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Profile: Ineke Aquarius
Ineke Aquarius is co-founder and programme director of Butterfly Works, an innovative ‘Do Tank’ that is developing sustainable solutions to social issues around the world. And doing so successfully. Many countries are beginning to find their creative use of the new media very handy; for example, the successful Web design training courses for the youth in the slums of Nairobi, referred to as NairoBits, setting up ‘Return to Sender’ and developing the computer software for the XO, the "one laptop per child". Every new initiative starts off a chain reaction that amplifies the scope of their ideas: a positive chain of events. This has yielded award-winning international projects in countries such as Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, South Africa, India and the Netherlands.
Company name:
Butterfly Works
Company founding date:
2004
Place of business:
Amsterdam
Names of founders:
Emer Beamer, Hester Ezra, Ineke Aquarius
Ages of founders:
38, 38 and 34 respectively
About the company:
Butterfly Works is a ‘Do Tank’ in which designing and contributing towards finding solutions to international social issues go hand in hand. We believe in the boundary-shifting operation of design linked to content and in working on solving social problems from the framework of a business structure.
We do not provide first-aid, but try to improve people’s quality of life. We do that by developing products from start to finish.
Current projects:
1. Words over Weapons: www.wordsoverweapons.com in South Africa and NL.
2. Learning about Living: www.learningaboutliving.com in Nigeria.
3. SMS supporting democracy in Kenya.
4. Butterfly Academy.
5. Bits projects in Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Nairobits www.nairobits.com and www.nairobitsblog.blogspot.com and Zanzibits: www.zanzibits.com/blog AddisBits.
6. Return to Sender: www.returntosender.nl.
7. Children’s book: Hier woon ek! En jij? (This is where I live! And you?) www.hierwoonik.com in Kenya and Morocco.
8. Kilimanjaro Film Institute: www.kilimanjarofilm.org in Tanzania.
9. Made in Fez, Morocco www.changingthechange.org/abstracts/abs252.pdf
Source of inspiration:
Too many to mention, and there is a constant flood of new sources of inspiration going around: Reggio Emilia, Cradle to Cradle, Eckart Wintzen, Oprah Winfrey, Kundalini Yoga, Hester and Emer ...
My big idea:
Making development cooperation, fair trade, etc. independent of subsidies.
Favourite tools:
Mobile telephone, laptop and espresso machine
Favourite website:
www.google.com.
Hobby:
Yoga and good food and drinks
Best advice I ever received:
First try to understand, then try to make yourself understood.
Only positive messages.
Biggest blunder:
See previous point :)
As an ambassador of Amsterdam, I would...
want to come up with a whole lot of positive points to communicate.
Company website:
www.butterflyworks.org
Company email address:
Web 2.0:
www.linkedin.com.