SEPTEMBER 2018

The social enterprise asked 25,000 customers
to pay €325 each in advance for the world’s first
ethical smartphone, which they were ready to do,
even though it was a new organisation which had
never built a phone before. The initiative raised
€8m and turned a profit after releasing its first
handset, which enabled it to produce a second,
larger batch the following year, and eventually to
develop the Fairphone 2.
“We need to find a way to match or replicate
these collaborations that is consistent with
co-op values,” said Mr Woodell.
Co-ops are less risky by nature, he added, partly
because they have a culture of volunteering,
collaboration, and open-source – and present fewer
moral hazards.
“We are innovators and if we have the right
projects, there may be possibility of state
support,” he told delegates.
The conference also explored potential
mechanisms to raise the start-up capital to
develop platforms without compromising
co-operative values. One suggestion was to
issue tokens: people could buy them in advance,
contributing to the co-op’s start-up capital. The
enterprise would then issue tax credits and attach
these to a digital system when the member is
using the service provided by the co-op.
Another idea is to pay profits in a digital currency
that could then be reinvested.
Simon Borkin, programme development lead
at Co-operatives UK, recommended federated
decentralised solutions and creating local co-op
markets where people want to use capital locally.
Delegates agreed that while having one central
entity managing a global platform was not the
best option, more collaboration within the sector
was needed for platform co-operative projects.
Mapping the co-operative and solidarity economy
A number of projects are under way to create
common comprehensive directories to link the
co-operative movement together.
Cooperatives Europe, the regional office of the
International Co-operative Alliance, is working
on Means4End, a map of platform co-operatives
in Europe. Project officer Louis Cousin said this
will be a one-stop source for platform goods and
services in Europe, It needs funding of €1m, which
Cooperatives Europe has yet to secure.
“We are entering an era of data,” said Mr Cousin.
“We want to use the movement of open data to
provide digital services that would make it useful
for organisations and co-ops to feed data.”
One co-op is already mapping tech
organisations. Member-owned and run, the
Digital Life Collective researches, develops, funds
and supports Tech We Trust: technologies that
prioritise autonomy, privacy and dignity.
Co-founder Laura James said the co-op is
developing multiple maps of decentralised tech
and technology organisations that can be trusted.
“We think maps are useful when decentralised
in their curation” she added. “We want to
represent the richness of organisations.”
Meanwhile, the Solidarity Economy Association
is looking to map solidarity economy initiatives.
Its chair, Colm Massey, said the map shows local
and national organisations.
Getting access to information about local
solidarity economy organisations can be difficult,
he added, but the association is looking to
form a steering group to lead the project. Those
interested in taking part can write to Mr Massey at
colm@solidarityeconomy.coop.
Dr Rory Ridley-Duff, professor of Co-operative
Social Entrepreneurship at Sheffield Hallam
Business School, highlighted the difficulties in
trying to map similar organisations, particularly
around agreeing a definition across languages.
Mapping is also a core part of Open Co-op’s
mission. It wants to build a comprehensive
directory and map of all organisations within
the co-operative, collaborative and solidarity
economies. Co-founder Oliver Sylvester-Bradley
said that, while trying to map individuals is hard
due to GDPR legislation, mapping organisations
is not.
“This is going to be achieved by creating a
shared scheme and we all agree what to publish
on it,” he said.
p Speakers Louis Cousin, Laura James, Colm Massey and Tom Ivey
26 | SEPTEMBER 2018