Sustainable Dance Club, the award wining sustainable business idea from Enviu, has released a video envisioning an extra-large Sustainable Dance Floor.
“One of Sustainable Dance Club’s goals for the future is having the floor featured in a big international event. Could there be a better way to open the Olympics or World Cup with the energy of dancing people? That’s why we asked our friends from Waanzee to make an animation of this idea. A new movie shows the Sustainable Dance Floor in stadium size! This movie visualises how the energy of one dancer is shared with a large group of dancers and how this sharing of energy can lead to a fantastic energetic climax.”
Enviu - Innovators in Sustainability es una organización especializada en la generación de soluciones de negocio sostenibles. A éstas soluciones las llamamos Wow! Ideas, y entre otras se encuentran: …
During lasts months I’ve been working closely with Martin Charter (CfSD) on the development of the international conference Sustainable Innovation 2010, which this year will be held in Rotterdam (NL) and will focus on green growth, eco-innovation, entrepreneurship, and jobs.
On September 30th, I attended the Mobile Africa conference in Helsinki representing Enviu. The event was organized by the Mobile Brain Bank and it is the “Europe’s largest happening on mobile opportunities in Africa”. As Enviu is currently busy with the Our Mobile Generation project (OMG), they thought that we had to be there and get the insights from those working in this industry. It was a great event where I met lots of interesting people.
The conference gathered almost 300 people from some 24 countries, including start-ups, corporations, policy makers, supranational organizations like the World Bank, students, NGOs.
After the opening keynote of His Excellency, LMS Mngqiaka, Ambassador of the Republic of South Africa in Finland, four speaker brought their experiences to the stage, including; Esko Aho (Executive Vice President, Corporate Relations and Responsibility, Nokia), Hossein Moiin (CTO Nokia Siemens Networks), Marlon Parker (Social Entrepreneur, founder of JamiiX), Jessica Colaco (TED fellow, iHub manager, Kenya).
We learned a lot and took many notes during the event. A report with conference notes is available for download. Here we offer you a curated selection of those:
Key factors that have ensured such high levels of mobile penetration worldwide include: low cost of ownership, wide infrastructure, and market liberalization;
Growth potential of mobile industry in Africa is higher than anywhere else;
A unique aspect of the mobile industry is that it empowers users and “does good” (connectivity means productivity) while making business sense;
Key drivers for a digital society require the balance of government and business agendas;
Democratized innovation means that non-western models also apply;
Areas of consideration for mobile innovation in Africa are: community, relevance, economic, entertainment, education, livelihood, services, health, and maps;
Mobile content for the African communities is much needed; this means local content;
It is a game between operator, OEM, and platform developer. It is a very diverse industry, which makes things quite complex. There is a need for the players to work for the ecosystem, not for themselves.
I would like to thank to Petra Söderling and the Mobile Brain Bank network for the support provided; the entire team did a great work and managed to bring a really interesting group of people together.
To celebrate the launch of their first all electric car, Skoda has decided to cover up their stand at the Paris Motor Show with tiles that generate energy when people walk and dance over them. Of course, I’m talking about the Sustainable Dance Floor by Enviu’s start-up Sustainable Dance Club.
It cannot confirm yet is if the tiles shown in Paris are the latest version of the Sustainable Dance Floor. I’m aware that the company is ready to launch the second edition of the floor which is slimmer, generates more output (currently, 10W per tile), and has lower production and market costs. All in all, the new version of the Sustainable Dance Floor is designed for mass production.
Enviu is launching Enviu Participations B.V.; a platform for impact investments. By impact investment it is meant investing in a company which business has a high social and/or environmental impact and is still aiming on making good money.
Enviu Participations B.V. is the holding company of start-ups developed by Enviu Foundation. Currently, Enviu Participations B.V. has stakes in:
Enviu Participations B.V. intends to - additionally - acquire nine new start-ups with a high social and/or environmental impact in the period from 2011 to 2014 from Enviu Foundation. Interested to do some impact investment? Read how you can do it here.
Last week I participated at the DMY Berlin Festival. There Enviu and SEOS Design partnered to provide a workshop on User-Centered Sustainable Design.
In fact, we are co-developing a set of ideation cards for user-centered sustainable design. The tool is still in beta, but soon we will make it available online. We will keep you posted.
A lot has been said and written about the wisdom of the crowds. For some it represents a new way to develop innovative solutions, for others it is only a buzzword. For Enviu, it is a way of working and a mindset. Since 2004, Enviu involves young entrepreneurial people, senior executives, corporate partners and universities to co-create innovative businesses solutions for sustainability issues. Examples include the Sustainable Dance Club, Three Wheels United, Yunno Foods, Open-Source House, or Our Mobile Generation.
Enviu has used a learning by doing approach to co-creation. It’s experiences are now shared on a booklet named Co-Creation for Positive Impact. The booklet is available to download as PDF, or as printed version. Enviu wants to co-create this guide with you, so they made the guide available on a wiki that will be the basis of upcoming editions of the guide.
