A systems engineering consultancy, R&D laboratory, and long-term holding company for impact ventures — designing and implementing technological and human solutions for rural communities in Portugal and internationally.
We apply MBSE, systems dynamics, GIS modelling, and participatory design to complex rural development challenges. Our consulting practice is the revenue engine that funds the R&D pipeline.
From the Sorghum Processing Machine to the Quadriga UGV and the OSDK framework, we design and field-test hardware and systems for smallholder agriculture and off-grid rural living.
Our R&D projects are designed from the outset to graduate into independently financed, scalable ventures. CC is building toward becoming a legal vehicle for impact investment in its own ecosystem — OSDK communities of impact globally.
Mobile towable thresher/dehuller, 400kg/hr throughput, biogas-compatible. Designed for sub-Saharan smallholder grain value chains. TRL 5 — conceptual prototype complete.
Open-source autonomous ground vehicle fusing tractor, tool carrier, and precision agriculture research platform. Joint JRBD + CJD hardware development.
Our 5ha headquarters at ~800m asl is a functioning proof-of-concept for the OSDK framework — integrating off-grid systems, regenerative agroecology, and water engineering.
Full integrated rural property development proposal — water engineering, agro-forestry, off-grid infrastructure, and community land management. JRBD + CJD joint collaboration.
CC's emerging framework for integrated rural development investment — the theoretical foundation for the CC impact fund thesis and the basis of a forthcoming book.
Systems modelling & simulation, hardware prototyping, GIS modelling, participatory design, and social impact measurement — positioned for EU Horizon, RISE, and Agrobofood consortia.
Founded in 2018 in Monchique, Portugal, Conscious Circle bridges the gap between systems thinking and on-the-ground development practice. We operate at the intersection of appropriate technology, ecological systems, and impact finance — designing tools, methodologies, and ventures that work in the field, not just on paper. Our logo, the Flower of Life, represents how we work: sitting at the centre, connecting sectors through systems integration.
To invest, research, develop and implement technological and human solutions that create lasting development impact — in rural Portugal and across the global South.
CC operates as a three-layer organisation. At the core is our consulting practice — delivering systems engineering, research, and advisory services that generate revenue and evidence to fund R&D. That R&D layer produces the appropriate technology and field-tested frameworks that, over time, graduate into Impact Ventures: independently financed, scalable initiatives deployable across multiple geographies.
This is not a holding company in the conventional sense. It is an intentional architecture — designed to compound knowledge, credibility, and capital over a ten-year horizon toward a legal vehicle that can invest directly in OSDK communities of impact.
CC is also the primary marketing platform for JRBD as an independent freelance consultant — bringing systems engineering, GIS analysis, and development data expertise to clients internationally.
John Roy is a systems engineering practitioner, independent researcher, and freelance consultant based at Montalma, Serra de Monchique — his operational base for international work. He holds a B.A. in Political Science from Colorado College (Davis United World Scholar, 2018), where his senior thesis examined "The Political Economy of Business–Conflict–Development Linkages: Evaluating MNCs' Conflict-Resolution & Development Impact in a Sample Extractive Industry CSR-Network." He completed his International Baccalaureate at Mahindra United World College in Pune, India.
Prior to focusing on CC, John Roy worked as a Data Analyst for the Governance & Justice Group (GJG) and Justice Mapping (Jan 2020 – Mar 2021), contributing to the development of a Lean Data Collection Methodology for criminal justice sector audits across Federal Member States of Somalia and Somaliland — a project led by GJG and its associates, with JRBD contributing as a freelance analyst. He co-founded Ogugu (Tanzania & Portugal, 2017–2019), a startup reaching 3rd place in the Colorado College Big Idea Competition. He is an IPAF-certified MEWP operator, trained in ArcGIS, STATA, Kumu, and systems modelling tools.
LinkedIn Profile →Christopher (born 1954, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa) is a civil and agricultural engineer with over four decades of practice across Africa, Portugal, and the UK. He holds a BSc in Civil Engineering from the University of Cape Town (1977) and served as an Officer in the South African Army Engineering Corps.
