Ulmer Nest/Sleeping Pods

A German city of Ulm, tests wind and waterproof sleep pods for the homeless this comes from interesting engineering so Germany which I actually didn't know this despite having a population the size that's roughly a quarter of the united states has a reported staggering 860 000 homeless inhabitants which I was kind of surprised by because I saw that united states is roughly in the middle 500 thousands which obviously you don't want homeless people in general so it's kind of sad that there's that many people especially in Germany that's smaller than the united states having this many homeless people part of their population that's really sad but the exciting thing behind this is that there is a company now called ulmer nest that's trying to make a difference for these homeless people by introducing a windproof and waterproof futuristic sleeping pod that the homeless can freely access which is really cool it seems like from the images which will be in the show notes itself so go check them out you can check out the images of the sleeping pod itself seeming like it is a smaller pod and seems like it's easy to create so to speak and has the ability to be flexible and put into different locations which is really cool so these pods were introduced back in January 8th of 2020 and they proved to be useful and successful to be rolled out nationwide that's why this is exciting they're talking about the possibility of moving this forward now that we're basically a year later they basically created a process to make these sleeping pods that now we can roll it out worldwide and have homeless people actually sleeping in different pods without sleeping out on the street or taking up space in different parks or different areas we can have specific areas where this is located for people that are homeless that are struggling to actually be able to sleep soundly and not you know be worried about waking up and it's raining or any of those issues that they run into which I don't know but I’m sure it's not a fun life so the specs on the pod itself if you're curious so there's wood and steel cabins providing protection against the cold wind and humidity it's equipped with thermal insulation making it warm they guarantee that there's going to be fresh air circulating through the pod because obviously you don't want stale air if you're sitting in this small pod that can only sleep two people you would want air circulated through it there's also solar panels that provide heating to the pod itself and like I said before they can accommodate a maximum of two sleepers in the pod itself so that's actually really cool that they accommodate for people that want to sleep together essentially and they have a lot of different aspects to keep people warm and block the cold from getting to these homeless people so that's really cool additionally they have an installed motion sensor alert so that they can essentially alert social workers to understand when the doors open and when they essentially shut and sort of gives these workers that are going to clean out these pods because I think they obviously would have to clean them out every day for anybody that's living there or sleeping there they would like to clean them out for other people to go there it would give them notification of when they went in when they left so they're able to have that time space to go clean it out for anybody else that can utilize it because you don't want if some people are sick you want to be able to clean it out to make sure that diseases aren't spread so to speak or clean it out so you don't want people living in crappy pods I mean we're stuck homeless at least making these pods nice for them that's just my opinion additionally these pods have a radio network that the homeless people can utilize to get in touch with the team overseeing the actual cabins so I guess if anything goes wrong they can utilize it to phone who actually is controlling these cabins to say they need medical help or any other issues that they're having then they can phone out if maybe if the pods not opening that's definitely important to be able to contact people on the outside to come help them out and finally the company emphasizes that this initiative is not a replacement for a stay in hostel or a safe house but rather as an alternative and last option for those who really have nowhere else to go and I think that's really important that these are our last option there's a last resort this is not going to be just all over the place I presume I guess it's just placed here and there it's choosing specific spots so people can actually sleep if they can't get to a safe house can't get to these other shelters where they can sleep for the night and they're able to go to these pods and I think this is just a great thing that this company is doing I think it's just awesome we need more companies out there that are solving these types of problems in different ways and looking at doing this and I was thinking of adding on to this project so to speak I’m not part of the project itself but just sort of spitballing ideas of what we can utilize this to make it maybe more of a marketplace so to speak make it more of a thing that companies would be interested in promoting maybe or being a part of is that maybe you can start utilizing this as an advertising space I mean think about it if these pods are all over the place it's sort of like a billboard but on land I mean start utilizing this as advertising space start selling it out to other companies and say hey you can build good pr by sponsoring these homeless pods and people will say hey that's actually really good I think that's a really good idea start utilizing this to have companies sponsor that pod and maybe put some money towards your company start building up better pods and I think this could be a win-win for everybody advertisements companies always want to advertise their products you can utilize that the people that are creating these pods aren't just doing it out the goodness of their heart they're actually getting paid and then the homeless people obviously benefits and if that's the thing is if this proves to be in actually a good advertisement space for companies you could see this popping up more and more because they would want to contribute more and more if they're seeing a benefit for advertising on these pods which would be great in my opinion just have companies start contributing to this start putting forward good vibes essentially and start helping out people that need help and then my final thing for continuing with this idea besides just advertisements is maybe you can start utilizing this because I saw it I saw the pod I was looking at the images and it seemed like you're utilizing a small space for the solar panels to keep it warm so what if you can utilize the rest of the space because it's like a hexagonal shape hexagonal prism is what if you can utilize that space and start adding other solar panels to that area and if you have enough of them all throughout and you strategically place it in areas that get a lot of sunlight is now you can start utilizing that to grab a lot of power and maybe instead of just powering that homeless pod you can start pumping that into the city pumping that into different areas allowing for more renewable energy start utilizing these pods as ways of conducting power for the city itself and utilizing it for renewable energy I think that could also be a beneficial thing that you're now strategically placing it not just for the homeless people but obviously you're going to place it in parks where a lot of times it could be out in the open where sunlight is constantly hit it and you can then utilize it as a way of absorbing power before people actually even use it you can absorb more power than what the pod needs and starts giving that to other parts of the community and I think that also is a really interesting aspect that could be utilized for these pods so hopefully this company is listening to me right now because I’m just throwing out wonderful ideas first talk to some companies get some advertising space so you can make money and then start implementing more solar panels so then you can start providing power to other parts of the community that need it and I think that's really awesome and hats off to this company for thinking of a way of solving this problem of homeless people sleeping out when it's freezing cold I think this is an amazing thing that the company did and I think it's just awesome and I kind of want to end it on that positive note that this company is doing.