Daniel Tamberg of SCIARA is shaking up the climate tech world. From his extensive background in IT and software to founding SCIARA, Daniel has been on a mission to help decision-makers across society tackle climate change head-on. In his GICA interview, Daniel dives into the origins of SCIARA, their groundbreaking Climate Time Machine, and how they’re empowering people to make impactful, sustainable choices for climate action.
GICA: Please explain who you are and what you do.
SCIARA: I am Daniel Tamberg, 54, living in Potsdam-Babelsberg with my wife Anita in our own little house. Our three kids have moved out already, one becoming a data scientist and the other two teachers. I have worked in the IT and software industry for over 30 years, mostly as a project lead, software architect and multi-purpose consultant.
Before I founded SCIARA, I was part of two very large software projects – the relaunch of the Toll Collect’s aging core software and the setup of Germany’s largest e-government project (the Bundesportal and the Bundesdruckerei).
I founded SCIARA to help climate deciders on all levels
In 2020, I founded SCIARA to help climate deciders, on all levels and in all parts of society, politics, and business, make better decisions and accelerate the urgently needed climate and sustainability transformation.
At the beginning, SCIARA was me, Sebastian Kutscha (now retired) and six IT companies. Today, we are four shareholders, one convertible loan investor, five employees and several external consultants, freelancers, working students and interns.
GICA: What inspired the founding of SCIARA?
SCIARA: I was interested in questions of energy, climate, and simulations for as long as I can think back.
In 2004, a friend from England gave me an original copy of “Limits to Growth”, the book detailing the workings and the results of “world3”, the world’s first computer model of humanity’s future development, commissioned by the Club of Rome.
I was immediately fascinated. However, I noticed that the model represents humans as formulae and population size values, as if there were an inexorable natural law governing human behaviour.
It seemed an almost impossible task!
It occurred to me that such a simulation would yield better results if human beings were more realistically represented. But how so? It seemed an almost impossible task!
So I came up with the idea of why not let actual people interact with the ecological models, as they would likely behave like real humans—also and especially in their social interaction.
I discussed the idea with Ottmar Edenhofer, the now-famous economics director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), who showed interest.
far too little climate action was happening
For a lot of personal reasons, I did not follow up on this idea until 2019, when I became more and more conscious that the climate crisis was escalating and far too little climate action was happening.
I now wanted to become part of the solution after having been part of the problem with many flights and an affluent lifestyle for a long time. But was my idea still “new”?
I found a fresh PIK paper detailing all the modelling techniques for human behaviour, with the then-current pinnacle being so-called agent-based modelling. In this, the software simulates individual humans and their interactions – not a mean feat, but still far away from being able to create credible human behaviour, as the paper admitted.
This could be the next big step in social-ecological modelling
So, I contacted two PIK scientists, Jobst Heitzig and Jonathan Donges, who were working on such agent-based social-ecological modelling. They were enthusiastic and helped me get a meeting with Johan Rockström, PIK’s science director, who listened to my pitch stone-faced for half an hour, got up, summarised it perfectly in five sentences and closed with, “This could be the next big step in social-ecological modelling. Jobst and Jonathan, you can use 10 percent of your time to support this project.”
After that, Sebastian Kutscha, a business partner of mine who had just sold his consultancy business and was looking for new challenges, latched on to the idea. He succeeded in bringing six medium-sized premium software companies from his network of friends on board, and we founded SCIARA in July 2020.
GICA: How has SCIARA grown since it started?
SCIARA: SCIARA started with a team of nine people, six of whom were pro bono contributions from our shareholders for the first seven months to create a first proof-of-concept prototype.
Since 2021, SCIARA is operating with a team size between five and eight people, due to budgetary constraints.
we have developed the Climate Time Machine, a fully working, already selling science-based interactive climate time travel online simulation.
In this time, we have developed the Climate Time Machine, a fully working, already selling science-based interactive climate time travel online simulation.
This year we want to acquire an equity investment of €1M to be able to grow quickly, especially in marketing and sales.
GICA: What makes SCIARA unique in the climate tech market?
SCIARA: To our knowledge, SCIARA’s Climate Time Machine is the only mass-scalable tool systematically using climate behavioural science insights to motivate, empower and equip people in businesses, NGOs, municipalities, schools and in the citizenry to finally act on climate.
There are other products with slightly overlapping features and target markets, but none have the efficacy, scalability and comprehensiveness of vision that Climate Time Machine has.
GICA: How are your climate simulations produced?
