What do we want?

Concerned by the disastrous eco-social situation on our planet, the helpless attempts of international politics to face climate-change and the ignorance of the old economy, we think it’s time to add a new player to the game: the collective intelligence and coordinated hands-on action of thousands of passionate groups worldwide. Most solutions already exist and need to be scaled up. (Only) together, we have the knowledge, technology, power and trust to make a difference and eventually reach a critical mass for change.

Apart from working on real-life open-source solutions, „Open-Island“ has always attracted likeminded makers, that formed the „makers4humanity“ collective in 2015. Within this interdisciplinar community, we portray, promote and network the emerging open-source community at maker-labs, conferences, platforms.
> m4h-coworking platform (German)
Our modular floating platforms represent this process and serve as a symbol for the needed transformation of our economies, values and systems. Let’s create a new world together. A sharing and caring community in harmony with nature. (And it´s great fun to build and float artificial islands, rafts and multipurpose platforms together 🙂

How we organize and prototype innovations with the makers for humanity.
m4h-logo
https://www.m4h.network/

Specific Open-Island missions:

 

Food security through floating farms and aquaculture
The nutritious inland waters can be used to massively produce healthy food and create farming jobs in almost every global region and climate.
The makers4humanity develop and share manuals and knowledge for appropriate floating platforms and effective production techniques.
> Current project: Flow-Garden, Hannover/Germany

Water purification through floating biofilters
Plants root through the floating islands and improve eutrophic water. Specific plants even „eat“ anorganic substances up to heavy metals. Let´s crowdsource the existing open-knowledge and spread it with easy manuals, best practise contacts and a social entrepreneurship business plan.
> Current project: Lake-of-Change, Bangalore/India

Safe shelters for flood prevention and disaster logistic tools
Floating platforms made of upcycled waste materials can be a realistic low-tech solution for many endangered areas throughout the planet.
> Current project: Open-Island prototype and open-source manual. (Please get in touch with us, if you want to adapt or apply the Open-Island system for such scenarios.)

Cultural and community-building projects offline/online
Every Open-Island is a great symbol for transformational change and attracts great passionate and hands-on people from the very beginning on. At our maker-camps, people of all walks of life and interdisciplinar organizations meet, co-create and become trustful friends on a joint mission. Just the best way to connect and further co-work for common goals.
> Current project: Every single one.

Education and trainings for sustainable development and mindsets
Open-Islands are perfect for hands-on learnings and personal growth and knowledge! As a floating classroom, they serve for a variety of different methods and modules. Beneath schools and unversities, they are also used for communal as well as corporate innovation processes and teambuilding trainings.
Current project: Flow-Garden, Hannover/Germany
Open-Island Research Center, Nieklitz/Germany