Have you ever wanted to organize something - have some after-work fun, practice with your band, or have a meeting with your organization - but you couldn’t find a place to do it? Or, maybe you have an empty space – be it a house, a garage or garden shed – and nobody is making use of it.

Well, if the latter is true, you are not alone Well, if the latter is true, you are not alone! There are up to 35 000 empty houses and flats in Brussels alone, and 1,5 * 10^6 m² of empty office space in Brussels alone! Wouldn’t it be nice if the people who need a space could make use of this? (Source: http://www.communa.be/missions, http://logementsvides.be)

Shar-E – share the emptiness – is not a depressing online dating app, but it DOES bring people together.

Shar-E will bring the owners of empty spaces together with the people who need a space for their activities. Think Airbnb, but for more activity-based renting instead of lodging.

Flexible / Temporary / Activity focussed renting Private lodging Commercial lodging Permanent Rent We did some mapping of similar systems out there, to show where we complement them. (We’re not focussing on private or commercial lodging, which is already covered by Airbnb and the likes of booking.com. We’re also not offering a permanent renting service or creating a real estate business. There is already a beautiful project out there that is also looking to solve the problem of vacant buildings in Brussels, called Communa. They also work differently from us, looking for people to make buildings come to life again and work on them for their project to be situated there long-term.) Shar-E is different from the above in that we really focus on more flexible, temporary, activity focussed renting. We are also looking more at short term renting than Communa or real estate offices. Projects / Events Flexible / Temporary / Activity focussed renting > 5.00P.M / > Week

Let’s look at an example. Meet Marco and Jeanne Let’s look at an example. Meet Marco and Jeanne. Marco has an empty floor or a garage that is not being used and getting dusty, and Jeanne has a lot of hobbies.

For example, Jeanne is looking for an affordable place to practice with her band. Marco has an unused garage. We can bring them together so Jeanne can practice with her band and Marco has an extra income from his previously unused garage.

Jeanne and her colleagues are looking for a place to have drinks after work. Marco has an empty floor in an apartment. Through Shar-E, they can connect and now Jeanne and her colleagues can have a good time and bring life to Marco’s empty floor.

Sounds great? Well, the benefit of filling empty spaces goes far beyond individuals like Marco and Jeanne!

Empty, unused spaces have a negative impact on society, by increasing crime rates and making streets look unwelcoming. Deteriorating buildings make the city less than vibrant. By bringing people to these spaces, we are also bringing new life to unwelcoming neighbourhoods.

FREE! So, how to bring Jeanne and Marco together? We will do this through an app. Quite similar to Airbnb, because this system works really well already, there is no need to re-invent the wheel and it will be easy to understand for new users. You will be able to filter spaces according so you can easily find options that really suit your needs, and the owners will be able to indicate what is available and chat with the user beforehand to build trust.

To roll out our plan, the first step will be to actually build the app, of course, and define our scope. We’re starting small, targeting just private buildings in Brussels, but towards the future we want to include school buildings as well and expand to other cities/countries. To build the app, we’ll need an app developer, and we’ll also need a legal expert in order to establish appropriate conditions to offer both renter and owner a safe and trustworthy service. Next, we’ll need to find actual owners of empty spaces, so we’ll have something to offer when launching the app. For this, we can start from existing data of empty houses in Brussels and sit down with the owners. Then, we can actually launch the app and reach out to our users. In this step, we can involve schools and organisations. Besides that, promotion will be done through social media, events and the city government, because they have an interest in the life our app will bring to the city as well. We’ll continuously improve our service through data analysis and connecting to our users.

The result? Happy meetings, happy bands, nice garden parties for people who live in flats, happy home-owners with extra incomes, and a happy, lively brussels!

This is our team. If you are an app developer, legal expert or if your name is Jeanne and you feel like you want to be part of our mission, you are more than welcome to come to us so we can work together. Thank you for your attention, we look forward to your feedback.