16th Berlin & Beyond Film Festival

Presented by Goethe-Institut SF: Experience Light, Love & Revolution at America’s premier festival of new cinema from Germany, Austria and Switzerland! Embark on an illuminating adventure at San Francisco’s legendary Castro Theatre! A dazzling roster of luminaries onstage will include Pepe Danquart, Michael Steiner, Nesrin Samdereli, Yasemin Samdereli, Andres Veiel and Sherwin Amini.

Highlights: Opening Night’s captivating comedy, Almanya - Welcome to Germany, of a multi-generational Turkish family in Germany setting off on a turbulent journey to their homeland; Centerpiece, Bold Heroes, about teenage boys in a Swiss hospital bravely facing an uncertain future together; The Poll Diaries, a coming-of-age epic of a girl living at the edge of World War I in the Baltics; Sennentuntschi, a sensationally-thrilling horror picture based on a popular Swiss Alpine folktale; The Fatherless, an Austrian drama about grown-up children of a former commune unearthing childhood secrets; Stopped on Track, about a family man diagnosed with an incurable disease and his last months of life; Joschka & Mr. Fischer, an insightful probe into postwar Germany through the eyes of a beloved political legend; and Closing Night’s If Not Us, Who - an enthralling tale of young revolutionaries during the explosive 1960s era. All foreign language films at Berlin & Beyond are presented with English subtitles.

Visit BerlinBeyond.com for Details, Updates & Tickets.

Questions? Call (415) 572-2075 or email festival@sanfrancisco.goethe.org

Admission Prices (except where noted):
• General Admission: $12.00
• Seniors 65+, Students (with ID): $10.00
• Matinee (before 3pm): $9.00
• DISCOUNT 10-FLIX VOUCHER: $90.00
• CASTRO PASS: $160.00

Eat, Pray, Love: the Formula for Women-Owned Business Success

On March 31, 2011, GABA Women in Business held another event with the topic “Eat, Pray, Love: the Formula for Women-Owned Business Success” at the headquarters of MindJet Corp. in San Francisco.

Featuring stories from entrepreneurial backgrounds, Britt Huber (HR consultant, Global Human Resources) lead an inspiring panel discussion together with Esther Nio (Founder of Esther’s German Bakery), Taryn Voget (CEO & Co-Founder of the Everyday Genius Institute), Marita Roebkes (Social Media Manager and Co-Founder of Xeesm Corp) and Toby  Beth Freedman (President of Synapsis Search), who each shared their experiences, tips and insights on how to run a successful business. The participants presented examples from their personal and professional lives, illustrating the specific challenges women deal with in running a business, and how to achieve a successful outcome.   

 Some of the key highlights:

·         Be passionate about your product or service: You should do what you love!

·         Do your homework: Running a successful business includes a detailed business plan, research your competitors, customers and how to make money.

·         Prioritize your work and be intensively focused

·         Build your own professional network: Being successful is not just about working hard, but about building a strong community that helps grow your business and connect with potential partners or vendors.

·         Ask for advise: Setting up Master-Mind groups and joining personal development workshops and women-in-business organizations serve as a source of information, networking and advice on issues related to your business. Available resources include Astra Women’s Business Alliance, ASTIA, Hatch Network, Biztech and SCORE.

The Vision of 100% Renewable Energy (2)

This is the 2^nd blog following up on Gaba’s event "The Vision of 100% Renewable Energy - commemorating Hermann Scheer" summarizing thoughts from Hermann’s last book. And, with Fukushima as a catalyst for the transformation of Germany’s energy system, his thoughts have gained even more actuality.

The big 4 German utilities are on defense, but will keep their general strategy: slowing down change forever. Together with their political supporters they will advocate gigantic projects like big offshore windparks in the Baltic Sea and huge transmission lines to southern Germany.

If they are successful, they will keep the central energy generation model and maintain control over energy generation and distribution. They also will be in charge of running those projects and make sure that they will be delayed. And, not a single kWh of renewable power will come from those projects until they are 100% completed.

But, we do not need those projects. Lifting the ban on wind energy in southern Germany and repowering old turbines alone would lead to 50% of all electricity in Germany coming from decentral wind alone (for calculation, see Scheer’s book).

PV, biomass and small hydro can supply another 10%, and 10% can be saved by increased efficiencies. 70% renewable until 2020.

Will the revolution happen at that pace? The policy decisions of the coming weeks are likely to have a huge impact. We can evaluate them by the number of players that they enable:

• The big 4 only, in offshore parks and transmission lines, which will not happen in this decade?
• Hundreds of small wind power developers, in areas opened up in southern Germany that so far blocked wind?

As Hermann Scheer pointed out: There is no win-win in moving to Renewable Energy. It can only be achieved if we face the conflict. Now is the time.

Fukushima - take action!

The concern about Japan's nuclear disaster seems much larger among Germany's public, press and politicians than in the US. And it also seems to be much more geared towards learning and action.

That is even true for Greenpeace. Their German website gives a couple a concrete suggestions of how everybody can contribute to ban nuclear energy - once and for all:

Make your protest visible: nuclear energy, no thanks!

