The OuiShare Awards focus this year on rewarding change-making initiatives, in line with the OuiShare Fest theme "Lost in Transition". As there is an ongoing online vote, we would like to introduce you our 14 nominees and specifically ask them "What is the Change?" they bring through their initiatives. Read their answers and vote for your favorite projects until May 21st!
https://www.youtube.com/embed/huDU_5kNDA0
Get to know MateriaBrasil!
Nominated in the Collaborative Production category, MateriaBrasil is an online and offline open source platform that offers free information about Brazilian responsible solution in terms of materials, products, systems and services in Brazil. Manuela Yamada, Partner and Designer at MateriaBrasil answered our questions:
1. What got you started with your initiative?
"We began in 2005 with FibraDesign, our design company focused on research and development of sustainable materials. After more than 6 years, we gathered a huge amount of samples and information about sustainable materials and suppliers. Back then we didn’t have a proper organization of the knowledge so we decided to organize it, in order to provide to our selves a proper environment and infra structure for our projects. This decision improved a lot our way of developing sustainable solutions for our clients. We also managed to use the materials in most of the projects, just by having them and their info, available at our sight. Once done, it was time to amplify it! We put the materials on line for free and opened our office for visits, to provide all the information that changed our way of designing to as many people as possible. Nowadays all the materials we find, all the informations we gathered is uploaded so that any one can access it. Even the code of the platform is open source."
2. What Change does your initiative bring?
"MateriaBrasil platform is the first open source completely free sustainable materials, process and solutions library of Brazil. With our sustainability drivers we categorize and evaluate the inputs presented, helping the user to search and to choose among the options. Companies that make their profit by just providing you with information usually charge the kind of knowledge we make free and public. By doing this, we make it possible for more and more people to apply this kind of solution to their projects, insuring that they have the proper tools to develop a more sustainable project not only in an environmental matter, but also social. We also set an example of how people do not need to hold information to make a living, but on contraire, if we cooperate one with another, everyone can benefit and develop a better work."
Would like to support MateriaBrasil?
And join us at the OuiShare Fest 2015 for the pitchs session!