Faircap was set up as a collective effort from the start, when it was first proposed and developed further at POC21 an open source innovation camp outside Paris in 2015. Since then hundreds of people have helped one way or another by providing:
- Feedback – Faircap would not be a reality if it would have not been for all the feedback we received from the start. We were fortunate that from all of people we talked about the idea, 95% thought it was a great idea and a product like this had to exist. At the same time we received a lot of suggestions to improve it, from how the design could be, what functions could incorporate, the user scenarios where it could be used, the way to move the project forward, to even where to look for funding to make it real.
- Skills – Making the first final product has involved hours and hours of research, technical design, engineering, lab testing, field testing and distribution. Because it has been done collectively and 90% of all of this voluntarily, we have been able to develop a product at a fraction of what it would have cost to a large company. By being lean and relying on everyone’s expertise, we have succesfully made a product that has the potential to save lives during emergencies. If you are a designer, engineer, researcher, doctor or you work in humanitarian relief we need your experience!
- Contacts – Maybe you are not a microbiology researcher, but you know someone who is. Maybe you know someone who could find this useful, be it an NGO, a person who travels to developing countries, a place where the Buy1/Give1 program could be promoted. Maybe you have many followers on social media. We need to spread the word. Like us on FB and Twitter!
- Funds – When you order a Faircap Mini filter you are donating funds to make a Faircap Family filter, which will be donated to an NGO or to a family, and you will support us to continue growing the project. You can also donate 1 or 100 family filters directly by contacting us.
- Resources – What other resources we need? We want to collaborate more with academia and natural and social science researchers. We need to partner with large organizations (NGOs, Foundations, Companies) to scale up the project. Maybe you are a professor at a design or engineering school, or you are microbiology Phd student. We would like to involve students to improve the current design and come up with further designs so we could run a design workshop. Maybe you have access to research labs and we can do further testing. Maybe you work for a large company that could donate family filters as part of their social responsability efforts.
If you like the project and would like to contribute in any of these ways or you have other ideas, please contact us!