The DLT4EU program is an accelerator that will identify and link Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) initiatives with leading public and private sector organisations. The initiative aims to promote the development of projects that use blockchain and other distributed technologies (DLT) to solve social and environmental challenges for public good.

The accelerator program will pilot DLT applications by connecting the expertise of leading innovators, entrepreneurs and developers with real-world, unmet challenges in the public and social sectors to create market-ready social ventures.

The programme will focus on two high impact sectors:

• Circular Economy
• Digital Citizenship

The DLT4EU project is led by a consortium of three organisations specialised in distributed technologies, digital social innovation and environmental sustainability: Ideas for Change, (Barcelona); Metabolic, (Amsterdam); and Digital Catapult, (London).

Find out more at DLT4EU’s website.

• Lead image: network by sjcockell
• Republished from DLT4EU

The post DLT4EU: Call for Applicants opens April 14 appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Just like you, there are others frustrated by “business-as-usual”.  They are frustrated by the “lip service” provided to stakeholders.  Like when a company says “employees are our greatest asset” but means the opposite.  

By contrast, there are organisations where stakeholders have an actual stake.  These include: 

• Companies using equity crowdfunding
• Co-operatives, where members are owners and 
• Community Co-ownership structures 

The best way for these people to meet, share ideas, expertise and discuss issues / challenges is via this first-of-a-kind event: Common Wealth.

Where and When?

Date and time

Thu 27th Feb 2020, 9:00 am – Fri 28th Feb 2020, 5:00 pm

Show more dates for this event

Location

Online: Via Zoom Webinar. In Person: UTS Business School, Dr Chau Chak Wing Building
14-28 Ultimo Rd, Ultimo NSW 2007, Australia

Get tickets here.

Is This For You?

Stakeholders with an actual stake (shared ownership) impacts day-to-day operations, competitive advantage, governance, local economic development and more.  The people dealing with these issues will be at Common Wealth.

Aligned investments in “stakeholders with an actual stake” brings down risks and localises returns.  But, it also raises new issues at each stage of the business cycle i.e initial capital raising, growth funding and exit.  The people raising funds and innovating in this space will be at Common Wealth.

Common Wealth is the place to explore these dynamics with pioneering like-minded people.  

Is this the type of crowd that you want to spend time with?  If the answer is “yes”, then join in the conversation.

Day 1: Conversations Worth Sharing: Live To Webinar

Day 1 of Common Wealth is an in-person gathering of the Speakers at UTS Centre for Business and Social Innovation.  

Speakers present live to each other (with some imbedded media).  Their presentation is made via Zoom Webinar, so you can tune in from across the world and participate too.

PLEASE NOTE: The Zoom Webinar Details will be emailed to you separately after ticket purchase.  This may take up to 24-48 hours.  

PLEASE NOTE: If you want to watch a specific speaker you must choose the right session time.

• Session Pass = 2-hour session = $20 = 4 Speakers
  
• Whole Day Pass = 8 hours = $60 = 16 Speakers
  

Who Is Talking on Thursday – 27/2/20

Turning Ideas Into Action: Day 2 – 28/2/2020

A series of strictly limited Round Tables is on Day 2 (28/2/2020) of Common Wealth.

> Equity Crowd Funding: 9:30am – 11:30am  (<5 Tickets left)

Hosted by the CFIA (Crowd Funding Institute of Australia) this industry-centric, equity crowdfunding round table will dissect what has worked and what needs to change with the current regime.  Most, if not all, the current licensed platforms and regulators will attend.

> Co-operation Between Co-operatives: 12:30pm – 2:30pm (<5 Tickets left)

Hosted by The BCCM (Business Council of Co-ops and Mutuals) this industry discussion will focus on how to Co-operate between the emerging and existing sector for everyone’s benefit.> Sydney Commons Lab: 3:00 – 5:00pm (SOLD OUT)

Hosted by Tirrania Suhood and Dr Jose Ramos this roundtable will centre on the creation of Sydney Commons Lab in 2020.  This proposed “civic institution” would promote commons-development, support with policy recommendations and provide a network for commons-oriented initiatives.

Socialising may occur post-event.

Reposted from the original event page. Get tickets here.

Lead image: lighthouse by barnyz

The post Frustrated with “Business as Usual”? Try Common Wealth appeared first on P2P Foundation.

