About us

We are Betahaus. We are a product of a transformation process that has a strong and sustainable impact on economy, society and politics. Call us flexible knowledge-based highly-skilled  brain workers or simply digital bohemians. Call us social computing consultants or simply the architects of the second century of the information age.

We are one of the first generations that grew up as digital natives and in contrast to our parents social computing is nothing we merely use, it is something we live. There is no difference for us between online and offline communication. We use whatever means of communication that is needed.

What we believe in

We believe that we are at the beginning of a fundamental shift of how human beings socially interact with the help of technology. We prefer calling it by the name social computing.

The effects are very visible already and it seems that the awareness for this complex change is raising in economy and in society as well as in politics. But this doesn't necessarily mean that those shareholders fully understand what this means for them and how to react to this development.

From our perspective this shift can't be described only by causally looking at the technical evolution or at the economic circumstances. It is always the individual and her social integration in her network, embedded into a variety of possibly usable means of communication that has to be taken into account more than everything else.

Furthermore we believe in the wisdom of crowds and the long tail and the benefits of free culture and diversity. Our work is based on basic understanding of network effects and it's wealth and with deep respect for the power of Code and the strong conviction that every software should be open source and not proprietary.

Where did we come from

We recognised at some point that we seemed to know more than most of the people around us about the principles of social computing and this new advanced technical world. We helped people with their problems regarding the use of all those new techniques and behaviours that users tend to show nowadays.

In the beginning it was not more than a hobby, because giving advice to somebody and being appreciated is a great value itself. It happened that our help was requested more frequently from day to day and we became better and more professional in helping. We realised that we needed Betahaus.

Betahaus is a reaction to the rising number of requests as well as the answer to our personal desire to increase the quality of our work. In Betahaus we work together with a lot of like minded people that we have met on our way. Betahaus is more a process than a finished product while development itself is driven by the concept of social networking both internally as well as externally.

We, the people of Betahaus do what we do because it is our passion. At the same time we know how rare this is and we are very happy that it is already working for us. Still, we believe that this is just the beginning.

How we work

Since our work started as something very natural that seamlessly integrated into our lives and happening while just "talking" to people we took this as one of our basic principles regarding our work.

1. First sit down and talk to see if we can help you help yourself
2. Develop the product together with the target group (beta principle / Open source)
3. Making it sustainable (support / training / education)
4. Further development (processual consulting / long term)
5. We are not perfect, we learn every day thanks to you

Betahaus NGO

Betahaus NGO is the first and central legal body of those that will hold Betahaus. Betahaus NGO is a Swedish NGO, founded in 2007 under the following adress:

Betahaus NGO
Ersmässgränd 16
S-129 43 Hägersten
Sweden
Registration code: 802439-0430

We have offices in Stockholm and Berlin.

People

Anders Hultman
Management-, economy-, law- and IT-consultant with a formidable experience of managing NGO:s, projects and other professional work groups. Anders draws upon experience from organisations such as LSU, CIU, Sverok and Quickfix.

Anna Westerling
Engineer and culture sciences in one. Project manager within the NGO and culture sector. Have produced events, books, conferences and more.

Christoph Fahle
Besides trying to push forward all his little ventures, he helps people to integrate the principles of social computing into their work, life and organisations. In the past he founded a hiphop band, a shirt label and a social incubator/think tank called 'Politikfabrik'. And now he works with the work place of the future:Betahaus coworking.

Fernando Guillem Ortiz
Fernando has studied Computer Science in the UPV (Polytechnical University of Valencia), and it's currently finishing his Master at KTH, major in Computer Graphics and Visualization. Meanwhile he's working as an intern in both Webworks and Betahaus. In the past he worked as an intern in his home university doing some graphic design.

Joaquín Juan Toledo
Joaquín studied Telecommunications Engineering at UPV (Spain), as well as at KTH (Sweden). Currently he's developing his Master Thesis within the Wireless department @ KTH. Besides that, he's working as an intern in Betahaus and Webworks.

Luís Maqueda Ara
Luis has a background in Computer Engineering, studied at: CPS Zaragoza (Spain) and KTH Stockholm (Sweden). His education, Bachelor and Master Program, is mainly focused in IT and software engineering. Currently Luis is working as intern in Betahaus and Webworks.

Martin Lundwall
Martin Lundwall studied Information Technology at KTH Stockholm. He also has international experience from both work and study at Tokyo University. Since 2008 Martin is working fulltime at Betahaus and Webworks.

Robin Harms Oredsson
IT and Open Source background + roots in the NGO community. Has also worked as a teacher and lecturer in as diverse areas as Linux, Online activism, Math and social networks. Currently works full time with Betahaus and Webworks, mostly doing project management and development with Plone.

Tonia Welter
Tonia Welter studied product Design at the UdK Berlin. Since the beginning of 2008 she operates a small label for “hardware Fashion” in Berlin. She sells her USB decoration to the whole world and cofounded the work place: Betahaus coworking in Berlin.