Happy Farm is a partner of the event

Kyiv, Ukraine, August 23-25.

Celebrating the energy exploration spirit of Nikola Tesla, Greencubator brings together energy hackers for creating sustainable and climate-friendly solutions in the unique hackathon setting at TeslaCamp: off-grid renewables-powered camp on Desna river near Kyiv.

Imagine Nikola Tesla failing at his revolutionary alternate current (AC) project - and we could be still stuck in the direct current era. Today we are stuck with fossil fuels, energy waste, crappy utilities, lack of energy innovation and other things, described by Peter Thiel and Garry Kasparov in their FT article as “stagnation of energy”. We believe that hacker spirit is essential to revitalize innovations in the energy sector. Nikola Tesla was the ultimate hacker. So TeslaCamp is about recreating Tesla’s excitement of experimentation and igniting curios minds to solve world’s energy challenges together.

TeslaCamp connects renewable energy professionals and enthusiasts, programmers, smart-grid experts, 3D-modelling pros, energy researchers, environmentalists and sustainability activists for creating prototypes of sustainable energy solutions. Open-air environment facilitates dynamic mixing of hackathon ideas and teams formation.

Cleantech experts and investors, mentors from Ukraine’s leading business incubators, founders of inspiring green startups and initiatives, community leaders and activists will provide challenges and guidance for hackathon teams. TeslaCamp hackers already announced project topics in 3D solar sites modeling for optimal insolation (using copters and 2D photography), micro inverters, cradle-to-cradle architecture using shipping containers, efficient lighting, peer-to-peer selling of reclaimed construction materials and other ideas.

Social innovations meet tech creativity @TeslaCamp

“Where social innovations power tech creativity” is the core slogan of the TeslaCamp. We believe behavioral changes (or behavioral hacks :) can generate significant energy saving and lower the pressure of our civilization on climate. TeslaCamp community will pay special attention to social innovations and change triggers for supporting sustainable transportation, energy usage, waste management, renewable energy and energy efficiency promotion and other soft changes.

We look forward to projects empowering energy cooperatives, energy-smart condominiums, renewable energy projects, open-source energy and other exciting things created at TeslaCamp

Open-Air. Off-grid. Renewables-powered. Hacker-friendly

“One of the coolest things about TeslaCamp is running it completely off-grid and powering only by renewable energy, mostly solar power. It means the very deployment of the event venue and all the systems is a hacking effort, from installing mini-solar-power-plant to setting a presentation zone, hackathon workshop and wireless internet channel for streaming and connectivity”  - says Roman Zinchenko, TeslaCamp host and co-founder of Greencubator  NGO.

“All kinds of energy geeks are expected – from high-level professionals, working in well-established companies to die-hard DIY energy enthusiasts, students and startup founders  creating  the “next big energy thing” in their basement labs” - adds Andrij Zinchenko, another co-founder of Greencubator and author of the original event format. “And when all of these great audiences mix together something really uncommon and truly innovative emerges.” - adds Andrij.

Telling the green story - empowering community

In addition to great community and hackathon, TeslaCamp also focuses on telling the stories of innovators, inventors and startups, building solutions for energy future. “This is one of the core ideas of the event – invigorate the makers by spreading the word about great minds working calmly on energy breakthroughs in their labs in Ukraine and across the world, by connecting them and recognizing their efforts” - says Roman Zinchenko.

“In addition to smart energy solutions, created in Ukraine, we see huge potential in developing engineering communities in the energy field. We drive a lot of inspiration from community-based projects like Open-source Ecology or SolarFire, and are excited to have SolarFire’s Urs Riggenbach among TeslaCamp speakers. We see a lot of potential for communities of makers and hackers to enrich the life of communities they belong to - both on local and global levels” - adds Andrij Zinchenko, who also founded community-powered open-source energy lab EnergyTorrent.

Partners and supporters

TeslaCamp is supporterd by the US Embassy in Ukraine, Activ Solar, HackerSpace community,  renewable energy association “Alternative”. The hackathon prize fund is sponsored by “National Credit” Bank. Platfor.ma is TeslaCamp’s event partners, some design ideas are inspired by Skliarevsky Orierntation Systems. TeslaCamp forms a Ukrainian node of international network CleanWeb.

History

TeslaCamp emerges on a platform of 11 similar open-air renewables-powered un-conferences called EnergyCamp, organized by Greencubator across Ukraine in 2009-2012. EnergyCamps covered a number of energy and sustainability-related topics, and had its off-grid camp set up across the country - from Ukraine's first energy smart village to popular Jazz Koktebel international festival in Crimea.

“Every time during EnergyCamp we had a lot of positive feedback and a whole bunch of enthusiastic hackers with an itch to create. The great speakers and unofficial discussions-by-the-fire kept inspiring a lot of project ideas, and we’ve been dreaming about actually creating some practical projects and components during the event, so we added the hackathon component” - explains Roman Zinchenko.

EnergyCamp community has over 1200 green energy activists and over 100 volunteers. TeslaCamp will be a new page – from the energy forum to co-creation of sustainable smart-energy projects.

Join TeslaCamp here http://teslacamp.ticketforevent.com/en/

Contacts:

For additional info contact Roman Zinchenko

                roman@greencubator.info

                +380 67 4492876

                Skype zinchenko_roman

Greencubator presentation http://www.slideshare.net/greencubator/greencubator-presentation-in-english

TeslaCamp presentation http://www.slideshare.net/greencubator/tesla-camp-presentation