Issue 12

THE DIGITAL WORLD
IS NOTHING
BUT A VERY POOR
SIMULATION
OF COMMUNITY

Frederik Fischer

Photos by Marzena Skubatz Words by Oliver Herwig

What drives Neulandia director Frederik Fischer? The former punk rocker, local government officer and Internet startup founder is now promoting community life in the country with KoDörfer (Co-Villages)—a project in which he has to work hand in hand with local residents and local councillors.

FREDERIK
FISCHER

Frederik Fischer is out to change things. The Bavaria-born startup founder and local government specialist is trialling two rural settlements known as KoDörfer (Co-Villages) as a return to a healthy balance between city and country, as he outlines in our interview. An opposer of bland prefab housing estates, his priorities are culture, coworking and forms of living focused on the common good which dovetail with existing settlements. In Fischer’s view, quality of life has a far higher status than a mere economic factor; it grows from a new form of community rooted in the awareness that the world as we know it will have to change.

HR manager, journalist, company founder, networker, activist, and now Managing Director of Neulandia—that’s quite a trajectory. Do you see yourself as a saviour of the world?

Most definitely not. The connecting link between all those stages is the pleasure I take in change. Wherever the opportunity arises to rethink things; ideally in a way that boosts the quality of life of the people involved in the project. That’s where I feel most comfortable. Whether it’s journalism, technology in the startup era or, as now, urban planning and rural development, it’s always about the seismic transformation we are currently undergoing. My particular passion is to shape that transformation in a way that tangibly sets us on course for a better life.

In the past, you’ve been a committed punk rocker and an HR manager in the town of Dachau—at the same time. How does all that fit together?

Not all that well. I didn’t stay a civil servant for very long. To fill in some background, I dropped out of school, found out too late that it wasn’t a great idea, and then needed a university entrance qualification very fast because I wanted to start studying as soon as possible. The quickest way to get it was the two-year civil service training. Looking back, it was actually quite a blessing that I could familiarise myself with local councils and town halls from the inside. It’s certainly a huge benefit in my present role, because the public sector is our foremost partner. And although public administration turned out not to be my thing after all, I took away a deep respect and admiration for people who work in that area. The vast majority are extremely conscientious and strive to find practical solutions. A lot of those cliched tropes about bureaucracy are just that—cliches.

So when you develop a new KoDorf village, you know exactly where to apply leverage. How should we picture that process? Names like Wiesenburg and Erndtebrück border on the Tolkeinesque. Are KoDorf villages a kind of paradise for digital nomads?

A KoDorf isn’t about digital nomads—people who can’t make their mind up where they want to be. The major distinction of a KoDorf is that we appeal to people who want to set up house there. We firmly believe that incomers and long-term residents can only build a really solid coexistence if the new residents commit wholly to a place instead of flitting in and out the whole time. It really has become a paradise.

Could you explain that in more detail?

Well, to take Wiesenburg as an example, when we first arrived the Coconat, one of the first coworking spaces in a rural area, had just opened in the next town. That’s actually what brought the region to our attention in the first place. So we met the mayor, who is incredibly dedicated, smart and young, and everything went really well from the outset. So much has happened in the region over the past two years that it’s now fair to call it a paradise.

Do you mean in terms of technology?

An association linked to Chaos Computer Club has taken over an old seminar hotel two kilometres away. It now offers various coworking spaces, a country golf course and an office coworking hub tailored to parents with young families. There’s a whole lot going on at the moment. A think tank for 21st-century rural spaces has set up in Bad Belzig.