MEMBER OF THE WEEK: REDON SKIKULI

 Redon Skikuli is a citizen of Berlin and a member of...

MEMBER OF THE WEEK: RÉGIS LEMBERTHE

 Régis Lemberthe is an industrial and humanitarian designer,  co-founder of A&Re...

GO BACK TO SCHOOL!

betapitch, Startup of the Week

SOLARBRUSH

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Solarbrush not only won the last betapitch but also is part of the hub:raum Accelerator Program.

Alessandro did an interview with Ridha, the founder of Solarbrush.

What is Solarbrush all about?

Weathering can negatively affect solar power plants; in particular, panels installed in dry areas can lose efficiency due to sand deposits on them. Solarbrush is the first company to realize this need to clean solar power plants, and create the first wireless robot that is able to clean panels, even in high slopes (up to 45 degrees). This robot is important in arid regions like Africa and the Middle East, where there are massive solar generators that needs this kind of technology. (more…)

Blog, Member of the Week

BOND’S BUNTE WELT – MAGAZINE

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“Bond´s bunte Welt” is a fascinating new magazine published by our member Marcus Bond. There are only 200 pieces on sales. Get your issue in betahauscafé for only 6,- Euro!

Alessandro our intern did an interview with Marcus Bond:

Please provide a short description of the Magazine

“Bond´s bunte Welt” is a mixture of GEO, brand eins and agora42 – but still different (no advertising for example). You can read about the fascinating life of the eel and why we should be cautious with our attitude towards China. It tells you how our brain works when we meet new people and why we mitfiebern when watching films. You even can find out why women are feeling cold so fast and why English girls and men walk around in T-Shirts in winter. There is a funny column about talkshows, a description of a day-trip to Tschernobyl, tons of arty pictures and more. I got great authors to contribute like the “Professor des Jahres 2011”, a China-Expert, the “brain” from IBM and many more. You can have a look online: bond-pr.de/bonds-bunte-welt

Why did you decide to write about these topics?

My goal was to create a magazine that makes sense. There is a great german word: Bereicherung. Each story should be a Bereicherung for the reader. The topics follow this goal. You can get a lot of insight from the magazine and still feel entertained (I hope). Other magazines only focus on nature or art or music or politics or Berlin. I had the Qual der Wahl to choose Content without any restriction.

Where are you planning to sell the magazine?

The Magazine is not intended to be for sale. I put it up as a present for my network (friends, customers, journalists, …) but hat to produce 200 pieces more than I needed. And those are for sale here in betahaus and in some cafes / shops that I like in Kreuzberg. You can get your issue in the betahaus-Café for only 6 Euro. A great present for birthdays, x-mas, … something special!

What do you do when not writing a Magazine?

I run BOND PR-Agenten, a PR agency working for agencies like Aperto and software companies like Sitecore. I also DJ, if you like electro/swing/techno, check out this: soundcloud.com/bond-030

What is your experience in the coworking environment and betahaus?

betahaus is great, much better than working constantly from home or in cafes. If you need help, just ask around. A few months ago I needed someone to translate a press release from Japanese to German and I found Nadja. She translates Mangas here I betahaus. Next day the job was done. She also did the proofreading for Bond´s bunte Welt.

What are your future goals?

A trip to Sri Lanka in February ;-)

Thank you very much for the interview!

Startup of the Week

EISENHOWER

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What is Eisenhower and how did you come up with the idea?

Eisenhower is a task management solution based on the proven Eisenhower matrix, a time management principle by former US president Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The Eisenhower matrix helps you to prioritize both your business and personal tasks by urgency and importance, sorting out less urgent and important tasks which you should rather delegate or do not do at all. So in a way, this system helps people to figure out what they should be doing first, later and rather not themselves or ever at all.

We currently provide you with a suite of software applications and tools that enable you to focus and work on your most important tasks. To help you to prioritize and plan at anytime, EISENHOWER is currently available for iPhone, as a free web app and in the form of paper notepads you can order online.

Eisenhower is the first spin-off out of our mobile application factory Rheinfabrik, offering software development services while also serving as a playground for our own app ideas. My co-founder Tim and I started working on this project just after a time management training we had late last year—realizing that there was indeed no decent app available on the App Store that was incorporating the proven Eisenhower matrix task management principle.

(more…)

Breaking News

READY, STEADY… DO!

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The Maker Weekend is just about to knock on the entrance door of betahaus! These two days we will have a non-stop row of workshops, activities & interactions and a supreme CHRSTMS Market party on Saturday evening.

The  weekend will start at betabreakfast (10 am Saturday) and a talk from Johannes Kleske to speed us up into getting things done. After that you could join the tour around the haus lead by no one else but Christoph Fahle, co-founder of betahaus.

