Millares Visit & OS Technology

We had a TeamSpeak meeting on the 21st of October 2011.

The objective of this meeting was to organise a visit to the coop in Millares near Valencia in Spain to start developing Open Source Technology and an Open Source Greenhouse/Aquaponics setup.
One outcome of this meeting was; we now need to coordinate when to visit Millares, probably some time in the first 2 weeks of December 2011.
Ezequiel and Alvaro (root) should be there by then to join Jesus and Alba. People interested in visiting during this time are; Angel Imaz, Daniel Connell, Jamie Clarke and Will Cleaver.

The online meeting minutes:
First we chatted and got to know each other more.

People in the meeting where;
Angel Imaz in Spain
Denis Mongin in France
Ezequiel in Spain
Will in the UK
Later Daniel Connell in Germany joined

We talked about “Ca La Fou” and Ezequiel’s visit there with Nikolay. He explained that being set up in Millares near Valencia is a good place to be to be able to collaborate with “Ca La Fou” in the future.

Ezequiel explained a little about Ca La Fou’s proposed new local money currency “El Eco” which they are setting up. This made me think of the WIR currency in Switzerland.

We moved on to talking about Millares. In Millares there is Jesus who started a coop called Sicania Nova. Alba is helping him there at the moment and, Alvaro (Root) and Ezequiel will be there soon as well.

Here is a a link to the Sicania Nova project 1 page document – In English – En Español.

We talked about open source technology we could develop; Angel talked about his 3D CNC printers and we expanded into CNC Laser Cutters and Torch Tables. The motive here was discuss OS Tech for an OS FabLab that could produce the parts to make more OS technology like Wind Turbines etc.

Ezequiel is looking for information on how to build a Pelletizer or Chipper Hammermill whether for biomass production or simple pellets to sell. Anybody with any information please email it to ose-europe@googlegroups.com.

Angel talked about his contact who is involved with funding. He is part of the World Economic Forum. Angel says that with a concrete business plan he could present it to his contact and see if funding cold be gained?

Daniel Connell joined the meeting and explained that if a cooperative is set up to take WWOOF’ing / WWOOF’ers then you can get people come to your coop to help with manual labour etc in exchange for the knowledge they will gain. Some basic requisites for this is being able to provide them with accommodation and food.

Daniel also explained how he is developing ideas he has for harnessing Solar and Wind energy. He plans to go to Morocco for 2 months next year to prototype but with interest building around Millares, he expressed he might be interested in prototyping there as Spain also has favourable amounts of sun.

Other topics covered where ways of attracting and including more people in the Open Source direction and further developing the Open Source Business Plan specific to a particular location to be able to submit it for funding.

To conclude this was a very successful and inspiring meeting and we are all looking forward to the results and further collaboration to come.

One topic we meant to cover but didn’t was: What is “Diaspora” and should we be using it? One for next time:)

Related Posts:

• Millares – About 25 people visited in Dec 2011