After introduction, the notion of participatory democracy, notably thanks to the power of social media and online petitions, a new way of financing has blossomed. Individuals are gradually discovering that they can act by themselves for causes that are dear to them, to bring to the world the change they want to see.

Collaborative economics

Crowdfunding allows, through the financial participation of individuals who recognize themselves in a project or who want to support one, to participate in the development of a project that may not have been able to see by traditional financing. Beyond former borders, innovative projects have been created, that stand for innovation and change. Projects that wouldn’t be supported by the normal financial system, are now nourished. Crowdfunding is therefore part of the collaborative economy, since it relies on trust

The buzz is going around that crowdfunding creates new possibilities. But what is the success rate and what makes people participate? First of all there are a lot of different sorts of crowdfunding.

Crowdlending: an innovative way of financing personal projects

For a long time, banks were the only ones able to present an offer of financing. Now individuals can obtain peer to peer lending, whether for a cash need, a desire to travel, for a renovation of a house or a big operation that you are unable to finance yourself.

Small business and crowdfunding

Crowdfunding makes a real difference for small business. It also allows companies to federate around them a community of customers, collaborators and suppliers. Especially because small business should present their business model, product or service to the crowd of individuals to convince them to finance them, crowdfunding makes it possible to carry out a prototype of a new product.

Investors can either receive product or services from the business or they can invest in the business’ capital and receive interests in return. Unlike classical ways of financing, crowdfunding allows investors to choose themselves where their money goes. There is a direct connection between the investor and the entrepreneur. They share an goal. Success of the company.

Crowdfunding plays here the game of proximity through savings that are not only responsible and solidarity, but also transparent and close to investors.

How NGOs find a new way of fundraising 

It now seems quite inevitable for NGOs to take a closer look at these new fundraising techniques if they want to sustain their budgets. First, because the financing through governments’ helps is less and less substantial. Secondly, because the growth of crowdfunding is increasingly orienting the public towards digital financing of projects, humanitarian or otherwise, which will undoubtedly divert it from the traditional physical collections for which it is solicited by the historical NGOs.

Crowdfunding allows the shortening of the circuit between the financer and the project, which reinforces the feeling of transparency and traceability. Indeed, it responds to the emergence of a concept of proximity in which citizens wish to give more meaning to their financial contributions by following their own sensitivities and limiting intermediaries.

To guarantee its independence, Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), launched in November 2016 a crowdfunding platform, with the aim of collecting 1 million euros in 60 days. Intended for the youngest, between 18 and 35 years old, it invited them to pledge on the platform independance.msf.fr and it offered a range of rewards for all amounts, including a guitar signed by the Muse group.

A platform for each project

Thus, the only term of crowdfunding encompasses many realities. Different platforms have different functions, and even different philosophies. While all have in common to create a relationship between a project and investors, some are more focused on NGOs and individuals, while others represent a lever for future business.

I myself pledged Boyan Slat to support him in his vision to clean this world from the plastic waste that we are surrounding us with. Please share your thoughts on crowdfunding so we can learn from it. I didn’t do it for the pledge. It gave me a feeling of participating in a solution of a better future.

As the banks are giving almost no interest on money on the bank it stimulates me to look for alternative forms of investment. From personal to solar and sustainable project. The future will tell, where I will invest my money in.

Now that it is all possible, leaves us with the question does it reach the bigger audiences. My question to you, did you ever pledge a crowdfunding campaign? Why did you? Because of the cause, the product, the pledges or to support a personal goal. Why did you get involved, please share your experiences so we can learn from it.

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At DUTCH PICTURE INDUSTRY, we are aware that if people work together on a common project, they can collectively make things happen and change the world.

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The Mirror room is making you aware of all the data you produce. Who owns all this data, and are we able to reclaim them? The Mirror room is part of the FabCity in Amsterdam, a temporary sustainable urban area, where young creative’s present their solutions for current urban issues.

The panel says: ‘’Examine and experience the pros and cons of our data-based life, and the effects on your privacy, social interaction, health and security.’’ This innovative Mirror installation offers you a whole new experience on what it feels like to become data.

When you enter, you type in your name; then you have to stand in the middle of the room. You are surrounded by mirrors and I felt strange not knowing what would happen next. An electronic voice welcomed me by my name and then begins by giving my physical details: my age, my weight, my height, and my heart pulsations, my BMI while some images are projected on the mirrors…

The next step is kind of surprising, hearing an AI talking to me reminds me of the movie “Her”: where people start building relationships with Artificial Intelligence. I had the feeling of entering the future. Still standing, alone in the middle of the room, a succession of simulations and animations, are scrolling around you. Immerse you in a strange atmosphere, one that I never experienced before. At this point, I still didn’t know what’s the purpose of all of this until the electronic voice came back to me and give me my “data profile”. Before leaving the room, the voice asked me if I agreed to make my data public or not… I had to answer by looking at the YES or at the NO.