- Add a "nuclear power - no thanks" sticker on your facebook picture.

http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=127528613970751

- Get tshirts, stickers, posters, flags with similar slogans. I did not find a US site yet, and so had to design my own tshirt.

Talk to your politicians!

- Write emails to your politicians

- Sign petitions like https://secure3.convio.net/gpeace/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=801&s_src=sidenav

- Sign up at www.votesolar.org

Make your own solar energy!

- In some areas, like Mill Valley, you can actually buy green electricity from you utility

- Get your own solar system on the roof or have companies like http://www.sunrunhome.com build and own them

Take action in your community!

Join demonstrations - more than 110.000 people went on the streets all over Germany just at the beginning of this week. Where are events happening close to where you live in the US?

I invite everybody to add links, events and organizations!

The Vision of 100% Renewable Energy (1)

This short series of blogs will be interesting to all participants of Gaba's event "The Vision of 100% Renewable Energy - commemorating Hermann Scheer" - and to those who are sad to have missed it.

I just finished reading Hermann's last book, "Der Energethische Imparativ". It is a fabulous analysis of how to transform the energy system - not in scientific theory, but in political practice. In the following blogs I will give a short summary of his ideas along with a changing focus on different chapters and a few own thoughts - as an appetizer for the book, not as replacement.

His main theses are:

1. Switching to Renewable Energy is as unavoidable as natural law

2. "Old Energy" changed strategy: from impeding to slowing down, from confrontation to becoming meek and mild.

3. One way of trying to slow change down forever are gigantic projects - good for PR, never going to happen, putting old energy back into the driver seat.

4. There is no win-win in moving to Renewable Energy. It can only be achieved if we face the conflict.

5. Accelerating the change to Renewable Energy requires a good understanding of the underlying system. The best measures increase the number of players and address a multitude of motives instead of just one. All other measures distract us and should not be pursued.

6. Germany can get 70% Renewable electricity until 2020, 100% until 2030. The measures are all known and proven. But the government is owned by big old energy.

7. And, those measures will be applicable in other countries to a large degree.

In the following blocks I will go into further detail for all of those theses - and share Hermann's sharp analysis and some astonishing facts.

How to build your Network in CA

I arrived in California in September 2008. In other words, when the plane touched down, Lehman Brothers came down. Welcome to America and “The Financial Crisis”. Coming from South Africa, we were seeking ‘the American dream’, but landed with a bump and things got off to a rough start for us.

My husband started his post doc at Stanford and I chased my own dreams. I quickly realised that in times of shortage and undersupply people rely even more heavily on their networks. Having just arrived in a new country, my networks were not in existence. Rather than focusing on finding a job, which were so hard to come by, I focused on meeting people. This can potentially be quite a challenge and quite overwhelming, but here are a few selected tips.

Firstly, start at a place close to you and that would probably be your spouse’s workplace. Ask people there for advice and listen carefully. That is how I found the Bechtel International Center at Stanford, a fabulous place, which offers advice, activities and programmes for spouses. I met wonderful people there and also had my first volunteer job.

Secondly, join clubs such as sport clubs or other clubs of your interest. I joined an aerobics class at Stanford and Toastmasters club in Palo Alto. The sporty activity provides you with energy and the Toastmasters club provides you with a platform to meet people and articulate your wishes and thoughts. For readers who don’t know the concept of Toastmasters, it is a club which provides you with the tools to improve your public speaking and leadership skills. These are useful tools to have when you live in a very outspoken well-articulated society.

Thirdly, you can join a language class and start to learn a new language. I considerably improved my Spanish while chasing around. Palo Alto Adult School offers great inexpensive courses. Through Craigslist you can always find a tandem – trading one language with another. Also look at the Stanford Continuing Education Programme.

Fourthly, find like-minded people and associations. I was so very lucky to find GABA, where I was able to meet lots of people and attend networking events. The other European organisations are also interesting and they organise numerous events. San Francisco has the Swissnex Organisation, the French American Chamber of Commerce, the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce and many more. Check them out and join them. Another great organisation to join is the World Affairs Council in San Francisco, which offers great networking opportunities. You can also become a volunteer and help out at the events.

Find new hobbies and join discussion groups. The website www.meetup.com is very developed in the Bay Area. You can find hiking groups, cooking groups, discussion groups and so much more. I joined a meditation group in Palo Alto and thoroughly enjoy the experience.

Lastly, I decided to start a blog. I realised that there is a lot of information out there when you working, but not enough when you are a spouse trying to build your life. The blog is called www.stanfordwives.com and addresses people who accompany their spouses to California, whether it is to work or study. The blog gives tips and tricks for spouses living in the Bay Area. Personalised experiences give information, which cannot be found on official websites. Through the blog I have met many people, even before they arrive in the Bay Area. Twitter and Facebook are also great tools.

I subsequently found a job and many friends along the way. My ‘near nightmare’ turned into a dream.

Please tell us how you created your network in California. Feel free to add on.