Vasilis Kostakis and myself Kevin Flanagan of the P2P Foundation will be taking part in a series of panel discussions as part of the OpenHere conference taking place in Dublin, Ireland this weekend. It’s a really great programme so if you’re in the city it’s not to be missed.
See the full programme – http://openhere.data.ie/?page_id=9
PANEL: BITS THAT MATTER
Where: Paccar Theatre / When: 15:00 – 17:00 Saturday 15/11/14
A recent article in the Economist speculates that the rise in distributed fabrication constitutes a ‘revolution’ in industrial production, in much the same way the birth of the personal computer constituted a revolution in the informational realm. The exciting possibility, for many, is that forms of online production might not only shape social or juridical processes, as has long been claimed in certain communities of digital activism, but in turn come to shape physical environments and material economies. How are innovations such as 3D printing, micro-factories and open source ecology, biology and hardware reshaping the way that we produce, consume and share material goods? And how are they helping to produce more sustainable manufacturing practices and environments? The panel provides a variety of different perspectives on open hardware, from projects in open source ecology, open hardware and open biotechnology towards more critical takes on some of the existing issues, difficulties and constraints surrounding the open hardware movement. With Denisa Kera, Cathal Garvey, Peter Hanappe, Vasilis Kostakis and Gawin Dapper. Moderated by Benjamin Tincq.
PANEL: SHARE & SHARE BETTER
Where: Paccar Theatre / When: 12:00 – 14:00 Sunday 16/11/14
Until recently, sharing and collaborative production and consumption was associated with the sharing of intangibles such as information, knowledge or cultural products in online spaces. But this has shifted to the sharing of tangible resources and goods such as cars, houses, land and food.
Some argue that sharing on a large scale sees the resurgence of non-market exchange-systems such as those associated with gift economies or with barter. Others describe the emergence of hybrid ‘sharing economies’ that combine attributes of the gift with commercial forms of exchange.
But what exactly are we talking about when we talk about ‘sharing’ or the ‘sharing economy’? What kinds of relationships constitute sharing and who really benefits from the new forms of collaborative consumption? Is the sharing economy just another form of extractive capitalism? In light of these questions and conflicts, what kinds of platforms, licenses and social structures can support the future of sharing? Through a range of examples from shareable cities, shared networks and sharing resources, the panel explores the conflictive spaces of the sharing economy and describes ways of developing more robust and sustainable sharing economies that benefit resource owners and communities. With Kevin Flanagan, Rachel O’Dwyer, Chelsea Rustrum and Benjamin Tincq. Moderated by Patrick Bresnihan.