Could you tell us a bit about what Changers.com does? Please give a brief description of your company.
The Changers CO2 Fit App motivates citizens to use the bicycle instead of the car, walk more often, use public transport and take part in eco-friendly and healthy activities, where they learn more about waste reduction, healthy nutrition, energy saving, green mobility and much more. The Changers CO2 fit app automatically measures all activities, calculates the CO2 balances and rewards CO2 savings with Climate Coins, which can be redeemed against offers from city administration, public transport companies, municipality utilities, cultural institutions and local merchants.
What sets you apart and makes you unique?
We already released the Changers CO2 Fit software on the market in 2015 and are one of the pioneers in the field of climate change gamification.
We have gained experience in tokenized motivation of citizens in cities like Vienna, Bielefeld, Darmstadt, Düsseldorf, Münster and others.
For many years, we have been working with our partner MotionTag and their machine learning software for fully automated mobility data collection. This allows us to offer our customers an exceptional service in both participation motivation (Changers) and mobility data evaluation (MOTIONTAG).
Our software can be integrated into existing apps as a software development kit or provided as a stand-alone application.
All functions of the Changers City App can be controlled by the customer via our easy-to-use CMS.
We have developed Changers as a platform in order to integrate partners and also their services and products (via API, IOT, smart meter, etc) into the Changers gamification system against climate change. Think of Changers as an ecosystem.
Could you tell us a bit about you and your team?
Changers CO2 Fit was founded in 2012 by Daniela Schiffer and Markus Schulz as a startup in the field of tokenized incentives for sustainable mobility and environmentally friendly behavior.
Daniela Schiffer holds a Master of Fine Arts in New Media and has been CEO since 2019. She is responsible for key account management, product development and company building. Previously, she worked for many years in key account management at an agency for business reports.
Markus Schulz is an experienced designer, with over 20 years of agency experience. For more than 10 years, he was responsible for the visual appearance of the city of Frankfurt am Main in the field of environmental communication with his own agency. With Changers, he is now transferring the knowledge of citizen participation from an appealing approach to incentivized participation motivation. In 2010 he wrote the first software patents for this and in 2012 he developed the incentivization platform Changers.com together with his partner Daniela Schiffer.
Why is the Japanese market important to you?
Japan is one of the most advanced technology societies in the world with broad acceptance of new AI-based technologies.
Machine-human interaction is attracting great interest from the general population. If we combine this curiosity for new things with a sustainable CO2 bonus currency, we can have a big impact on climate change mitigation.
The green take-off into a sustainable economy needs mature IT systems for the integration of all stakeholders. Especially the big cities of Japan show a need to catch up in the development of infrastructure for green mobility, especially for a safe cycling infrastructure. Apart from Kyoto as a green showcase city, all cities in Japan were presented to us as being tailored for car traffic. To drive change, we need data and game-changing incentives to switch to the new systems. And, of course, it is clear to us that what is happening in Japan is a model for the entire Asian market.
What are you looking for to make your next steps?
Changers builds on partnerships. We develop and provide the IT systems and share our experiences from other cities. But we need strong local partners who can generate reach and are willing to test new things, develop them further and then take a pioneering role in the Asian market together with us.
