Communities Starter Kit

Greentropia is a non-for-profit organization that produce open-source hardware, software, data and documentation enabling everyone to build the best solutions to a sustainable lifestyle.

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The Problem:

Undoubtedly, the internet is the major social equalizer to this day. It reaches 3.3 billion people giving them access to free online education and therefore better opportunities.

Nevertheless, is a terrible disadvantage for the other 60% of the population without connection yet, and indirectly to everyone else. No education leads to poverty, one of the major contributors to environmental degradation.

The Opportunity:

Thanks to current projects from giants of technology like Google and Facebook, the possibility to have quality internet everywhere by the next decade is more real than ever.

This opens a huge opportunity to use the internet for the benefit of the whole humanity.

The Solution:

Greentropia wants to be in the front line of this transition by providing a complete starter kit to enable impoverished people to achieve a better quality of living. 

Our non-for profit organization looks to develop step-by-step instructions, media, diagrams and all the necessary resources to guide low-income households without education to build resilient neighborhoods for the future.

Our Methodology:

For the initial phase, we want to design, build and upload 13 proposed projects that are enough to achieve a complete circular economy. Divided in cycle loops that enable self-sufficiency with food, water, energy and re-use waste. 

The prototype of these solutions will become the validation of our business proposal after being tested in selected urban and rural areas around the world.

Our Call for Solve:

We have recently been awarded with funding from Climate KIC to carry on with this project. Clearly money is essential, but not unique. Our call is for your expertise. Your network and experience to take this project to a truly scalable status. The very essence of this organization.

Greentropia focuses on the increasing do-it-yourself market online.

Unfortunately, quality resources are rare. Most of these projects are hardly complete. Moreover, they do not tend to express with easiness to captivate enthusistasts individuals without previous experience.

Greentropia wants to offer proper content in its website for individuals with a determination to improve their economic and social situation.

Our proposal can only be carried out by a knowledgeable team. One of our biggest assets due to the expertise that each member has on related topics like environmental management, engineering and architecture.

Nevertheless, the theory of change in our organization is more driven by the methodology that we developed to design, build and document each solution.

Our organization does not pursues to disrupt any markets, rather it looks to boost local economies around the world.

By providing solutions to low-income households with access to the internet we pursue to create surplus of resources.

To deploy our tools, we will partner with institutions, universities and local governments that will value our solutions and therefore help us develop the integrated systems in every selected region of the world.

Upload in our platform by the end of 2017. - Develop the 13 selected solutions for each circular economy loop (water, waste, food, energy)

75 active experts signed in our platform by the end of March 2018. - Increment our network of advisors.

Data Base that tracks each community/solution profile for future references by the end of 2019. - Full documentation of an off-grid prototype and 13 urban solutions in each selected region (South America, Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa).

Greentropia wants to be in the front line of educational support when the internet reaches the disconnected 60% of the world population.

To do so, we aim for three strong comparative advantages with our competence:

Complete documentation: We provide all the essential resources with easy-to-follow instructions, videos and diagrams that enable inexperienced users to succeed.

Selection process: with the criteria used to choose our content, we strive for affordability, low-tech use, efficiency and reduced carbon footprint in every project.

Open source: our designs are open for collaboration to increment efficiency and reduce costs. 

Studies show that the most resilient and safe neighborhoods are those that overcome difficulties by their own (McKnight, Kretzmann). Therefore, is essential to provide resources to undeserved rural and urban communities without disrupting their own work methodology through external "professional help".

Greentropia strives for involving the communities in 99% of the process to overcome their situation. They will be their own instruments of change and our organization the pioneers that will offer them the resources.

Becoming a non-for-profit organization is our biggest step towards accessibility. We look to be pioneers in the DIY movement. Without costs and open source, these solutions have the potential to reach anybody with an internet connection.

Further on, our solutions are thought to build with scarcity and from waste-to resource in mind. Therefore, communities can solve their problems while fixing those from society.

This organization envisions its potential to change the lives of thousands around the world. Reason enough to make Greentropia a non-for-profit organization.

Instead, to generate capital, we will appeal to the impact of our solutions through two channels:

Crowdfunding: IndieGogo and Gofundme are ideal platforms to promote Greentopia. Our research showed more than two dozen communities succeeding in their goals from 5 to 20 thousand euros. We believe that Greentopia's campaign has a bigger potential for being open source.

Partnership: Local governments, institutions and universities are looking for smart solutions to improve the life of people they represent. The most recent focus goes to green startups. Greentropia has already benefited with a recent grant from Climate KIC Europe to develop its first prototype. We envision the benefit of these exchanges to achieve our goals.

We have also considered our disadvantages in path to strength them along the way.

First, we realized the difficulty of developing a content-based platform regarding DIY solutions. Possibly the reason why our proposal can not be found on the Internet. However, we see our potential to overcome this disadvantage due to our open source approach and the expertise of our team.

Second, is the decision to become a non-for-profit organization. It clearly complicates our chances to be noticed. 

https://solve.mit.edu/

https://solve.mit.edu/

https://solve.mit.edu/

We realized the importance of being part of "accelerators" like Solve that provide a quality pipeline of new stakeholders.

There are the main topics we like to take advantage of when applying in solve;

1) The chance to meet people in the tech industry, both from successful startups and in larger tech businesses.

2) Introductions to investors and time face-to-face with them, which can be hard to get for first-time founders. 

3) Validation. Look for innovative ideas to validate our business model.

Climate Kic provide us with financial support, coaching, mentorship and networking for the 2017 batch.

Other DIY platforms like Instructables and Make Magazine.