He founded Rutec (Pty) Ltd in 1987 — Africa's largest private-sector micro-enterprise delivery agency — which over 13 years helped 15,000 people across 8 African countries through bespoke micro-enterprise business plans, 74 pieces of purpose-built equipment, and training programmes spanning everything from maize milling to solar installation. Rutec consulted for Anglo American, South African Breweries, the National Union of Mineworkers, UNDP, UNOPS, and Save the Children Fund. From 2005–2013 he directed Schugand Lda in Portugal, focused on tools for development, green building technologies, and off-grid living.
Christopher is the primary inventor behind the Sorghum Processing Machine and has driven the hardware R&D at CC since its founding. The Quadriga UGV is a joint JRBD–CJD development. He acts as a permanent non-executive member of CC's advisory board. His lifetime of appropriate technology R&D is a foundational asset of Conscious Circle — and ensuring it is not lost to the world is a core mission of the firm.
Our 5-hectare headquarters sits at approximately 800 metres above sea level in the Serra de Monchique, Algarve. Montalma is the primary proof-of-concept for the OSDK framework — a functioning integration of off-grid renewable energy, water systems, regenerative agroecology, and a small-scale food garden that supplements but does not yet replace a full food basket (a realistic reflection of what growing food actually means).
Edge computing and IoT integration are in the pipeline. Montalma is also home to a guesthouse operational since 2019, and sits within a broader property network across the Monchique highlands that serves as a GIS-mapped template for decentralised off-grid rural development. Visit www.montalma.pt to learn more.
Building a decentralised network of off-grid rural properties — nodes available. Have an off-grid project? →
We work at the intersection of systems engineering, appropriate technology, and rural development. Our services are grounded in real field experience — and our research strengths include systems modelling, hardware prototyping, GIS analysis, participatory design, and social impact measurement.
Model-Based Systems Engineering and systems dynamics modelling for rural development programmes, EU research proposals, and multi-stakeholder projects. We apply rigorous systems methodology to contexts where it is rarely used — and where it is most needed. CC is positioned as a systems integrator: connecting technical, social, and ecological domains.
Assessment, design, and planning support for rural properties seeking to implement integrated off-grid systems. Grounded in the OSDK framework developed and tested at Montalma — covering water systems, energy, agroecology, and community food systems.
Research and advisory for organisations working in smallholder agriculture, food systems, and rural technology adoption. CC's hardware prototyping experience spans irrigation systems, grain processing machinery, and autonomous ground vehicles — always designed as open-source platforms with community co-design at the core.
Data analysis, GIS mapping, and impact measurement for development finance organisations, research institutions, and EU programme bodies. Toolset includes ArcGIS, QGIS, STATA, R, Python, Kumu, NodeXL, and Impact Mapper — producing dashboards, GIS maps, network graphs, and evaluation frameworks.
CC's R&D projects are designed from the outset to become independently financed, scalable ventures. The pipeline moves from concept through field testing to co-investment readiness — with Montalma as the living laboratory. In the medium term, CC is building toward a legal structure that can invest directly in its own ecosystem.
Design, fabricate, and field-test in the Montalma living laboratory. Build evidence base. Iterate on real-world constraints with community co-design.
Formalise the go-to-market. Define the commercial model. Seek EU programme co-funding or impact investment to reach deployment scale.
CC takes an equity or licensing stake in ventures deployed beyond Montalma. The CC fund thesis: co-invest in OSDK communities of impact globally.
A low-cost, open-source Unmanned/Autonomous Ground Vehicle fusing the functions of tractor, tool carrier, and precision agriculture research robot. Designed for evidence-informed, regenerative farming on small farms across diverse environmental and topographic conditions — with applicability to international smallholder contexts across the Mediterranean and sub-Saharan Africa.
The Quadriga is a joint JRBD–CJD development across hardware design, control systems, and field implementation. The WX3/W3Tool platform underpins the current design iteration. Active co-investment and manufacturing partnership search underway.
The SPM is a mobile sorghum processor towable by car or motorbike, processing 400kg of grain per hour as a conceptual prototype at TRL 5. It delivers peeled grain as a mixed grade or graded product, with optional biogas fuel integration — making it a genuinely zero-carbon post-harvest solution. No physical unit has been built to date.
Designed in response to documented field need across sub-Saharan Africa. An engineering specification submission was prepared for KTN. CJD is the principal inventor. This is CC's most commercially mature hardware product and the clearest near-term revenue and licensing opportunity in the portfolio.
