SolaRoofCoop | About The COOP

Title: Sola Roof DIY

Location: Global Categories: Education, Environment, Health

Status: In Planning Timeline: 01.11.11 to 11.11.11

Description:

Sola Roof DIY is the Open Source movement to enable people everywhere to build solar greenhouses that produce abundant food, water and energy in all climates, providing secure food from the backyard. View, download or print: a Google Docs presentation about DIYFood

In the industrialized countries, where families are ever more dependent on ever less secure food supplies from great distance and where many consumers wish to be more self-reliant, the DIY Food Campaign is a backyard movement for "grow your own food". In developing countries that are specially challenged by Climate Change, DIY Food is a humanitarian initiative to plant the seed of sustainable, self-reliant living and support green growth that is a foundation for building resilient and prosperous families and communities.

Background:

Inventor, Richard Nelson has established Sola Roof as an Open Source collaborative community more than a decade ago. Under our Creative Commons Public License, the Sola Roof is FREE for non-commercial use - including DIY, education, research and humanitarian - and commercial users are asked to Pay It Forward by contribution to the DIY Food Campaign and humanitarian DIY Food projects for local, sustainable and nutritious fresh food.

Objectives:

1. Inspire individual action and family projects to build DIY Food projects all around the world.

2. Support collaboration and sharing of experience and best practices by DI Yers as the global community is adopted in various cultures and climates.

3. Encourage local action and cooperation among the user community and the growth of aSocial Enterprise Network (SE Net) formed by members who educate and train and provide services and technical support, and supporting sales of the DIY Kit greenhouse produced by the Sola Roof Coop.

4. Collective action by members to establish Open Manufacturing, which is transparently organized by the Sola Roof Coop that empowers our membership to access to key components direct from wholesale manufacturers.

Milestones:

1. Establish 350 operational DIY Food sites that will participate in a global 11th Hour awareness event on 11.11.11

2. Viral growth of a global Sola Roof DIY community using Open Source information and transformational social networks.

3. Establish the first activity of the SE Net by forming cooperative clusters of the COOP Enterprise Members

4. Establish the first business activity of Sola Roof Coop for manufacture of key components of a DIY Kit for backyard greenhouse projects and larger family farm and community based DIY Food.

Budget:

DIY Food is a technology based solution for abundant food that is grown continuously and harvested daily in all seasons and climate extreme. It requires capital investment to build the solar greenhouse, which is reasonably low since our technology uses simple, cost-effective solutions that are within easy reach of DIY, where much of the labor of construction and assembly of the greenhouse is contributed by the project owners.

Working with used and recycled material, it is possible to build a DIY Food project for $1000 to $2000 and the DIY Kit that shall become available through the COOP will be all new material and cost about $2000. This is a current estimate that will be refined by feedback from the DIY community and our experience with current startup of the Sola Roof Coop in Quebec. About $10,000 will go into the first production model and then about $50,000 for the first 10 demonstration projects.

In America and Europe I expect DI Yers will spent $5000 or more, especially considering the typical level of growing - such as aquaponic systems - that the enthusiast who wants the most from the investment of money and time.

Needs:

Primarily what is needed is participation:

1. Anyone can register to join the Sola Roof community.

2. The next step is more engagement, learning and participation which is available to all Members, for example:

This leads to action, which is to build or support for a group that is building a DIY Food project. This is a step that is transformational and require take a much time and learning and preparation. Seeing and using other DIY Food projects belonging to friends, other members and Enterprise Members and learning opportunities available to the Sola Roof DIY Members.

3. Community Members can also become COOP Members and those who participate in the COOP will first teach and practice self-help to transition to self-reliant living, since this is a lifestyle challenge that builds new friends and skills. COOP Members join a transformational social network - building a project is not an immediate requirement but COOP membership provides access to the DIY Kit products and COOP services and support.

4. Any COOP Members can participate as Enterprise Members, after each has built a demonstration DIY Kit project and obtaining certification from the COOP.

5. All DI Yers and the COOP and other commercial Sola Roof users are invited to participate in delivering and supporting humanitarian DIY Food projects, through Pay It Forward contributions giving of our time and personal energy.