All the powers of the old-world have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: liberal States and dictators, banks and FANG, regulators and speculators.

Where is the State that hasn’t attempted to muzzle freedom of communication and information, or to expand surveillance of its own citizens? Which major online service hasn’t monetized their users’ data without their knowledge or closed user accounts without possible recourse? Which banker hasn’t publicly opposed the right of everyone to have personal and absolute ownership of one’s assets through cryptocurrencies?

Two things result from this fact:

1- Peer-to-peer is already acknowledged by all world powers to itself be a power.

2- It is high time that peer-to-peer supporters should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies; that they counter oppressive forces with their diverse and energetic initiatives. To this end, peer-to-peer contributors will assemble in Paris from the 8th to the 12th of January 2020 at the Paris P2P Festival, the first event dedicated to all forms of free interplay between peers: technical, political, cultural, social, and economic.

If we indulge in allusion to a much more famous Manifesto, it is because we believe that p2p technology projects (Bitcoin, blockchains and Web3, distributed Web and Solid, self-sovereign identities, decentralized protocols…) need to be put in perspective.

In 2019, people’s protests and social demonstrations have flooded the streets of every continent: Sudan, Chile, Hong Kong, Catalonia, Algeria, Iran, India, and of course, in France, our Gilets Jaunes. In many cases, governments reacted not only through police or military crackdown but also with censorship of electronic communication: the internet shutdown in Iran, the censorship of social networks in Hong Kong, the prohibition of decentralized identity systems in Spain… Unfortunately, it is now well-established that internet censorship effectively protects the police states that use it.

Therefore, it is no surprise that we’re seeing an increase in infringements of freedom of the press and physical attacks against those who spread information. Antoine Champagne, journalist and co-founder of reflets.info, will come to the festival to talk about the current state of the protection of journalists and whistleblowers.

Along with the cypherpunk tradition, we believe that cryptography and decentralization are essential means to protect individual and collective civil liberties. We hope that talks on the history of the cypherpunk movement and on the history of decentralization will spark conversations about this point of view among the festival participants.

Peer-to-peer technology is a concrete way to arm the resistance against oppressive powers by providing the resilient and confidential communication channels needed to coordinate social movements in hostile environments. Multiple initiatives in this domain will be presented, from the research work of the LIRIS-DRIM team (CNRS) on streaming and Web request anonymization, to Berty‘s decentralized messaging protocol, to talks and workshops on libtorrent and ZeroNet, Ethereum’s network protocol, cjdns, ZKP and identity, and homomorphic encryption.

For the general public less comfortable with the nuts and bolts of p2p cryptography, the documentary Nothing to Hide will give evidence of how mass surveillance impacts everyone and why we have come to accept it so easily. The festival will also host a show on mentalism and social engineering and a serious game which aims to help everyone learn about effective cybersecurity practices.

Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are another branch that stems from the cypherpunk movement. Over the last few years, the importance of having a form of money that is independent from political powers and financial institutions became obvious. At first it was ignored, then it prompted only laughs and sarcasm, and finally, open hostility. Now states and mega-corporations try to compete with their own digital and centralized currencies.

Hence the necessity of articulating and educating the public about what makes decentralized currencies so special! We will tackle this challenge in many ways: a talk on Bitcoin by the founders of Cercle du Coin, a screening of the documentary Protocole with its director in attendance, workshops introducing how to use wallets and cryptocurrencies, presentations and workshops on Libre Money (Monnaie Libre), Dash, Ark…

Since the inception of Ethereum, the scope of the blockchain, this decentralized ledger which stores cryptocurrency transactions has exceeded its monetary applications. Blockchain-based Dapps, DeFi and DAOs refer to new ways to perform peer-to-peer interactions and new approaches for managing common resources in more open and less inegalitarian ways. The audience will be introduced to several programmable blockchains such as Ethereum, Holochain, Tezos, or Aeternity.

DAOs, or Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, are a way to introduce self-governed and transparent rules in place of the arbitrary exercise of centralized power in organizations. We will review the most interesting DAO initiatives such as Aragon, DAOstack and MetaCartel, with a panel, talks and two workshops: co-designing a DAO using DAOcanvas and participating in a decentralized jurisdiction with Kleros. Lessons learned with iExec and Paymium will shed light on decentralized marketplaces and exchanges, another form of decentralized and programmable entities.