SCIARA: Climate Time Machine is a web application that runs in every web browser. It uses real scientific models and massively multiplayer technology to let participants interact. It generates and vividly visualises dynamic climate futures according to the participant’s private, societal and business decisions.
GICA: What educational benefits do your simulations offer compared to traditional methods?
only a very small fraction of people change behaviour due to mere information
SCIARA: Traditional method: Frontal lectures with lots of abstract information. According to climate behavioural science, only a very small fraction of people change behaviour due to mere information.
Climate Time Machine is a first-person-perspective, immersive, interactive social simulation with vivid visualisations of real model results and scientific data. It lowers or even removes many psychological hurdles to act such as:
- Climate change is confusing.
- I feel unaffected by the issue.
- My contribution is insignificant.
- I’m struggling to envision a different future.
- As an individual, I’m powerless to make a difference.
- I’m unsure of the most effective actions to take.
- Acting alone is scary.
- I lack the necessary resources.
- I’m reluctant to change and risk losing my sense of belonging.
GICA: Can you share any success stories where your simulations made a significant social and environmental impact?
“Taking part in a climate time travel leaves no one untouched”.
SCIARA: We always say, “Taking part in a climate time travel leaves no one untouched”.
We have conducted climate time travel workshops in all sorts of organisations: banks, consultancies, NGOs, universities, schools, the metal industry, clubs, advertising agencies and IT companies. After participating, people got rid of their cars, started an energy refurbishment of their homes, ate less meat, and drove their cars less.
One bank discovered that it does not offer electric cars as company cars for its employees and chose to soon change that.
GICA: Can you describe any important partnerships or collaborations, and how have these partnerships contributed to your success?
We are well connected in the climate scene, from the Club of Rome, Germany, various “For Future” organisations, and individual activists.
SCIARA: Our most important partnership is with the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. This world-renowned institute provided the climate model we use and a lot of invaluable research insights and practical help. We are well connected in the climate scene, from the Club of Rome, Germany, various “For Future” organisations, and individual activists.
Several companies and individuals have supported us pro bono just because they love our product: the software house Comsysto Reply, Germany’s largest advertising group BBDO, Die Produktmacher, Plus Drei and many more. They have allowed us to get away with such a small team and still develop our unique tool.
We received grants from the DBU and the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action.
GICA: How does SCIARA lead by example in the climate education industry?
SCIARA:
Frontal lectures are ineffective and so “last century”.
1. We use behavioural science to identify the most effective educational strategies.
2. We think outside the box – use new approaches that allow people to engage and connect emotionally. Frontal lectures are ineffective and so “last century”.
GICA: What are Sciara’s short-term and long-term goals?
SCIARA: Short-term, we want to establish a powerful marketing and sales organisation within the company to scale our business in Germany, the EU and all other high-emission countries. We also want to develop the Climate Time Machine one crucial step further: “Infinite” climate time travels with “infinite” numbers of simultaneous and collective participants who track their future private and business biographies as well as their actual decisions with our tool.
We want Climate Time Machine to become the standard tool for interactive climate action intelligence
In the long term, we want Climate Time Machine to become the standard tool for interactive climate action intelligence, a bit like Google Maps for climate, just not only in 3D, but with time as an additional dimension. So you could look at a part of the world and move a “time” slider into the future to see how the world changes in the scenario you and your fellow participants created – possibly down to your own neighbourhood in 3D.
As such, Climate Time Machine will be used in basically all enterprises and other organisations, supercharging their sustainability transformations.
GICA: What is your vision for the future of climate education with simulations?
SCIARA: Only specialists can understand super-complex topics like climate change and climate mitigation by just studying the facts. Lay people – including managers, politicians, activists and ordinary citizens – can mostly only understand such topics by experiencing it from a first-person perspective, so they relate to it not only rationally, but also emotionally.
My vision is that all such complex issues are taught using interactive simulations in the future.
My vision is that all such complex issues are taught using interactive simulations in the future. From these holistic experiences, people who want to understand the science behind them can always drill down to deeper levels of modelling and data, down to the very basic formulae.
GICA: What resources do you still need now?
SCIARA: We already have a fantastic selling product with lots of potential for further development. But we are in a chicken-and-egg situation concerning sales.
So far, our sales are opportunistic and not driven by enough person power. We need to build an effective sales organisation. We need €1M to gain enough sales traction to make us attractive for big investors who will then allow us to scale worldwide and fulfil our vision.
Daniel Tamberg on LinkedIn? Here!
