Check out the highlights from Rookie of the New Year! These unique opportunities for to discover something new in 2013 can be found on Uniiverse! 

Video includes: Suspension yoga, 3D Printing Workshop, Silkscreening Workshop, and a Demo of Molecular Gastronomy! What a hoot! 

Sharing: More than just a pre-school lesson

In kindergarten we were taught the importance of sharing and its purpose has become much more than making friends and avoiding playground tiffs. Our capacity to share will have a huge impact on our future, and recent trends are showing a shift in the right direction. The sharing economy revolution is under way!

The Problem

The gap between rich and poor is growing and accelerating; the environment is suffering, and as a result happiness is withering. It can be argued that all of these issues can relate in one way or another, to our capacity as societies to share assets. Are we sharing enough to make a difference?

Perceptions of consumerism are being re-evaluated. Does having more stuff truly make us happier, or does it hinder our time, space, and bank accounts? Society has put ownership and ego above access, experiences, and convenience. With recent economic and environmental struggles, this attitude is no longer efficient.

The Solution

The term sharing economy is soon to become omnipresent. It argues that sharing assets, such as our belongings, space, skills, time, and resources, can have not only economic and environmental benefits, but can also increase happiness, overall well-being, and create stronger communities. Sharing is an activity that can solve so many problems and provide so many benefits at once.

Several reports have shown there is a desire to share within our society on a larger scale but most are not good at it or don’t know how. Technology and the social web are going to play the most dominant role in the sharing revolution. Our online sharing habits have made people more open to the idea of sharing off-line.

Uniiverse is providing a solution for those with a desire to share with the new platform for collaborative living. Sharing in the physical realm is now made easy. As a person-to-person marketplace for services and activities, Uniiverse enables anyone to share what they have to offer, or discover what they wish to find.

• Do you have a guitar that sits around collecting dust? Share it
• Are you a yoga enthusiast looking to teach your passion? Share it
• Is there extra room in your car for your drive to New York? Share it
• Can you teach people how to cook? Share it
• Does your garden have extra room for someone to plant on? Share it
• Have a parking spot that you never use during the day or at all? Share it

The shift from hyper consumption to collaborative consumption is happening; are you going to be a part of it? Let’s make a dent in the Uniiverse together.

What will Ü share?

We’ve launched!

In the increasingly virtual world of today, people have lost the habit of meeting up with friends for a coffee to talk over the day’s events. Instead, friends reconnect with our smartphones. Ever wondered why, with over 500 Facebook friends, some people still feel lonely, spending most of their waking life in front of a screen? You are not alone. Here is where Uniiverse, the world’s first platform for collaborative living, comes in. 

Uniiverse is not a social network. Doing away with status updates and virtual friends, we take an offline approach with users. The reason? We don’t want to see you glued to the screen, your face an eerie pale-blue against the dim light it emanates. Instead, we want you to be outside, feeling the sun on your face, developing bonds with real people, and enjoying a collaborative lifestyle. If you want to gain further insight into our vision, watch the manifesto video.

Uniiverse is the only platform that allows anyone to share any kind of real-life activity or service, and, to make this even better, it’s absolutely free to post. Users can specify what they are offering, the price they want to charge (could be free), and when the event or service is happening. People can then instantly discover, book and pay for the listing through the website. This way, Uniiverse empowers anyone to become an entrepreneur, meet like-minded people, share their passions and, most importantly, live a smarter, happier, more sustainable lifestyle.

With Uniiverse, opportunities are endless:

• Organize a jogging group to join you on your morning run, a tapas party or a yoga session
• Share your knowledge by offering a service, such as a photography workshop, a language lesson or a sushi-making class
• Use your free time efficiently, and make extra money by posting your availability for errand running, babysitting, or pet walking
• Share the objects you rarely use, such as a guitar, a drill or a bike
• Rent out your space when you are away, or offer an unused parking spot
• Organize a ride-share to save money on gas, while helping the environment

Uniiverse promotes trust and creates a safe environment for sharing experiences offline. The platform enables people to get a full understanding of each other’s trustworthiness by showing social proximity (mutual friends), ratings, reviews and participation across categories.

Through this platform, Uniiverse is resurrecting old marketplace behaviors, such as sharing, on a scale that has never before been possible. We are building the sharing economy, where access and experiences are more important than ownership. This movement will help the environment, alleviate global financial issues, build stronger communities and make you smile, even on a Monday.

The sharing revolution begins today. Courtesy of Uniiverse.

“Why are we here”, building uniiverse?

With Uniiverse, we’re building a user-to-user platform that enables collaborative living.  We want to create something profound…

• A place where people can explore, share, and trust each other again 
• A place that enables people to reconnect with friends, neighbors or people who are just passionate about the same things
• A place that saves you time so that you have more time for what truly matter to you
• A place that puts a smile on your face 

As we started thinking about how people interact, consume, and work, we realized there was a tendency towards “more”.  “More” is the simple answer.  It has been drilled into us subconsciously and repetitively for generations. It’s a cycle. Work more, to earn more, so that you can spend more, requiring more goods produced and creating more jobs… so that the populus can work more.

But is this really the solution? Is that cycle improving what really matters in our lives? Consumerism has become a culture – with governments urging us to shop and businesses creating goods that are increasingly perishable and rapidly obsolete. 

Being an “ethical” consumer and citizen is the first step in the right direction. An increasing number of businesses are also making significant progress in that direction. However, digging deeper into the societal issues such as consumerism makes us believe happiness comes from how we interact with each other, not how much we own.

In addition to its deep impact on interpersonal relationships, the pursuit of “more” also has impacts on environmental and societal sustainability.  The pursuit of economic growth itself is unfounded if the world is not a happy place for future generations.  In fact, it may be such growth that has pushed our world into a phase of uncertainty with respect to climate change, energy needs and the integrated impact on world economies.  We now need to devise new, creative approaches towards development and these global issues.

Our vision is to flip the traditional notion of consumerism towards a sharing economy.

“It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness.”

-Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892)

Social interactions have evolved dramatically in the past 10 years. From the widespread adoption of online social networks, to the constant flow of information, technology is playing an increasingly important role in defining how people interact and spend their time. You may feel more connected. You probably are. But, aren’t things just becoming more virtual and superficial? 

Is this making you feel happier? How often do we meet, and how well do we know our 500+ friends or followers? In today’s increasingly virtual world, it is becoming more and more difficult to meet people in genuine ways.

Our vision is to harness this foundation of technology to encourage real-life interactions, in the real world, amongst real people.

We believe everyone has something extraordinary to offer and share. 

Let’s create a movement together