But blockchains are not the only way to decentralize the internet. The Solid standard, created by Tim Berners-Lee, aims to re-decentralize the Web, which today lies under the control of a small number of global mega-firms such as Google and Facebook. In France, this standard is actively supported and extended by several teams gathered in the Digital Commons Consortium, present at the festival. They will give talks and workshops covering the Virtual Assembly and Startin’Blox.

Blockchains and distributed Web are closely associated with open source and free software, considered a type of digital commons. More generally, the question of the commons, is defined as a shared resource that is co-governed by its user community according to the community’s rules and norms and is an essential aspect of peer-to-peer networks.

The P2P Foundation, which will give one of the opening talks of the festival, claims the autonomy of the commons with respect to both the private and public sectors. An event within the festival, the Public Domain Day, organized by Wikimedia France and Creative Commons France, will invite open conversations about multiple aspects of intellectual property in the age of the commons: open science and open education, free licences and development aid, and the implications of IA and blockchain on art production. We will also screen a documentary telling the tragic story of Aaron Swartz, the freedom activist behind Creative Commons, and Hacking for the Commons, a brand new documentary about the clash between supporters of intellectual property and those who stand for open and free knowledge. Several members of the Coop des Communs will also participate, such as the Digital Commons Consortium and Open Food Network. Finally, a talk by The Commons Stack will show how blockchain, DAOs and commons can be tightly coupled.

The last major theme of the festival will be shared governance and peer collaboration, as these are critical to all the other topics mentioned above, from blockchain upgrades to management of the commons to the ability of people to act as free citizens and economic agents. We will open the festival with the Citizens’ Convention for the Climate, the first experiment of direct democracy embedded in the institutions of the French republic, as a response to the demand for real democracy expressed the Gilets Jaunes, in the context of climate emergency. The association between climate and collective intelligence will also be discussed during a talk and workshops on the Climate Collage. Tools, practices, and ideas for distributed governance and collective sense-making will be discussed and experienced with Jean-François Noubel, Open Source Politics, the Open Opale collective, and a Warm Data Lab by Matthew Schutte.

In short, peers and commoners everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things.

In all these movements, they bring to the front, as a leading question in each, the intellectual and physical property question, no matter its degree of development at the time.

Finally, they labour everywhere for a unanimous agreement on initiatives supportive of civil liberties and the construction of the commons.

Peers and commoners disdain the concealment their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the overthrow of the prevalent logic of concentration of power, wealth, and information.

Free Peers of All Countries, Unite!

Lead image: Close view of Hong Kong Lennon Wall by Ceeseven under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. Special thanks to Kirstin Maulding.

The post The P2P Festival in Paris: Unite the Peers appeared first on P2P Foundation.

If the fourth industrial revolution brings with it radically new models of production and consumption, how do you design new products, services and experiences? What does it mean to make open and collaborative innovation in the age of complexity? And how do you train to enable sustainable change?

Next 4.0 is an international workshop dedicated to the design and training of designers in the 4.0 paradigm. One morning with experts, universities, businesses and makers to find out how the skills of those who design the small and big things around us evolve.

Find out more here.

The post Next 4.0: Formative Scenarios for the 4.0 Revolution appeared first on P2P Foundation.

We are convening one hundred fifty speakers from over thirty countries to meet each other, co-design, and learn about a wide range of topics: 

• worker power in the platform economy,
• antitrust,
• misogyny and racism in co-ops,
• ecological sustainability,
• best practices for cooperation including the allocation of startup funding,
• the potential of platform co-ops for data trusts,
• data co-ops,
• new models for distributed governance,
• and data sovereignty.

Highlights include Anand Giridharadas, author of Winners Take All in conversation with Wilma Liebman, former chair of the NLRB.