The computers in the room registered all my emotions during all the experience and transformed them into data. It analyzed my physical data, tested my fear, my preferences… and established a profile that was handed out in print while exiting the room. So, who do you see when you look into the mirror? There is a difference between what you perceive and what you are. The experience makes you realize that WE ARE DATA : there is your reflection, who you think you are but it makes you realize you are also an infinite composition of data.

Well, the program is still experimental and not totally accurate but the purpose of what is called an “art experience“ by its creators is to make us realize how collecting selling and using data, even if we’re not aware of it, can have a profound impact on our personal and professional life.

Indeed, while more and more applications are capable to analyze our physical condition and emotions, imagine the infinite possibilities that could give. All depend on who has access to our data and what are our rights on them? Governments, companies could have some advantages to use our data…

Brands could also use our emotional data on a marketing purpose… Reading our emotions is becoming the next challenge for brands as emotions represent a huge factor in the decision-making process… And thanks to data collection they would be able to build algorithms to predict customers preferences and likelihood of purchasing from their emotions.

It’s already happening, recently Belgium police advised not use Facebook’s new reactions buttons as they consider it as a new way for Facebook to use your profile on a marketing purpose. With more information about your mood, reactions, emotions, it’s easier for advertisers to reach you at the right moment and at the right emplacement. By creating algorithms that could make calculations on your mood, considering your reaction to a post. However, the technology could be use in a positive sense too. As applications could analyze in an early stage a disease and suggest a cure. It could determine easily your skin or heart conditions…

The most important is that we keep the right to control our own data and to be aware of who and when they are used. Privacy regulations are becoming more and more essential and urgent in this world where all are data have the possibility to become public.

‘People should realize how collecting, selling and using data even if they don’t know this is happening, can have a profound impact on their personal and professional life.’

http://europebypeople.nl/we-are-data

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What do I know about banking? Not so much, I hope the bank keeps my money safe but don’t try to understand what is behind this complex system. However, is it okay to know so little about what are banks doing with our money? As an individual always looking for ways to make this place on earth more pleasant and better, I believe that we SHOULD be aware and interested of what our banks are doing.

What if the bank invests in the nuclear arms industry industries or very polluting industries, as many of them do?A recent Belgium’s study revealed that our money placement, were at the top of our carbon footprint with 100 tons of CO2 per year. That is so much more than our consumption and production footprint so we should care about the banks investments. We can make a choice by choosing a bank that doesn’t do this kind of investment. Big improvements have been made in this direction, particularly by the DIVEST movement; an international movement which only goal is to put away investment from polluting and fossil energy corporations through petitions and campaigns. I believe that these kind of initiatives are necessary to build a better world. Finally, changing our behaviors, sharing our beliefs and international movements of this type have all the same common purpose to influence the settled globalized system runs by big corporations.

Luckily some “ethical banks” are emerging; these banks are working according to the same model as the usual ones but with a different guideline: transparency and trustful policies. Their first objective is not to make profit and enrich the elite but invest and support actions and companies with social and environmental purposes; letting their customers aware of the bank’s activities. Then, choosing a more responsible bank can be a way to show that we don´t agree with the current system and would like to make it change. They are more and more present and popular in Europe.

But still they are part of the financial sector and work on the same model. I would like to explore if we can do without them? So what are our possibilities?

Alternatives to the current banking system exist; new currencies are emerging with communitarian monetary systems. A good example is the district of Brixton in London which has its own “Brixton pound” with its own printed bills and coins. I see these initiatives as a clever way to break the globalized consensus settled in the world today coming with a lot of advantages but some undesirable effects too. It reconciles communities, reduces the production circuit and proves that pull ourselves away from the usual national and international bank system is possible.  On top of that, they personalized their money appearance and its 10 pounds bill has the face of David Bowie printed on it; which is much more fun than the Queen! Those solutions are more sustainable as the economy doesn’t only profit to the elite but encourage local economy and small businesses, while limiting environmental impact.

But what to do with your savings? Today, interest rates are so low and economy so fragile that it´s difficult to trust banks for our savings. Savings that we want to make for our children to have an education or to save for a nice holiday. Some people would just take out their money from the bank and hide it under their mattress. But actually, our possibilities are wider today. Crowdfunding platforms and projects like ‘kickstarter’ and ‘kiss kiss bank bank’ for example are a good way to place your money in projects that you believe in. However, you will not be able to send your children to university through crowdfunding invests. So, if you keep looking, there are still other solutions to  make profit from your invests… Going in this direction, new crowdfunding platforms like www.oneplanetcrowd.com allows you to invest in some startups and businesses’ projects with the possibility to get good percentage from it in return. Or, invest directly in renewable energy for example seems like a responsible option too to make profit if you’re concerned about the environment and sustainable solutions to fossil fuels and want to slow the bank industry’s power.

So, making businesses, profit, investments, savings without banks is possible; collectivity and sharing have a lot of promises.

