Inspirational appetizers with curated news on startups, emerging trends and bleeding-edge research

Our Story

How it began

The idea of a project like Chillipicks had been lingering in the back of our founder’s mind for many years. With almost half a century spent at the frontlines of the technology world, Britta came across many innovations that fascinated her. Telling her family, friends and network about it, the business engineer in her realized that not everybody hears about such things. Because not everybody works in strategic business development; comes across innovation every day; attends trade shows around the globe; speaks with startup founders, corporates or investors on the stages of the world’s largest technology conferences; or interviews leading international professionals.

Starting over a decade ago, Britta used different facts as SeasoningBits for the novels published by Capscovil. Writing her first novel, GAME-Faint Signals , she combined news from the solar industry and robotics to create new sustainable product ideas in the story that centers around diversity.

American technologist and author Matthew Hart who extrapolates developments in the areas of internet of things, smart cities, artificial intelligence and bio-technology used his publisher’s research and product ideas to spice up his Sci-Fi series even further. The Last Iteration of Dexter Maxwell and Second Harvest show that some things are moving much faster in the real world than anticipated (and good for people and planet).

With Project Black Hungarian , Britta and her co-author Niall MacRoslin created a spy novel on EVs and IT security – only to find out in the years after publication that some things coming to light in the real world are truly stranger than fiction: a fund by the Koch brothers to fight EVs; cars hacked wirelessly; eavesdropping on phone calls via mobile phone network; the Dieselgate; a cartel case against leading German car makers. All these news showed that the authors were not far from depicting the underlying structures in the industry that support parts of the fictional conspiracy.

Writing novels is both fun and a long-haul ride. Derived from the spy novel concept, next came short stories and micro novels that featured real people and mixed facts from the technology world with realistic fiction. But there’re still so many exciting things happening. The world is turning ever faster and solving challenges like creating a future based on sustainability, diversity, inclusion, and equality with a focus on ethics in technology is paramount.

It was time to pick up speed and UncoverTheEssence of the positive and beautiful things happening around the world: research projects, initiatives, startups and developments – all angled towards securing the future of our planet while honoring the unique requirements of everybody.

In the middle of the pandemic, with some client projects put on hold and locked-down at home like most people, it was the perfect time to make it happen. Britta gathered a small team, including long-time Capscovil companion Niall, that bonded together, driven by the joint goal to inspire others with good news only and provide independently researched facts to support the creation of new beneficial solutions.

So, in late 2020, Chillipicks was born – a creative space and innovation platform serving a global community. Our purpose is to drive sustainable innovation, foster diversity and inclusion and create ethical applications in technology. The team independently researches the latest global developments in sustainability, technology and diversity, captures the essence and facts and presents them in lively vignettes that can be read in 1 min each – inspirational appetizers that provide an instant change of perspective and positive mindset.

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Our goal is to foster sustainable innovation by

  • inspiring students with topics that might be off their radar for future careers
  • support companies in their ideation process for new solutions
  • supply other authors with input to spice up their stories and entertain their readers
  • provide people around the world with positive things to talk about and entice them to re-evaluate their habits

If you’d like to learn more how to join us as partner or get involved with the team we'd love to hear from you!