The OSDK is CC's most ambitious intellectual product: a macro-system framework that integrates a farm portfolio land intelligence layer, berm camping network, green mobility corridor, regional logistics hub, and community food centre — with Montalma as the living prototype. CC is developing the farm portfolio component as a proprietary land intelligence system inspired by integrated farmland management approaches being pioneered globally.
The OSDK is designed to be open-source and replicable: any rural community or property network can implement its components independently or in combination. Long-term, CC's fund thesis is built around co-investing in OSDK communities of impact across the Mediterranean, Africa, and beyond. This is exclusively an intellectual work of JRBD.
CORKsic explores the structural and insulation potential of cork-based Structural Insulated Components — lightweight, predesigned large-format building panels that leverage Portugal's world-leading cork supply chain. At TRL 6, the technology has been validated in relevant environments. CJD has conducted direct R&D in cork insulation and ecological building materials since establishing himself in Portugal in 2000, including self-building three houses using ecological materials.
CC's research agenda is grounded in the belief that development practice generates intellectual property that is currently lost to the world. We are systematically converting years of field experience — in appropriate technology, water systems, rural development, and impact data — into frameworks, publications, and tools that others can use. Our engaged research profile is being built toward EU Horizon, RISE, and Agrobofood programme eligibility.
CC's flagship intellectual contribution: a systems model for integrated rural development investment synthesising appropriate technology, community engagement, spatial intelligence, and impact finance into a single deployable framework. The theoretical foundation for the CC Impact Fund thesis. Exclusively an intellectual work of JRBD. A forthcoming book will develop this framework in full — see the endorsement section below.
The OSDK Component Map is the operational expression of the VIDF — a modular framework specifying how farm portfolio intelligence, mobility corridors, logistics, food systems, and off-grid infrastructure components integrate at the property network level. Montalma is the primary field validation site. TRL 2 — concept and early prototype phase.
CC's engaged research profile targets EU programme eligibility — particularly RISE (Research and Innovation Staff Exchange), Horizon Europe, and Agrobofood. Research experience includes Global Systems Mapping (Systems Dynamics Society), OSDK architectural design, UWC Monchique Educational Resilience Pilot, and OSINT for Civil Society Resilience. Searching for: complementary partners with software, community engagement, or field deployment expertise.
CC's internal systems engineering research and archiving platform — a RAG-enabled knowledge base indexing field notes, technical documentation, and project archives to support proposal development, methodology articulation, and institutional memory. A core infrastructure tool for translating tacit practitioner knowledge into replicable frameworks.
A GIS-based analytical framework and replicable template for mapping decentralised off-grid rural properties as interconnected systems — enabling spatial planning, resource allocation, and development sequencing across property networks. Applicable wherever communities of rural smallholders are developing integrated off-grid infrastructure.
A framework for understanding how organisations function as either bridges (connectors between networks) or identities (anchors within a network) — directly applicable to CC's positioning as a systems integrator across rural development, academic research, and impact finance ecosystems. Grounded in JRBD's work with Kumu and social network analysis tools.
A forthcoming book that joins the conversation with intellectuals, academics, and think tanks on the future of integrated rural development — bringing the VIDF and OSDK frameworks into the broader discourse on decentralised systems, post-growth rural economies, and the political economy of development impact. This work responds directly to position pieces from institutions such as Palantir on the role of technology in development — arguing for a community-centred, open-source countermodel.
We are actively building partnerships across three dimensions — research and consulting collaborations, EU programme consortia, and impact investment relationships. We are not seeking clients in the conventional sense. We are building a long-term network of aligned organisations.
We are building toward eligibility as a research and innovation partner in EU Horizon, Agrobofood, RISE, and related programmes. If you are assembling a consortium for a rural development, agro-technology, or sustainability call — we bring systems engineering rigour, prototyping experience, participatory design skills, and a living laboratory site.
Our ventures — particularly the Sorghum Processing Machine (TRL 5) and CORKsic (TRL 6) — are approaching co-investment readiness. If you operate in development finance, impact investment, or venture philanthropy with a focus on smallholder agriculture, rural technology, or the Mediterranean-Africa corridor, we want to talk.
We take on a small number of consulting engagements per year — systems engineering, MBSE, rural development advisory, GIS analysis, and development data. We work best with organisations that value methodological rigour and long-term thinking over quick outputs.
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