#greenshouse

[tristanmowrey]

Greenhouse Church

I remember it was the year 2020, and my wife and I drove down from Ohio to Gainesville, Florida. I could not believe all the churches there were, but when we drove by Greenhouse Church, there was a tug on my heart from the Holy Spirit. I know this was going to be our church. It took a while to fully realize this, and we, of course, checked out other churches, but I always came back to Greenhouse…

Greenhouse Church

[cogxio]

Greenhouse effect of love! Do you Agree? COGXIO.COM LABhttp://labs.cogxio.com/2014/06/greenhouse-effect-of-love-do-you-agree/

Greenhouse effect of love! Do you Agree? http://labs.cogxio.com/2014/06/greenhouse-effect-of-love-do-you-agree/

Greenhouse effect of love! Do you Agree?

Greenhouse effect of love:

Love is warmth. Everybody exudes love like a warm body radiates heat. This warmth that we send out in all directions is constantly looking for people who can reciprocate to it. Thus it is a constant endeavour to find your soul mate.  But it is easier said than done. People can be spreading love for a long period of time without the reciprocity that is expected in such an act. Thus the same love which the person sends as warmth suddenly starts engulfing him and threatens to burn his life down. Unrequited love can be a dangerous thing just like the harmful consequences of greenhouse effect.

So now you get an idea of the meaning of Greenhouse effect of love. Well, we are just beginning to unravel the mysteries of this strange phenomenon. You don’t need a scientist or an environmentalist to analysis this. Plain Jane will do a better job at analyzing it than Albert Einstein possibly could. So why does this happen and what is the solution for the deleterious consequence of Greenhouse effect of love?

We are in the 21st century where love is not our primary concern. Love is a primeval feeling. Love is instinctive, love is visceral but love is not logical is what it seems in the 21st century. We have ‘better things’ to do than just be out looking for love. The modern man is a very complicated species. Climbing the corporate ladder gives him so much thrill that nothing else can quite compare to it. This goes on for day in and day out. He realizes something is missing in his life but not quite sure what it is. Love is the essence of life but unfortunately it is buried so deep that it is conveniently forgotten. But it has a strange habit of making itself felt at the most awkward moment just to embarrass the person who had quite forgotten love.

Greenhouse effect of love can be quite sickening. The person desperately tries to find love where there is none. The only logical thing is that he gets trapped in a quagmire of hypocrisy and falsehood. True love is dead is what he concludes. The love that he has been radiating all along comes to haunt him just like the heat radiated from the surface of the earth comes back to torment us as greenhouse effect. This is not good but it looks inevitable in today’s world. Greenhouse effect of love can start to hurt you in ways you cannot even imagine. It snatches away the life out of your so called ‘good life’. That keeps you wondering what exactly is happening and why? But finding a solution to that problem is easier said than done.

You cannot surrender just because your love is unrequited. It needs more than guts to face the situation. It needs you to open your heart. You are moving too fast; slow down –is what your heart will tell you in the first instance if you listen to it very closely. The world is moving too fast. That way the whole vision and perception gets blurred. You cannot see anything other than the guy in front of you who is moving even faster. Life in the fast lane is what it is. If you realize this than that is the first step to finding the solution to it.

Love cannot be chased. Love is a butterfly which no matter how hard you chase you cannot catch it (#cogxio.com). You turn your back to it and there it is, gently sitting on your shoulder without even you realizing it. That is love. Nobody can say you are in love. Only you will know that you are in love. It is a feeling and the greatest in the world, if you were to ask Shakespeare. So what you need to do is slow down. Get a life, get off the fast lane and see life at ground level. Then you will see the infinite charms of this wonderful place that this earth no doubt is. You need to feel love; you need to give love to find love. Applying logic to love is a fool’s strategy. Love defies logic; love defies gravity. You may understand love but you have to be in love to feel love and that makes a world of a difference. So slow down, get a life and find true love in this crazy world. It’s a bizarre world and we all call it home.

