As more and more people are working in increasingly flexible ways and moving around more than ever before, the way that housing works hasn’t kept up with the reality of how we might live. Our homes have tied us to living in one place even though we can connect with friends and colleagues all over the world. But it need not be this way. Wouldn’t it be great if you didn’t have to be incredibly wealthy to have multiple homes around the world?

New Eelam is developing next-generation cloud-based housing that can be accessed flexibly rather than owned individually. We want to help democratize global mobility, so that more and more people will be able to make the whole world their home.

As more and more forms of transportation are eventually decarbonized and become less and less dependent on finite natural resources, we want to do the same for buildings – to help make zero-carbon cities. So we’re experimenting with energy-efficient technologies – from low-impact construction techniques to automated indoor farming to photovoltaic furniture – to design homes that will be as good for the environment as they will be for their inhabitants.

Cloud-based housing is not for everyone. Many people will choose their record collection and DVDs over streaming music and movies; for some, no amount of e-books will compare to their bookshelf; and car sharing will never give them the joy of their own ride. And that’s fine. But for those who value the freedom of mobility over the accumulating of things, New Eelam aims to make global living more accessible than ever before.

We believe that a greater wealth of experiences can be available by owning less and doing more. So we’re rethinking how housing could work for a future in which more and more people could value relationships over possessions and might express themselves by what they share in, rather than by what they own.

As populations grow, we think that urbanization can become a force for good in the world. Increasingly connected cities bring together new ideas and enable collaboration. We believe that the way in which cities develop is important to everyone everywhere – not just to those who live in them – and we want to see stronger, more resilient and adaptable communities that are connected to each other around the world as much as to their own specific geographies.