June 2012 - now
Solar thermal technology solutions in the humanitarian and industrial sector.
– Technological development, project management, IT consulting, web and communication.
This site shares about my life and work. Most of what I do is devoted to practical solutions to avoid a global climate crisis. Acting from a point of compassion for all living things (or at least trying to!), I'm always ready to be challenged on how to maximize impact. Passionate about developing "whatever is missing" I'm building towards a sustainable future for all.
Since 2012 I've been working with Solar Fire toward initiating a global wave of solar enterpreneurship.
Building web-platforms and systems with purpose that connect actors, empower people and facilitate change.
Contact Urs Riggenbach:
info@ursrig.com, 079 918 0663
Bitte kontaktieren Sie mich:
Urs Riggenbach, info@ursrig.com, 079 918 0663
I get involved in things that make sense to me, have impact or bring learning and creation with it.
June 2012 - now
Solar thermal technology solutions in the humanitarian and industrial sector.
– Technological development, project management, IT consulting, web and communication.
June 2012 - now
Launch of innovative platform for the spread of solar thermal energy solutions.
February 2017 - May 2017
– Industrial CNC machine training (Waterjet, Lasercuting, 5 axis CNC)
– Rapid prototyping using state of the art CNC machinery
2014 - 2022
Development of custom web-platforms for the Zurich-based environmental communications agency.
2014 - now
Creation of web-development agency of impact and sustainability projects and beyond.
February 2013 - July 2013
– Development of exhibition on renewable energies.
August 2013 - February 2014
– Support in research and development.
– Instructors from the fields of architecture, construction and joinery/Carpentry
– Application of principles of sustainability and sustainable design in the architecture of a "tiny house" of 227 square feet.
– Project planning and management with different build milestones.
– Construction of entire tiny house, see it in New York Post "Tiny House 227".
– Study and implementation of HVAC systems.
September 2008 - June 2012
– Relevant Coursework: Agroecology, Economic Development, International Water Resource Management, Physics II, Collaborative Leadership, Fieldwork: Seminar in Community-based Research, Documentary Film Making, Webdesign, Fixing Food Systems, Sustainability, Local Production - Global Collaboration.
– Senior project in Nepal installing renewable energy framework at rural school
– Spanish proficiency during project-stay in Yucatán, Mexico
– Davis UWC Scholar: full scholarship awarded
September 2006 - May 2008
– International Baccelaurate (IB) with major biology and economics.
– Course language English.
– Extended essay: Sugarcane Cultivation in the Mulshi Valley, India.
– Full Scholarship from the Swiss Association for UWC
1990
I work in a network of curated developers, designers and content creators, so each project happens in a project-specific team. For the Canton of Bern I built the interactive App "Biz-Links" that helps people find the right career. As a progressive web app it is simultaneously avaiable on Android and iOS devices, as well as directly reachable in the browser by link. My full portfolio is further below.
Selection of projects in the fields of web-development, internet security, Android-app development, webstores, crowdfunding and campaign sites, online community platforms and financial modeling. Most projects are based on a security and scalability optimized tech-stack based on open-source SPIP, LXC and GNU/Linux.
Project idea and need a tech-team? Let's talk!
Posted Tuesday 29 December 2015 by Urs Riggenbach.
Recently I was deploying a service that made use of Linux’s IPTABLES feature, but this time in an LXC container. LXC containers provide an extremely lightweight virtualization technology and a simple way to separate environments.
When loading IPTABLES rules in the container I encountered the following error:
ERROR: initcaps
[Errno 2] modprobe: ERROR: ../libkmod/libkmod.c:556 kmod_search_moddep() could not open moddep file '/lib/modules/3.16.0-4-amd64/modules.dep.bin'
ip6tables v1.4.21: can't initialize ip6tables table `filter': Table does not exist (do you need to insmod?)
Perhaps ip6tables or your kernel needs to be upgraded.
This was due to the fact that on the host, the ip6table_filter module was not loaded. Usually, the iptables command will by itself load the module when needed, but LXC shares the kernel of the host system and a container is restricted from loading modules into the host’s kernel.
The solution is to simply load the kernel module on the host:
# on debian jessie, as root:
modprobe ip6table_filter
After that the container will be able to make use of the new kernel module.
Posted Saturday 12 September 2015 by Urs Riggenbach.
I’ve been waiting for an open platform where people can share the "what to know" about any product. When I buy something I want to know what impact it has, on my health, the workers, the planet.
I want to know this information from people I trust, not from the corporations themselves that don’t want me to worry about "what kind of aerosol is in that deodorant and it’s climate impact" but rather "how this is going to increase my sex-appeal."
Finally the platforms that help us gather and use consumer sourced producer information are emerging. With OpenLabel, https://theopenlabel.com/, and www.wiki-products.org (German) we are entering a buying culture where if I have the choice between two products and I happen to care about animal rights I can make a better choice. Better might not be good, but if we’re sticking with consumerism let’s send the right signals up that chain.
When advertisement and mass media lose their power, we will probably stuff this void with real information. I’m looking forward to that.
Posted Wednesday 24 June 2015 by Urs Riggenbach.
Unattended upgrades on Debian allow to sync/update any repository and install the upgraded packages automatically. This makes sense for packages in the security repository.
The following commands enable unattended security upgrades on Debian 7 and 8. Note that it is not enough to just install the "unattended-upgrades" package.
apt-get install unattended-upgrades apt-listchanges
dpkg-reconfigure -plow unattended-upgrades
By default it runs daily, sends a mail to root. Follow the Debian Wiki for further teaking: https://wiki.debian.org/UnattendedUpgrades