Hybrid teams are forming for good: Technology and Human.

I was at #CircularTextileDays , organized for the second time in the Netherlands last week. During the day, I had the chance to follow various talks, meet with startups, and listen to the issues and innovations in the field of circular textiles in the Netherlands.

Topics that attracted my attention;

• Although, in half of the conversations, dozens of damages that can be prevented during the design phase of the textile chain were mentioned, I could not come across a designer or design company in the event area and program.
• The circular economy is an economic model. Therefore, it is reasonable to focus on the stakeholders of the economy, such as producers and salespeople. But circularity is not just an economic issue. In addition to system change, a new generation life model proposal fundamentally concerns people and society, such as behavioral change, new relationship model proposals, and developing communities, will adopt these suggestions. Not having seen a content, speaker, or conversation topic about people in the event's program, in the transition from consumer to user made me worry. We are not discussing a system change as long as we see individuals as only customers. Although human-centered design failed with its lacking holistic perspective, I would still like to see the representation of people, communities, and neighborhoods who will benefit from the solutions and products offered. Preferably at least as much as the representation of the private sector and public institutions. Isn't it time to move away from the capitalist shallowness that evaluates people on their purchasing capacity?
• The increasing energy crisis was a topic that almost every speaker touched upon. Although the Netherlands is a bit ahead in the transition to green energy, the fact that we have become highly dependent on each other by globalization has made us think of our place in defending the values we adopt. Will the European Union be able to maintain its anti-war stance despite this lack of energy and the economic turmoil caused by this deprivation?
• One of the presentations I listened was about the circularity of the uniforms of municipal employees. Although my first reaction was it is very nice to have a thing to think about, I realized that I should not ignore the impact of solutions that focus on institutions and structures that touch thousands of people rather than B2C solutions that focus on one person.
• I've seen several exciting solutions, but I believe they may only function in The Netherlands. I would strongly recommend that the Dutch entrepreneurship ecosystem connect with newcomer entrepreneurs to get inspiration to develop products and services that work in other geographical and political realities. Who knows, this diversity may facilitate the rapid scaling of the Dutch entrepreneurship ecosystem and facilitate its growth in other countries.

Meet Drop & Loop

It's a growing startup focusing on textile waste collecting and sorting. Only 1% of the textile produced in the world is recycled. We throw away the remaining 99%. The "dump" is not a black hole or an extraplanetary space. The dump is actually a piece of land. We send the clothes we do not wear to the gardens of countries such as India and Ghana.

According to Drop & Loop, 150 million kilos of clothes are burned annually in the Netherlands alone. Drop & Loop developed an enabler machine that you can throw your unwanted textile in it. The devices are placed in contracted stores, and you get a valid discount coupon in that store for the clothes you give directly.

What happens to the waste afterward? The wearable ones of the collected clothes are offered for sale, and the rest are turned into rope and then into new textile products.

Meet Cosh

Cosh set out by doing a job we are familiar with. They have a beautifully working map, so you can shop from sustainable brands. They also have a nice selection ranging from clothing to furniture. One of the most interesting new features of Cosh, which currently has active maps for the Netherlands and Belgium, is that they have included tailors on this map. It is a great facilitator tool that makes it easier for you to find a tailor near you, by which you can search by the type of product to be repaired. I sincerely believe this feature will have a qualitative impact on mass behavior change.

Meet Kozalak

How can we prevent forest fires, which have become one of the constant problems of almost every Mediterranean country due to the climate crisis, with the cooperation of humans and technology?

Kozalak is an initiative that won awards from almost all impact-oriented entrepreneurship competitions organized in Istanbul last year. We can say that it is the work of an inventor who could not remain indifferent to the forest fires caused by the heat waves, which we grasp the seriousness of in recent years. The startup focuses on the early detection of forest fires by measuring toxic substances and flammable gases in the air with its apparatus attached to trees and sending information to the control center.

Meet BehaVR

Fear and anxiety are paralyzing emotions. Most of the time, it also requires facing it in order to overcome it. BehaVR uses the knowledge that our perception of reality is a series of accepted reflections in our brains and helps us liberate ourselves by confronting some of the "facts" we fear and shy away from through VR. Our mind accepts what our eyes see as our reality after a while. It makes a positive contribution to our own mental well-being by enabling us to face in a virtual space our various fears and anxieties that we can only overcome by experiencing it again and again in real life. In particular, it focuses on curing the cause rather than managing toxic stress, often triggered by learned causes.

I hope you enjoyed what you've read. Please share it with your friends, who may enjoy it as you do, and let me know if you know of any impact-oriented design solution that should be part of my curation. Cheers!