And the flow of ‘Do-motion’ will get started..
During the day you will get involved into various happenings in the cafe. The Capsuling.me team will help you to get all the stuff which you were ‘just about to get done’ during the year 2012 of your shoulders . Moreover, DIY experts will share their skills, good mood will transform into a laughing yoga session.. You’ll see how much can happen once people start doing instead of talking and planning! (more…)

Startup of the Week

DESIGN FOR SOCIAL CHANGE

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What is Design for Social Change?

Design for Social Change (D4SC) is a win-win-win social impact business for communities, local businesses and global brands. We are creating Changify – A Kickstarter for civic change linked to a realtime locality and brand index where your change projects are brought to life by direct backing from people and brands in your neighbourhood and you as a Changifyer earn points to spend in local shops in recognition of your good work.

As a Changifyer, you create local change (more…)

Uncategorized

WANTED: MARKETING & COMMUNICATION INTERN @ BETAHAUS

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Are you organized, motivated, interested in DIY culture, and keen on meeting all kinds of interesting and creative people? Open Design City wants you!

Open Design City is a hands-on, creative coworking department of betahaus, and can best be described as a mix of fab-lab and makerspace. People come to Open Design City to prototype their ideas, get input on projects, build all kinds of things, and participate in some neat workshops.
We are looking for a marketing & communication intern who will work with us on spreading the word about our space online and offline. Your duties will include:

  • Promotion of Open Design City and Build or Buy store on various social networks.
  • Creating and executing guerilla marketing campaigns.
  • Researching funding.
  • Organising workshops, and finding people to host them.
  • Co-creating events, e.g. Maker Party

If this sounds like the right job for you, and if you’re available for at least 3 months, feel free to contact us via somewhere.

Startup of the Week

RAILSONFIRE

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What is Railsonfire?

“Software is eating the world” as Marc Andreessen says and in this software industrial revolution, software engineers need to release their software in faster cycles and with less bugs. We provide them a hosted continuous testing and especially continuous deployment service to address both of those needs.

Currently, most of the developers are managing the testing environment on their own server, but it is much easier, cheaper and helps to speed up the development when doing it in the cloud. Furthermore, they can concentrate on their core business (eg. on their product or on their customers).

How did you come up with the idea? (more…)

Uncategorized

PEOPLE IN BETA (SESSION) AT CONVENTION CAMP 2012

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Concept

You can’t get creative insights sitting behind an office desk. Everything is more or less predictable and contradictory things can be left outside. Out in the world, it’s more chaotic. You have to deal with unexpected findings, with uncertainty, and with irrational people who say things you don’t want to hear. But that is where you find insights. That is why at the Convention Camp, we are not making a presentation of how we work, neither telling about our successful stories, nor our failures. We are venturing in the Convention Camp pursuing learning without any hypothesis or script, but to challenge our comfortable assumptions (and the ones o of its visitors)

We want to know How will we un-share the world in the future? (more…)

Startup of the Week

BLINKIST

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Interview by Alessandro Vercesi

What is Blinkist and how did you come up with the idea?

Blinkist is a smartphone-tablet app that answers the need of using spare time in a useful and rewarding way. The goal of the app is to give users the possibility to read the core ideas of non-fictional books in their free time, for example: waiting for a train, during a short flight, on breaks. The cofounders believe that each non-fictional book contains around ten to fifteen core contents that can be extracted and re-write in about one page each. Therefore, people do not have to buy a book and spend many hours reading it when they can read the main points and have the same outcome knowledge of reading the whole book. It is a way of time saving in our fast-paced life. In fact, this is why the co-founders came up with the idea. After finishing university, all of them were working in corporate jobs and realized that they did not have enough time to read and found difficult to gain an additional knowledge from reading a non-fictional book, which could have also been helpful in their job. Therefore, they decided to create this service to people like them, professionals that want to increase their knowledge, keep themselves updated, but, don’t have enough time to read anything in between the main contents.

Why did you decided to participate in the hub:raum incubator program?  (more…)

Uncategorized

DO STUFF – JOIN MAKER WEEKEND

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The core of betahaus is doing stuff. It’s doing projects, doing it yourself, learning by doing, making things, producing or  getting things done. We figured out that this is the perfect way for people to learn things, improve their skills and stay motivated on the way. Talking – Hell now! Let’s do more stuff. (more…)

Startup of the Week

WAHWAH.FM

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What is wahwah FM?

Wahwah FM is a new form of radio App, more precisely it is a cloud searching radio which the user is able influence in different ways. The main idea behind wahwah FM is giving the possibility to users to listen the same song someone else is listening to in a synchronized way. The App on your smartphone connects to the App of another smartphone that you have chosen (you do not have to be connected in any social network), and starts playing the same song the other user is listening to synchronizing your smartphone to his. There are two main ideas behind this process: the user that connects cannot stop, pause, forward, or rewind the song unless he owns it on his smartphone. In addition, the App does not share your own music, it recognize it and pull the same song from a cloud to your smartphone, and then synchronize it to the other App. This is the reason why it is considered a radio: the user cannot influence the music he is listening to, unless he already owns the song.

