My coworking journal: interviewing Anderland Systems
An innovative team tackling one of our world’s biggest threats.
On Tuesday, March 14, I had the pleasure of interviewing the Anderland Systems team as a part of my ongoing, six week internship during which I am exploring different coworking spaces and chatting with the people who work there.
I came across Anderland Systems as I was researching different coworking spaces in Berlin. Anderland Systems is based in the Social Impact Lab which houses entrepreneurs and startups working to address various social issues. Anderland Systems is currently developing a solar-powered cooling system in order to improve crop storage in India. I was intrigued by their project because I believe that climate change is the most pressing issue of our time and needs to be addressed in myriad ways.
I sat down with Andreas and Jan to discuss their project and their connection to the Social Impact Lab.
Could you tell me a little bit about your background and what lead you to this point?
Andreas: We are both interested in the theme of climate change. I studied environmental technology and biogas projects. I did biogas projects in Tanzania with Engineers without Borders. We both worked together on a house project and found out we have the same ideas about being self-employed and providing solutions on our own because no one else will do it. So we came together with this aim to provide solutions for people who are affected by climate change.
Jan: I studied cultural anthropology, not a technical background. One interest is that technology becomes very adapted to local conditions and the need of the people there. I see an important point in technology transfer.
Andreas: It’s not only about bringing the technique to people, it’s about cultural adaption. Culture fits in the normal behavior of people of the day, producing daily processes. People will only use technology when it fits in their normal lifestyle. Different backgrounds can share knowledge.
Could you describe your project to me?
Jan: Our aim is to develop adaptive solutions for people who are affected by climate change.
We’re aiming to develop solar-powered cooling facilities for agriculture projects in India, which is facing the problem of harvest lost.
Almost half of the harvest doesn’t reach the local market, a big reason being that they don’t have storage facilities.
What caused you to want to embark on this project?
Andreas: We were looking at cases where solar cooling makes the most sense, and of course agriculture is deeply affected by climate change, and cooling agriculture is an obvious solution to people with these problems. Storage is a big issue in the case of climate change. We decided to concentrate on India because they’re really affected by climate change. They’re one of the biggest agriculture providers in the world, and over 70% of their agriculture is produced by small-scale farmers. So far there is no solutions to cool down products, and no way they can pay for it. India has a technical development startup which we can work with. We only want to bring knowledge, not technology. We need people there to run the system, we don’t want to import any material from here to there. “Food security” is our overall topic.
How has your idea evolved over the course of working on your project?
Andreas: It’s different of course. When we started with the idea, it was totally clear that we had the idea to place the first project in India. We were looking for people in need. We found an NGO in India that worked together with over 450 small-scale farmers in the area, helping farmers to get a better life. They have done village development for over 70 years and have close and intense contact to farming people. We got in contact to see if we fit, then at the end of last year, went to India and did lots of interviews with farmers and the NGO to find out about needs and to get an idea of what would be a real solution.
At the beginning, we came up with the idea of cooling agriculture products. One really big change came with people telling us it’s not only about the cooling of the product to keep it fresh but that a really big, important thing is to do some post-processing things with products like tomatoes (an example is being made into ketchup). Some products have to be dried to sell at a later point on the market. There is no possibility of keeping them fresh for very long.
One big change was realizing the need for post-processing, which changed the technology direction. In the beginning, we just had the idea that we need to cool down products. It’s not just about temperature, but also humidity. We found an agricultural university in South Germany specializing in tropic/subtropic regions, and they’re developing a storage concept with us.
Why did you choose to work out of Social Impact Lab?
Jan: From our understanding, this is a kind of social business. I think it’s a good environment for social startups; you have not just your coworking space, you have opportunity for coaching, networks, connections for crowdfunding, a whole environment.
Andreas: We liked the spirit…to be together with other entrepreneurs, to get their ideas.
Lots of other good ideas come up in the kitchen during lunchtime. We get to know their experiences and ideas. For us, it was really important to get an office space. In the past, we worked at our home offices and it’s really annoying to work and sleep in same space. We have the feeling that we really fit in very well with the whole concept of Social Impact Lab.
How long have you been working on this project?
Andreas: For one-and-a-half years. We’ve officially been here since December, but the whole December we were in India, not here.
Do you have any plans to expand into further environmental impact issues at some point?
Andreas: Our aim is to really provide solutions for different problems that are coming up with climate change aspects.
Jan: It depends on how we go as a team. The wish is to include other topics, but at the moment we only have the capacity to focus on this topic.
What benefits do you think you receive from working in a coworking space as opposed to somewhere else?
Jan: The kitchen talks!
Andreas: First of all, really the spirit. One of the really big problems when you work as a team is the motivation point. It helps a lot to be in an environment where everyone is doing it and facing the same problems. The other big point is coaching. There are group coaching things where everyone can go. Usually it’s one whole day and one coach is teaching about a special topic. There are private coaches that are focusing on our project and our problems where we can ask every question we have at the moment.
Jan: The benefit of a coworking space is being in an environment where the challenges people face are not so different.
Andreas: All these entrepreneurs, they have all the same questions (how do we grow, how do we get funding, etc). We profit from the exchange. I like the spirit which motivates me much more than anything else.
What do you consider to be the most pressing risk stemming from climate change at the moment?
Andreas: The most pressing thing to do is reduce CO₂ emissions. It’s the only thing we can say in general because there is no smaller parts where you can say “okay, we can fix this first then we can look for the other problems.” It’s one whole big problem.
Jan: It’s very complex. It’s how we relate to the environment we live in, and greenhouse gases are the big effect we have on our environment. It has a lot of effects on agriculture and causes huge migrations. It will affect us beyond here in many ways, and for me, from my perspective, it’s actually caused by industrial countries here in the North and the people in the South are more affected by it and have less of a chance to protect themselves. It’s very unfair and it’s a social effect.
Andreas: One of the biggest motivations is that no one else will solve the problem. The people by themselves will solve it. If everybody tried their best to change the problem, it would change. Laws won’t have much effect because it’s a worldwide problem. People have to realize that everyone is affected and it’s everyone’s problem.
Jan: It’s one of the things that brings us together into a global society. Climate change doesn’t stop on the border; it’s one of the topics that emphasizes that we’re all on one planet. It’s a huge problem and it’s completely ignored on all sides. In the ’70s it came up, and from there there were really easy ways to make a change but nothing happened, and still actually, the necessary steps aren’t happening. But then comes also the question: “okay, well what can I do?” and that’s where our motivation started.
Andreas: Many small people in many different places can change the world!
If you enjoyed this interview, you can read about the start of my coworking experiment:
I am exploring coworking from my own perspective as a 20-year-old American college student who only learned what coworking is about a month ago. My project is a part of Coworkies, an online platform that connects people between coworking spaces globally (www.coworkies.com ).
