Konnektid With Your Neighbors And Learn From Them
Sharing is caring. Konnektid, a start-up that wants to stimulate neighbors around the world to share their skills and knowledge, strongly believes in that saying.
The founders of the platform want to emphasize that the potential to learn anything is right in our own neighborhood, and that all we need is help discovering. So that’s where they come in with their online network of neighbors willing to share their knowledge of sports, language, or some other expertise.
In the past we could rent a video tape or a car, or borrow a bike from a friend, but it was never as easy as it is today to access goods, knowledge or time of people we otherwise consider strangers. The term used to describe this kind of socio-economic ecosystem is Sharing Economy. According to Benita Matofska, chief at The People Who Share, it is a system built around the sharing of human and physical resources. It includes the shared creation, production, distribution, trade and consumption of goods and services by different people and organizations and is often enabled by technology and peer communities. Technology, in this case, doesn’t isolate but helps bring people together.
At Konnektid they don’t accept money — instead they accept knowledge. By offering to teach someone something you know or are passionate about you can access the knowledge you need or learn something you’ve always wanted to learn. They are certain that everybody has a talent or at least a passion for something, so they think each one of us has something to offer. “Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don’t.”
How does it work? You register on their online platform, write of what knowledge you dispose and what would you like to learn. Konnektid then connects you with neighbors who can help you. If you don’t know yet what you want to learn, you can explore their database and see what kind of unique skills people around you are offering and contact them directly. In Chennai, India, you can learn chess, in Zürich how to play tennis, and in North Amsterdam there is a chef willing to teach you how to cook raw food.
By engaging in this kind of practice you’re not only accessing knowledge, but also puncturing the social bubble most of us live in and making meaningful connections, giving the faces you know names and stories. You also tighten the community ties and work towards building a trust inside it.