(more…)

Uncategorized

MAKER PARTY 9 NOV.

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Hi there!

It is time for being creative, learning new things and having a crazy party at
the same night. It`s Un-combinable? Oh, no, it so isn`t!

Where and when?
It all starts at the betahaus| Berlin  at 7 p.m. 9th November.
The whole ground floor will be turning into a big MAKERSPACE inspired by

Open Design City & designers from Build or Buy project.

What and how?

We have created the concept of a real DIY party – the MAKER PARTY. The plan is clear – we start at 7 pm with a whole row of awesome workshops. Lead by our makers & designers you will create the whole lay out of the party. Yes, YOU will MAKE the party, we will help. J We will show you how to make interior decorations, interactive videos, costumes, installations, even a stage for the DJ’s who will take the night over at 11 p.m. (more…)

Member of the Week

PEDRO PINEDA

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Pedro was born in the Canary Islands, after studying Design & Technology in London, he moved to Berlin where he is developing different ways to apply collective & creative problem solving to challenges that affect us as individuals or as society. He sees design as a tool to create experiences. For him “is not enought to look at the isolated product or service but at the whole experience that we want to create”

His design work ranges from facilitating MakerLabs to the creation of parties, including all the single components which need to be there to create the envisioned experience. He works through openness that everything should be Open so that whatever we do can be shared and build upon.

He is co-developing numerous projects like MakerLab, Enable Berlin, We Creative People, and Open Design City.

How are you engaged with betahaus? (more…)

Uncategorized

A YEAR OF `MAKING THINGS HAPPEN` ALL OVER THE WORLD

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One of our good startup friends, Gidsy, is turning 1 and to commemorate this milestone, they are organizing Gidsy Day – happening all day on November 10th in cities all over the world.

What is Gidsy Day?
On November 10th, there will be Gidsy activities happening all day long all across Berlin & beyond – all for only 5 bucks! This gives you the chance to spend the day exploring your city, participating in really fun things and meeting new people – the full Gidsy experience.

You can take a painting class in London, a canal tour in Amsterdam, a walk around Brooklyn NYC, a lovely walking tour in Paris, a coffee brewing workshop in Berlin and much, much more.

There is plenty of amazing experiences to be had on Gidsy Day so be sure to book your spots: www.gidsy.com/gidsyday

If you’re in Berlin, at the end of the day they`ll be hosting a birthday bash that everyone’s invited to. RSVP for the event on Facebook.
Happy Exploring,
your betahaus team

Uncategorized

NEW FLOOR ALMOST FINISHED

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Good news, the summer of construction at betahaus is almost over! Since weeks Kim Wang and his team are working hard on our new floor. 5 of 9 teamrooms are already finished and the first teams moved in. From now on you will meet the teams: Somewhere, Car2Go and Wahwah.fm (doing a restart soon) in their new offices at the 1st floor. From next week on there will be also plenty of open space with flexdesks for every betahaus member to work at. Drop by for one of our tours (Tuesday, 5pm, Thursday, 11:30am) if you want to check out the new floor.

Here are some impressions by Sepehr Atefi (more…)

Member of the Week

STAFF OF THE WEEK: PEER WARNKE

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You probably all know Peer – he started working for betahaus in Octobre 2011 in the event section and belongs to the heart of our crew. Without him, we wouldn’t be able to host events and guests as we do. This staff of the week blogentry will tell you a little bit more about Peers uprising.

 

How would you describe the relationship that you created with your co-workers and members of betahaus?

(more…)

Startup of the Week

dotdotdot.me

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••• dotdotdot is an independent social reading platform designed to help you get the most out of digital reading. Manage all your texts in one place, read and collaborate with others, and create your own digital archive – your virtual reading memory. Thomas Weyres is one of the four founders of dotdotdot.me and he is part of the betahaus community since the beginning!

 

How did you come up with the idea of dotdotdot.me? (more…)

Blog

PROUD WINNERS, THANK YOUS AND SHOUT OUTS!

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GoEuroTwo weeks ago the latest edition of betapitch went down, and it was a blast! The house was packed, the audience great, the jury experienced and the pitches awesome. Just like last time, the Jury was a tiny bit indecisive (the pitches were good and it was hard to decide) and chose two proud winners: (more…)

Uncategorized

OLEAPARK

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Since the introduction of the Internet and Apps for Smartphones, companies have been using these tools as a way to promote their events. However, Apps created by companies that organize events are for a single-use event and do not bring enough value to the customer. For example, a customer has to download an App for each event and cannot interact with the other attendees. This results as an infrequent use of Apps and a waste of many for the companies. OleaPark started in response to the need of an events’ platform around the world.

Interview by Alessandro Vercesi (current intern at betahaus)


What is OleaPark and what does it offer? (more…)