This is both a thought experiment, and an appeal for people to join the project.
What?
An physical space & a state of mind.
It will be a project to help break people out of limiting beliefs, to retrain, to start businesses, to invent, to create, to RE-invent & RE-create. To innovate. Our raw materials will be those who need help reaching their potential. Our outputs will be people who start projects and eventually outgrow the incubator.
A mix of co-working space, workshop, support network, meeting space, retail space, start-up incubator and venture capitalist.
I envisage a disused industrial space (which are abundant in the West Midlands). Let’s re-purpose these beautiful spaces instead of them just being demolished for yet another ‘exclusive luxury apartment development’. I see a large open-plan warehouse space with substantial yard. It just needs to be secure and not leak at the beginning. The B’Inc will ‘bootstrap’ i.e it will be mainly self-funding.
Why?
It’s needed. Too many (most) people never get close to fulfilling their potential. This I believe is behind much of the inequality in this country. The poor are taught for 12 years in government indoctrination camps what their role is to be -workers, consumers. Your ambition should be to be judged and pass exams so you can be judged at an interview to start working clicking a mouse in an office and be judged yearly by your 'betters'. Nooooooo, we are better than this. Let's not play their games!
TV culture reinforces this with the endless talent contests where the great unwashed come to have their business, baking, dancing, cooking, singing, attractiveness judged by their 'betters.'
This is Birmingham, 'City of a 1000 Trades'… let’s see this happen again. The world in general & work in particular is changing rapidly, currently Birmingham is failing in IT’S potential to help it’s people thrive. The trades are going to be totally different than 150 years ago. Instead of bicycles, guns, pins, pens, jewellery, sewing machines, steam engines, we'll be building Apps running on Steemit, re-purposing or retrofitting buildings and materials to collect or store green energy, creating great art, literature and on & on.
We have an ‘Innovation Centre’ in this city that’s run by ‘dinosaurs’ that wouldn’t know ‘innovation’ if it bit them on the bum! They operate out of a state-of-the-art building funded by the taxpayer and some of the current projects they proudly boast include an 'online auction website'. Yup...innovative.
Let's bootstrap our own incubator.
How?
A token sale to raise funds? A friendly council member or developer allowing us use of premises? First, I need to generate a team to help me.
When?
Now!
Who?
The bIrmingham Incubator will be for everyone who needs it.
- The young man I met a few weeks ago (at a bitcoin conference!) who’s dream was getting a job on the nightshift in a supermarket!
- The refugee newly arrived with her family with no English or capital
- The 50 year old former factory worker recently made redundant and put on 'the scrap heap'
- The mother of two who wants to write a novel while the kids are at school
- The highschool 'failures' who didn't pass their exams
- The recent graduates with £50,000 in student loans who've suddenly realised they're now expected to apply for soul-crushing office jobs paying £21,000 a year (before tax).
- The serial inventor who doesn't know how to get his project started
- The entrepreneur with the burning desire and ideas, but who needs cheap space to start from and access to a vibrant 'talent pool.'
I could go on writing this list all day!
The core team:
Me. A homeopath with an expanding practice and a passion for innovation and cryptocurrency.
Others with complimentary skills
Maybe a city council representative that will smooth planning decisions and secure grant funding
Techies & marketing gurus.
Where?
Some disused industrial warehouse with yard within a few miles of the city centre. Open plan industrial space that can be flexible depending on who needs it. A few catering projects? Let's install an industrial kitchen. Storage needed for a trader? Let's place some shipping containers inside for them.
So What's Next?
I want to recruit a core team for the project, and I need to find both funding and the physical building to house it.
Let's do this and create a perfect venue for Steemfest4
Questions? Ideas? Thoughts? Offers of Help or collaboration?