that
described below would be ideal for our solaroofgarden community to grow in
all parts of the world and reach those in the developing world without
concern about how the costs will be covered. Not wanting to make a
distinction between Members I would like to be able to offer the same
access to these services to all Members of the solaroofgarden community.
What I will propose is that those who can afford a payment for these
services will make a voluntary contribution to cover the costs of these
services and surplus of these funds, if any, would flow through to the
GrassRoots initiative to financially assist the Team Projects that are
underway or in a planning stage.
The intranet services would be available to all the Members of the
solaroofgarden community and would be accessed through portal pages on the
solaroofgarden website where visitors may sign up to become members and
then register for these intranet services and join Teams.
Individuals will
be able to find fellow collaborators and advisors and Teams will poll
their existing members to accept new team members and advisory members.
Having established a working group the Teams would then begin the planning
and implementation of their projects.
Visitors and other Members of the solaroofgarden community will be able to
rate the GrassRoots projects, offer advice and comments and provide direct
financial support to the project. A project budget and a target for
financial support will be established as part of the published project
plan. Direct financial contributions (by any visitors) and votes by
Members will create a non-administrative and strictly merit based
evaluation of the existing projects by the entire Membership and the
public at large. All projects will then receive an allocation prorate from
any indirect contributions (from our commercial Sponsors and Partners, for
example) and from any surplus general revenues. After costs have been
covered all contributions will flow through to the GrassRoots Projects
covering each project up to the stated goal amount.
The method for the
handling of funds would be decentralized and made transparent as a
published data base; possibly using a mechanism similar to the payments
system of PayPal.com.
I am, as a member of oneworld.com seeking
collaboration from your organization that could assist the implementation
of this vision.
With your support these components would be incorporated into the
Solaroofgarden member services:
An Intranet including these features:
A personal e-mail system
Facilities for document management (creation, editing, storage and
commenting) known as ?conferences?
Facilities for private & public chat
Facilities for establishing and posting documents onto a web-page (for
Team Leaders)
SOLAROOFGARDEN ? A COMMUNITY DEDICATED TO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
I would be very pleased if I could work with you to implement my vision of
the solaroofgarden community as a DIY portal for sustainable development
technology. All the know-how presented on our site will be provided on an
?opensource? basis which means that there are no proprietary restrictions
and no payments are required for the use of this technology ( see
www.itrainonline.org/itrainonline/english/opensource.shtml and www.opensource.org).
Furthermore the
technology and information is available to all members for their personal
non-commercial use without any cost (but also without any warrantee as
being fit for any particular use) and can be modified and reproduced
without restriction.
Our community is business friendly; any individual or
group can make commercial use of the know-how and those who can afford are
requested to make a voluntary payment of 3% to 10% of their revenue from
the use of the know-how, according to the value received and their desire
to support the GrassRoots Projects.
Many small professional and
construction services business may be established ? all with access to the
same growing body of know-how. All funds (called Honor Payments) that flow
from commercial Partners, who are Materials, Components and Product
manufacturers and Service companies, firms and consultants will go (as
described above) to the support of the current GrassRoots Projects.
Businesses will be linked to the community website and our Members will
relate to them not as ?consumers? but as a powerful and empowering
collective purchasing group that can set specifications and standards and
obtain commodity prices.
Individuals are asked to a voluntary contribution of money for their
personal use of solaroofgarden concepts in their homes or communities, and
the individuals and families in the developed nations (the North) are
encouraged to assess the value received and in exchange offer a
contribution to the GrassRoots initiative (Families helping Families).
When these GrassRoots Projects have had a beneficial result and have
helped families and communities in the South to rise out of poverty these
people who have been helped are encouraged to extent their support and
financial assistance to others who have need to build a project. This
?pay-it-forward? policy is similar to that of Habitat for Humanity and can
involve the contribution of direct labor by those who have previous
experience to offer in the construction and implementation of
solaroofgarden projects.
THE BENEFITS AND EXPECTED RESULTS
Solaroofgarden projects are appropriate for both the North and South and
will help to bridge the development gap by enabling the North to consume
less non-renewable resources and to use natural, renewable resources more
efficiently. In every home or community our methods will create food &
water supply security and safety and contribute to energy self-sufficiency
that create the LOCAL conditions that contribute to GLOBAL security and
peace.
The GrassRoots Initiative will engender Leadership and Participation by
individuals, families and communities. It encourages the formation of
Teams that will bring North and South together (through the internet and
intranet) in a GLOBAL collaboration that brings wide spread human
resources to focus on the practical support the LOCAL implementation of
projects.
The publication of project plans and results will assist the
diffusion and adoption of best practices for sustainable development. The
solaroofgarden policy of ?opensource? publication of know-how will inspire
worldwide collaboration and has the potential to arrive at fundamental
solutions to hunger and could mobilize the creativity to win the war on
poverty. Sharing our experience with sustainable living and livelihood
will help to pull everyone up the learning curve and many mistakes and
loss of time and effort will be achieved.
I believe that solaroofgarden can enrich the lives of thousands, perhaps
millions of people and I look forward to your feedback.
Regards,
Rick Nelson
rick@solaroofgarden.com
www.solaroofgarden.com
Together we can BUILD a sustainable future
by Richard Nelson - Sat Dec 06 (2003)
Re: Open Eco Design Collaboration - missing links
In my message there were some links that were lost in this text:
