It is now 7 years since we created Solar Fire and GoSol.
As friends, we are more than happy. Our team is still united no matter what. We overcame hundreds of challenges together, and we’re still here. Older, tougher, wiser hopefully, and enthusiastic.
As sustainable humans, we are more than happy as well because our work has empowered about 100 people in the field. We sometimes have lost track of caring for ourselves sustainably because we sometimes considered severe issues that farmers and entrepreneurs are facing in developing countries as more important than our spoiled Western sensibilities.
As start-uppers, we can’t complain. We started with nothing. We now have successful prototypes, an amazing network of partners and sponsors, and our first clients. Without living a big take off success, we are still active and believe me, that is something extraordinary.
Eerik and I landed in Finland and we became emigrants, parents and entrepreneurs at the same time. Lorin spent months and hours in extreme conditions in almost 10 developing countries, to build and refine the applications we developed. Eerik and Arnaud killed their eyes creating a software to scale up our tech, and so did Urs rocked the show with IT, partnerships and comm while Will was building solar concentrators in the Amazon. These guys are my heroes.
The first Earth Day was in 1970. 49 years ago. Things got as bad as predicted at the time. Since then, tons of solutions and thousands of social entrepreneurs, volunteers, NGOs and citizens are doing their best to fix that.
2-3 years ago Sikkim (a state in North India), Costa-Rica, Bolivia and a few other small places started to show the way; Scandinavia and Germany are showing the way in Europe. It’s good, but it’s not enough and nothing will be enough until we fix the massive ongoing disaster which is social, environmental, economical and political.
So 49 years later, after tons of costly meetings between huge agencies, governments, and powerful people, the Voice is a... teen.
Excuse me but where are the grown ups who are supposed to protect those teens? Where are you? There is no time to be discouraged or despairing, no time for scepticism. So now you spend a week-end online, read the studies, watch all the docs you wish, choose your cause and join a sustainable team now, because it’s now or… now.
Strike if you feel the call. Make it a pause, a dialogue, a creation or a fight, as you wish.
But, please, take action.
Join any sustainable and inspiring project you can find, they need you for sure and for all our sakes, take action.
If you feel the call, we are working on a crowdfunding campaign and we need volunteers to spread the news of our work far and wide. If you are interested, read Our Philosophy first and contact me: eva.wissenz (at) gosol.solar
Article logo courtesy of Mona Caron.
