Introducing ecologitex

Greetings to the Hive Blockchain

Finally decided to introduce myself to this Blockchain after I was fed up and felt coerced into having to tailor my opinion to suit the corporate social media narrative.

Watching this project for the past 4 Years, I think Hive is probably the best example for Community Governance when mentioning Blockchain Technology. Specially considering last years hard fork. I am aware Hive came a long way.

Convinced that dPoS has it's merits, delegation and the ability to support others is not it's only leverage in a social setting. By curation, evaluating content, is a smart way of mining. With plagiarism discouraged, hive shakes off a lot of consumerism and encouraged creative publications. Bad actors rarely prevail on this blockchain and it doesn't take much reading to notice this. Hive gamification promotes engagement and one can read about relationships being created in so many comments.

The idea of lending power and supporting projects to get off the ground unravels in a completely revolutionary way and shapes these relationships. I realise profoundly how this goes beyond value motivated solely by incentives. I see great potential in Hive.

When you register a company or an association in the midst of disruptive technologies like blockchain, the question whether you really need a bank account becomes superfluous. Specially when money can be decentralised and programmed. I began to see this many years ago.

When working in a trade that is fundamentally rigged by middle men industries, I quickly began to see how cryptocurrencies and specially their underlying technologies will change the world. I embrace a world without violence, respecting all living being, promoting biodiversity and a humanity living in harmony with nature. The company I formed being a sort of gatekeeper itself, I noticed how many inefficient operations could be replaced through decentralised databases, immutable ledgers and booking systems that could be compared to DEX's.

Today I realise that these industries should be public, open markets and decentralised. People should be given back their choice. Big data handled autonomously and securely allowing ai to sort and to streamline the flow of information improves efficacy. The input of energy and efforts with maximum yield will solve the current dilemma.

A Journey into Organic Textiles

My name is @shaleen and before I formed ecologitex as a company in 2014, I started working at a textile factory in India in 2006 that made woven shirts. My Business plan actually dates back to 2009. With prior experience in other branches of a supply chain, such as logistics, buying and import, I finally moved to India to get into pattern making, fashion illustration and worked in exports. Initially I planed to start a brand and get into fashion design. After some experience at the factory, I got a job as their lead merchandiser.

Surprised at working conditions and processes, I had some shocking experiences when it came to manufacturing that gave me a mission. I quickly began the study of how to eliminate social and environmental hazards. Luckily certifications and Audits were already in place at some forward thinking factories. Apart from fair wages and organic cotton, which was still emerging at the time, I began to write a business plan that focuses on clean supply chains that encourage consolidation, group purchase orders and using manufacturers powered by renewable energy.

My business plan was solely focused on providing services to existing labels. Offering a one stop service, facilitating and managing supply chains, it covered various aspects of product design, sourcing, production planing, execution and to door delivery. I decided to post pond my dream of a brand for apparels.

I spent a long time living in India and specialising on locating various service providers such as various manufacturers(even GMP's for organic food), NVOCC's, Freight Forwarders and acquiring knowledge, until I had a clear view of how I could create efficient supply chains. I worked at spinning mills while taking part in inspections, went to organic cotton fields to see cultivation and learned some interesting skills. While visiting rail freight terminals, calculating every gram of emission that could have been saved, I imagined if carbon credits could cover the extra cost for existing eco-friendly alternatives. I got in touch with associations and reached out to find mutual synergies. At the time I was a bit too early for that.

By taking a step further, I made sure to use containers that weren't full. Their seamless transits to the same destination offered an opportunity. I went a mile to ensure I could save emissions targeting weekly transits, essentially hitching rides by filling available space. I based my company on doing prints that were PVC and Plastisol free, working with manufacturers for whom this was more than integral to their business practices along with social compliance.

Being completely transparent with my buyers, they know my suppliers. I think this kind of trust is imperative when working with organic textiles and manufacturers with a high regards to socio economic working standards.

While creating a company that caters to anyone, I tried to take a neutral stance when it comes to my services. Usually I buy services directly. These often change hands twice or even more until they reach buyers locally. When to use what incoterm is an art of it's own. To facilitate a direct supply chain is almost always possible if one knows who the service providers are. Local offices, flexibility and some business intelligence is crucial. The price always depends on whether you're buying it wholesale or retail. The difference of course is the more you control it, the cheaper it gets once your volume increases. When one has experience both up or downstream the supply chain and semantically bridges that cultural gap, it can be an added advantage. This requires in depth knowledge and specialisation or a background in both cultures and languages.

As an idealist I envision an open market for service exchange ratios that drive competition and eliminate middle men industries. If all that supply chain data could be handled by AI, we could maximise container utility, efficiently co-load goods to the same or similar destinations and thus reduce environmental impact.

When I started out with ecologitex in 2009, I was either discouraged by being told no one cares about child labour and the environment or that my initiatives were going to be difficult to push. I stuck to it because I believed it was the right thing to do. After all, I was determined to support the kind of people I was working with back at the factory. When the Dhaka garment factory in Bangladesh collapsed in 2013 and the movie true cost came out everything changed.

Finally some people realised where I was coming from.

Later, I also got involved in various activities supporting rural villages in India and a project to secure clean drinking water, irrigation projects, promoting organic farming and beneficial habitat planting projects. I shall elaborate more in coming posts.

The Polo Shirt Sample

The fun part of my business is that I make garments. Normally I get measurements charts from brands or private labels to custom tailor their styles. Most Styles already exist readymade from various printable brands and can easily be printed of embroidered. This makes my business of tailormade mass production or private label manufacturing a nieche targeted in a special segment.

In this Video I worked with a tailor named Nagarajan, who became a close personal friend of mine. He didn't believe someone would actually ever make a video of him. I made him understand that I shared that joy with him. We had a lot of fun when I practically showed him Euler curves and gave him a french curve a gift after.

We sampled this job for Kühne & Nagel. The main fabric wasn't made from traditional piqué prevalent in polo shirts. Instead we used regular jersey. We used some satin neck tapes and really nice buttons I found from some local accessory store. We also made an embroidery.

Enjoy, comment and follow me for more.

Communities

I'd like to introduce myself to various Communities here. #cleanplanet, or #hive-150210, #needleworkmonday or #hive-127911, #abundancetribe or #hive-181465 #hivelist or #hive-150840, The proof of brain community or #hive-150329, #gems, #ocd, #palnet, #ecotrain, #herbalhive, #hive-180569, and #hive-140635 because i'm totally into biodynamics and beneficial biomes.