Share anything effortlessly. This is the essence of Tumblr, the microblogging platform created in 2007 which today has more than 50 million blogs registered, outnumbering Wordpress in terms of users. Tumblr was founded by David Karp from his bedroom in a New York apartment when he was just 21 years old. At the age of 11, after reading HTML for Dummies, this ‘Internet prodigy’ –as the trade press have named him began to develop web pages for neighbourhood businesses. At 15, he convinced his parents to let him continue his education at home and learn directly from the world of technology. At 17, after having worked as a technological consultant for Urbanbaby.com, he saved up enough money to spend five months in Tokyo. He represents a generation raised on daily Internet use – early entrepreneurs looking for new paradigms based on social networks and sharing content and resources.
After having her second child, and in the midst of the economic crisis, in 2011 Mar Alarcon decided to set up Social Car, the first person-to-person car rental operator in Spain, a model of cross-collaboration that already has 2,500 drivers and 650 cars signed up throughout Spain, and which is reinventing firmly established concepts, such as car insurance. Mar Alarcón is convinced that the future lies in optimising existing resources, the social and collaborative economy and the use of renewable energies. She is the co-founder of Social Energy, a Spanish renewable energy company. Motivated by promoting a fairer world, she graduated in Law, volunteered as an advisor to the NGO International Bridges to Justice, lived in China between 2004 and 2007, and collaborated with Muhammad Yunus, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and IMPULSA 10' guest speaker, at the Grameen Bank (Bangladesh).
The future is co-, because in this increasingly complex world we need cross-collaboration between businesses, sectors and disciplines in order to find solutions to global challenges. With this endeavour in mind, Lotta Hassi participates from Finland in the co-society project, which is a network launched in Barcelona that brings together the best companies in various countries to combine their knowledge and generate innovation. She is an expert in using ‘design thinking’ outside the areas that have traditionally used design. Researcher and consultant in the Business, Innovation, Technology (BIT) Research Centre at Aalto University School of Science (Finland), she has mentored theses and student projects on innovation in Finland, Holland and Spain. She is a founding partner of SEOS Design Oy, a design and product development agency which works for important Finnish companies. She is currently working on a PhD on ‘Experiments in entrepreneurial initiative and design thinking as a driving force for innovation’ in Aalto University’s MIND research group.
Jean Claude Rodriguez-Ferrera is founder of four businesses; he set up his first one while he was still a student. He subsequently spent four years working with indigenous communities in Guatemala, where he founded Tesoros Mayas. In 2004, he began his largest project to date: Self-Financed Communities (CAF). In recognition of this initiative he has been chosen as a social entrepreneur by Ashoka International, and has been awarded various international prizes, including the CYEA award, which recognises the best creative young entrepreneurs in the world. CAF are communities in which partners provide microcredits to cover small but essential financial needs. Rodríguez-Ferrara graduated in Economics and holds a PhD in Microfinance. He has worked as a lecturer in several universities throughout the world. He is the author of the book Global Economy and Development and co-author of The Other Microfinance.
