Hello STEEMIT ! Servus from Austria!

My name is Markus, I am 47 years old and I live in the beautiful City of Vienna, Austria.
I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself to the community and tell you a little bit about my life.

I am married now for 13 years (here is the lucky number ☺) to the love of my life, Bidan, who is Chinese and moved to Austria almost 25 years ago.

10 years ago, our little boy, Julian, was born. This was the greatest thing ever happened to me so far. And I doubt that there ever will be anything greater.

My passions (besides my family) are travelling, food & wine and sports.

For a good Sashimi I would go anywhere. And if not, my wife would drag me there ☺
The one below we enjoyed last year in Beijing.

And if you ever get to Portugal you should try this wine. One of my absolute favorites!
Boa Pergunta? Any more questions?

I love skiing and soccer (not actively anymore ☹) and as soon as there is some snow on the mountains here in Austria, you can find us there.

My son shares this passion with me. Skiing and Snowboarding all winter (and sometimes even summer on our Glaciers!)

At our home we speak 3 languages constantly – however, my Chinese is close to non-existing (and my wife not happy about this), the culinary variety of our breakfasts, lunches and dinners is huge (Chinese – Austrian – Italian – Japanese –you name it) and the wine cellar is constantly growing ☺.

Whenever possible we spend time in China. When our boy was small mostly in Beijing and Wuhan (with the Chinese side of our family) and Shanghai.

You see, food is constantly around me ☺ !

But since he is getting older we are now also travelling around China as much as we can.

This picture was taken in the Province of Sichuan (I love spicy food!) at Huanglong National Park. One of the most amazing scenery ever seen so far.

After I finished High School I was not sure what to do with my life. So I took off for almost 5 years to travel the world. I worked any job I could get in any country I could find work, to make money to continue travelling. It was a great time I would never want to miss. I learned so much during those years on the road and in ´93 I decided that it was time to go back to Austria and start with University.
I chose to study Sociology. This choice definitely came out from my travelling years where I got fascinated how people interact in different cultures.

During my University years and after them I was always working. Most was as a tour guide for a German Company. I was cycling all over Europe with German Tourists following me on cycles wherever I went ☺.

Until I met a few guys in 2003 who introduced me to something called “Design for All”.

Based on this idea those two guys and myself founded an Organization here in Austria that has its focus on Design for All. It is called “freiraum-europa” and it is prospering and growing year by year.

So what is “Design for All”?
It is Design for human diversity, social inclusion and equality. It is a holistic and innovative approach that constitutes a creative and ethical challenge for all planners, designers, entrepreneurs, administrators and political leaders. It aims to enable all people to have equal opportunities to participate in every aspect of society. To achieve this, the built environment, everyday objects, services, culture and information – in short, everything that is designed and made by people to be used by people – must be accessible, convenient for everyone in society to use and responsive to evolving human diversity.
The practice of Design for All makes conscious use of the analysis of human needs and aspirations and requires the involvement of end users at every stage in the design process.

This picture shows some of the pioneers in Design for All among most Member Organizations at a Meeting this year for the Biennale of the Cite du Design in Saint Etienne, France

This above text is a part from the EIDD Design for All Europe Stockholm Declaration. EIDD DfA Europe is a European Non Profit that has over 30 National Member Organizations (Businesses, Universities, NPO´s) in more than 20 European Countries (and growing). Since 2005 my Austrian Organization is also a Member in EIDD. I started there as a Board Director for my Austrian NPO in 2005, was then elected as EIDD Vice President (Administration) from 2007 until 2009 and since 2013 elected and re-elected as Vice President again, this time for Finances.

The picture shows the Design for All Europe Executive Board 2017 to 2019

I am convinced that Design for All creates the conditions for everyone to be able to take an active, productive part in the economy, at the same time cutting social costs.

So how does all of this get me onto SteemIt?

Well, we are doing Fundraising for many years now to keep the Organizations going, growing and to run our projects. Over those years I gained a lot of knowledge how Fundraising works and a lot of new ways were created and implemented. On the technical side as well as on the communication approach to all the great people out there who support our cause with money.
But I am also always looking for new opportunities, new possibilities and new approaches. And I have the feeling that SteemIt and the whole field of Crypto Currencies could bring out groundbreaking new opportunities.
I have to admit that I do not have much of an idea yet how this could work and what it needs to develop. I am still new to this. So if you have any suggestions, ideas or offer me some guidance, I would highly appreciate it!

And then there is my wife. She is an IT Professional working for the UN. Always up to date with the newest developments in her field. And for a few months now she is almost obsessively interested and active in Crypto Currencies. She is just crazy optimistic in everything crypto. And if she is focused on something in the way she is now I learned to trust that this is really something big.

All this added up for me to decide to just jump in myself and experience the crypto revolution and the SteemIt Movement myself.

Looking forward to learning lots of new things, meet lots of unique people and put in my share to SteemIt up!