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To show you how times have changed and at the same time unravelled the mist of so-called prosperity I take you to my childhood. In my street where I grew up, in Amsterdam in the nineties there was a bakery, a milkman with fresh cheese. A tobacco shop, a grocery store with great fruit and vegetables, and a store that we called ‘’Jantje van alles’’. All these shops had everything that a normal household needed. And these products were packaged for you in paper bags.

With the coming of the supermarkets, these shops disappeared and the immersive introduction of plastic became a reality. And without exaggerating plastic waste became one of the most critical environmental issues in the world. The “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” is described as a 7^th continent  and is a product of our way of living. It is made out of plastic and has direct impact on our ecosystem, livelihood and food chain.

Plastic is still an easy and cheap material to produce for industries and with the coming of 3D printers’, plastic has a bright new future. Knowing that only 10% of plastic is recycled, it’s time to raise the alarm and change our way of production and consumption.

A few years ago I was not so much aware of the impact of these changes. The realisation of fact that all you buy is packaged in plastic. Makes you aware of your role as consumer. With the effect that I can’t do any shopping without having guilty feelings.

Luckily more and more people has the same guilty feelings and are trying to have a more responsible behaviour and reduce considerably their wastes. This is just about new habits to adopt and more reflection when you are doing your groceries or throwing your garbage away.

It started with bringing your own bag to the store, and re-used the ones you had. Separate the plastic waste, from the rest of the garbage. But that is not enough. A new mentality is needed, to avoid plastic packaging. By using paper bags and bringing your own sacks again. And even then you can’t avoid paradoxical situations: “should I choose the organic cucumber in plastic packaging” or “the non-organic one without packaging”. When you want to have a responsible behaviour, this kind of decisions matters: you have to choose between supporting this “plastic mania” or eating these pesticides poisoning our lands.

Some still see a positive side to plastics as an opportunity for sustainable development. It is actually a cheap material that we can reuse and reuse again through recycling. Some entrepreneur and communities are inspired to change from a linear to a circular relationship with plastic. This is always motivating to see people thinking out of the box and looking for alternatives solutions for the good of our planet.

An inspiring story is that of Wilco and Edwin from Clean 2 Antarctica, they are convinced we can have a zero waste community. And to prove that they will go on expedition to the South Pole in a vehicle entirely built from recycled plastics and powered by solar energy. This is a way to demonstrate that “Zero Waste” and “Zero emissions” are possible… Imagine the relief of clean air and clean oceans! It is not only their opinion but also that of the younger generation. That is why children in this project to collect plastic waste and shape them through 3D printing in a message to the world. This project is a message of hope showing the promises of plastic recycling and clean technology to live in a cleaner planet. It is just one of many great projects only here in the Netherlands. Possibilities are infinite with recycling and reusing. Each time that you are closing your garbage you can make sure that nothing belong to the recycle bin and ask yourself in which way you could reuse these wastes. You will awake your creative spirit and reduce your environmental impact. Give to your wastes a happy ending, a second life, much more brighter than ending in one bird’s stomach.

And although older generations and mine will have to a make a major change in their behaviour, the hopeful finding is that when I can’t separate my garbage I feel awkward. As doing something really wrong. That is in my point of view the confirmation that humans a custom animals. And with a little effort we can change the beautiful world around us.

More info on great plastic projects in the Netherlands:

WASTED Laboratory: a neighborhood Laboratory for Plastic Waste Upcycling in Amsterdam Noord

PLASTIC: Promises of a Home-made Future; explores the relation between plastic and the 3D printing market

Precious Plastic: built machines able to build new objects thanks to recycled plastic

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As we know that fossil fuel’s era comes to its end, a whole new bright future is building up. A world where we hope that coal burning stoves and nuclear plants will soon be nothing more than a memory. A world where those smokestacks on our roofs, will not embody our emissions anymore; but just an architectural souvenir of these time. We can already perceive this change, through latest batteries’ evolutions. Tesla’s innovations such as power up cars and houses (Powerwall battery) reduce our direct emissions to zero by cutting exhaust pipes and equipped our roofs with solar panels. Clean fuels are on their way to build the future of our electric network! And this shift stands on the ability to store energy; in short, on batteries!

Besides, as adventurous movie producers, the battery question is omnipresent especially in some conditions where plugging in batteries as we do home is not an option. Imagine how crucial this question can be, while recording some footage in the middle of Himalaya. All our equipment (lights, cameras…) requires batteries. That’s why we have to think of the best way to manage it, as keeping our impact to the environment at a minimum. We own solar panel chargers for example so that there is no need to carry a bunch of batteries. In this energetic transition era, in which energy storage is at its core; more and more solutions appear to us; such as Activeon Solar X, this new solar-powered action camera taking 70% of its charge from the sun in just 30 minutes.

By the way, you should take a look at our whole new Kickstarter campaign on www.climbeverestvr.com  that will take you to the summit of Mount Everest through a virtual reality experience. This experience will immerge you into this expedition; experiencing beautiful landscapes, extreme weather conditions…You have the opportunity to share this experience with real adventurers and all you have to do is to recharge the battery of your smartphone or virtual reality gear and sit comfortably!

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