[climatekiceducation]

On board at the greenhouse

Felix Willems (pictured left) and Max Erdrich (pictured right) joined Climate-KIC’s education programme, The Journey, in 2012.

They studied together at TU Berlin and have recently become part of Climate-KIC’s ‘Greenhouse’ programme which provides postgraduate students with a mentored environment to develop potential business and innovation ideas.

They’ve taken time out of their busy schedule to answer our questions about their skating business for urban commuters.  

How did you get into Climate-KIC?

(Max) - We both heard about a summer school which combines business, innovation and science. Back then we didn’t have any serious intention to start a business, but we both liked the concept of Climate-KIC’s summer school, The Journey. Its content sounded interesting, fun and promising.

Our university courses [Felix - Msc. in Physics, Max – Dip. Industrial Engineering] didn’t have much to do with either climate change or the basic principles of starting a business. Even though we didn’t need any more credits to finish our master’s, Climate-KIC seemed like a great opportunity to learn about ongoing research in the field of climate change and use our own ideas and creativity to develop a business model. What are you working on now?

(Felix) - After the Journey ended I continued with the project that my group had created, a colleague and I tested the business plan on cargo bike sharing in Berlin resulting in a two-month trial phase where we rented out cargo bikes and collected information.

When this ended, Max and I teamed up to work on our skate prototype. Our new idea is to deliver a different and modern way to get around busy cities for both commuters and inner-city users. There’s only so much I can say about it at this stage, but the final product will be a fold-able, lightweight and easy to carry-on skate which can be attached to almost any kind of shoe within seconds.

We want to develop a product that enables everyone, even inexperienced skaters, to skate comfortably and safely on most ways in the city. We’re confident we can supplement public transport and car sharing systems.

At the moment if someone wants to travel from A-to-B without driving a car, the distances between point A and the next bus/metro station are often too long to make it viable. This means that walking these distances consumes so much time that the use of public transport or car sharing becomes inefficient. Our skates will bring a solution to this problem.

Can you tell us how Climate-KIC’s Greenhouse programme helped you achieve your aims?

(Max) - The Greenhouse offers great coaching for start-ups and supports the development of early ideas.

Working on a raw idea up to the point where you hold a final product in your hands, it’s easy to get lost on the way and lose focus on your market and customers. What the Greenhouse does is provide you with experienced coaching; they help us to review our progress, ask critical questions and test the idea and business model on a regular basis.

This helps a lot when designing the product. We are forced to think about the demand and who our first and core customers are.

In Berlin, we can also get to contact other founders and people and through this network we now have the opportunity to talk to experienced product developers who take part in coaching and workshops.

Sounds like a really exciting project. When are you going to be ready? (Felix) - Starting a business also includes building up a network. This of course is also time consuming and fun. Nonetheless, we want to make progress as fast as possible. We have just ordered our first prototype and we might even be able to test it before Easter, as we’re only running this project at the moment on a part-time basis we’re really happy about our progress. How have you found the initial experience of starting up a business beyond ideation phase?

(Max) - We are very keen to push the development further. The progress of building up your own business is accompanied with ups and downs; the motivating part about it is that we are responsible for anything that happens, but of course also all that doesn't happen. Why is it important for someone at this stage to back the project? (Max) - In our case we want to produce a hardware product. Our product has to be thoroughly tested, redesigned and tested again. This process costs time and money. With the financial support we can relax – a little bit – and focus more on the project at hand which leads to making progress more rapidly. What advice would you give to someone in a similar position to you in a years’ time? (Felix) - Keep on working. Get feedback from people around you and rethink it over and over again. If you are really convinced that your idea has a potential to succeed you should definitely go for it. The Greenhouse program offers a great support and you can learn a lot over the time.   (Max) - No one will punish you if you do not succeed, it’s a great platform to test yourself and your ideas potential out on - it’s hard to find a better offer.

To find out more about Climate-KIC and its education programmes, please visit: climate-kic.org

And to find out more about this Max and Felix's project, contact them directly: [email protected].