Hub Bergen

This is the 8th day of my journey. I have been to Oslo and Bergen, and came back to Oslo yesterday afternoon after 7 hours amazing train ride with lakes, islands, mountains, glaciers, rain, snow, sheep, wetland, trees coming non-stop into your eyes. My computer just clashed last night, so photos will be uploaded after Jun 21st, when I got back home.

I really enjoyed my stay in Bergen. It's a vibrant lively student town. I sent 10 couchsurfing requests before I leave. And 7 have accepted me, which made me a bit embarrassed to decline the hospitality.

While wondering around the Bryggen area a small name tag on the letter box caught my eye. It reads "the Hub Bergen". I was careless enough to miss this on the Hub website, but I was glad that I ran into it anyway. I knocked on the door, Silje opened the door. After I explained my intention, she brought me a tour around the Hub, and we had a nice chat, and at the end of the meeting Silje helped connecting me to the Hub network with the founder, Simon from London, and the Hub in Stockholm for my next visit (however, because of the bus schedule, I decided to cancel my trip to Stockholm and go to Poland instead). Here are some thoughts I recorded from the interview:

1. The Hub needs to live its name. The name of the Hub was generated from the computer language which is a connection point for hardware. So the Hub in Bergen wants to act as a connection point for projects, members, NGOs, government, local people and all the other stakeholders. So it is important to keep both independent from the other parties, but also seek opportunity to develop together. It might be a coincidence that the Bryggen area was historically a trade hub in Bergen or Norway. So it is very meaningful for the Hub in Bergen to establish its base in this location.

2. The host of the Hub should also live its name and act as a connecting point between members and projects. The host should encourage the communication and transparency between the members. They could also pass on messages and inspirations between the members. Besides providing an environment that encourages communication, the host should also organize events to include all the members. The host should also keep a balance between the members enrolled into the Hub, so there would be the diversity desired. All this sounds very easy, but I can foresee it could be very difficult to deal with conflicts between the members, and be open and selective among the projects and members at the same time.

3. Social Enterprise usually have very complex business model. Besides the usual fund seeking and the revenue stream from space renting and membership fee, and a few add-ons like the HubShop, copy shop and beverages, the Hub needs to look for creative ways to generate revenue. One idea we explored during the interview is micro-finance. The Hub could publish the projects developed there through internet or other forms of publication, or organize some events to display and introduce all the on going projects, and invite all interested party to join. The purpose of such publication is to make it possible for anyone interested to invest any amount in the projects. It could help the project to live. Besides that, the Hub itself could act as a private equity and invest and have shares in the projects. But these are very rough ideas, which a lot of details need to be refined.

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And a small summary of my trip so far. I have not used plane yet, and I don't think I will need it as far as my plan goes. I forgot to fill my water bottle yesterday morning, so I ended up buying a bottled water. Shame.
My next stop will be Krakow, Warszawa, Gdansk in Poland, and then Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Salzbourg in Austria (if I have time), then go back to St. Gallen to collect my thesis topic from the school, visit the Hub in Zurich, then Koln and Frankfurt to visit some friends where I used to do my internship. Then it would be the end of my journey.