Policy facilitators 

Kirsten Gillibrand, United States Senator; John Martin McDonnell, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer (opposition Finance Minister) of the Labour Party, UK; Dieter Janecek, member of the German Bundestag;  New York Assemblymember Ron Kim,

Platform co-op founders

Mensakas, Equal Care Co-op, Up&Go, Salus Coop, Fairbnb, Smart, 

Fairmondo, NeedsMap, Stocksy United, Cataki, Cotabo, Resonate, Core Staffing Cooperative, 

Scholars 

Juliet Schor, Mark Graham, Joseph Blasi, Jack Qiu, Gar Alperovitz, Sandeep Vaheesan, Koray Caliskan, Jessica Gordon-Nemhard, 

platform co-op incubators and other organizations providing infrastructure support

Start.coop, Unfound, Sharetribe, IDRC

Tech co-ops 

Sassafras, CoLab, Startin’blox, Cooper Systems

Allied community groups 

Sixth Street Youth Program, Techo, Peer to Peer Foundation, Young Farmers of America, Data 4 Black Lives, The New School Hip Hop Collective, The Fairwork Foundation

Union and co-op leaders

United States, Japan, Indonesia, France, Sweden, and India.

Coming to us from Zambia, Hip Hop artist PilAto, a.k.a Zambia’s Voice of Inequality, will perform a remake of Childish Gambino’s This Is America. The New School Hip Hop Collective will stage a night of Liberation. Prof. Daniel Blake and his Music for Political Action Fall 2019 course at The New School selected and researched the history of songs that relate to our event. You’ll hear them in the breaks. Stefania de Kenessey and vocalists Lisa Daehlin (soprano) and Waundell Saavedra (bass) will perform their live rendition of the platform co-op anthem! 

Lastly, the artist Gabo Camnitzer will stage a children’s strike with Sixth Street Youth Project, and a film screening with Astra Taylor (in person). 

Convened by

Trebor Scholz with support from Michael McHugh

REGISTER NOW

Lead image: spinning lights by aaronisnotcool 

The post Who Owns The World? The 5th conference on Platform Cooperativism appeared first on P2P Foundation.

How platform cooperatives deal with the size-identity tradeoff?

The first presenter was Jovana Karanovic. She is precisely the founder of Reshaping Work, and researcher at the KIN Center for Digital Innovation at VU Amsterdam. Following Carmelo Cenammo, the starting point of her talk was a trade-off that platforms face: the one of the platform size that leverages on growth of network effects (the winner-takes-all logic of Uber, Airbnb, and Deliveroo), and the other being the platform identity, which leverages on market positioning, platform quality and distinct content. The examples Jovana pointed out for the later were Grab and Careem, which beat big platforms by attending the particular preferences of Southeast Asia and Middle East users, respectively.

Her research question, along with her colleagues Hans Berends and Yuval Engel, is the following: how do platform cooperatives deal with the tradeoff between platform size and identity?

To tackle this question, they are comparing four case studies of platform cooperatives across four different industries: Wehelpen (care), Partago (car rental), Stocksy (stock photography), and Fairbnb (vacation rentals). Wehelpen and Partago look for “local” network effects (market segments); Stocksy and Fairbnb look for “global” network effects (entire market).

The key here, in my opinion, is to think if the specific strategic management of the local/global tradeoffs by platform cooperatives helps them to compete with platforms that leverage on ridiculously large financial resources to lower prices and “buy” clients to boost the network effect. These are the insights she presented:

– In terms of control mechanisms, Wehelpen and Partagon bet for an identity-driven market positioning through communication, set different rules for each community they serve, and use the cost of platform affiliation as a mean of control as well. On their “global side”, Stocksy and Fairbnb establish the following control mechanisms: quality base selection (e.g Stocky selects only top photographers) and selection based on adherence to values/principles (e.g. Fairbnb has 1 host 1 house policy).

– In terms of differentiation strategies, Wehelpen and Partago enforce a strong identity and adapts the offer to local particularities. If I understand this correctly, the alternative organization flavor (and its potential impact in terms of purpose and sustainability) can be a distinctive factor in terms of identity. They also stress (of course) the importance of local adaptation and market-segment specialization (which can leverage in their connections and social ties with existing local communities). Stocksy and Fairbnb, restrict market access on the supply side, which leads to offering more consistency. Also, platform architectures can support the identity, attracting a specific type of user (again, e.g., sustainability-driven).

I think that these insights support something that I wrote elsewhere: the fact that they can design a business model not-investor-centered can suppose a greater value proposition to patrons (and other stakeholders). Also, there is the fact that being alternative forms of organization helps them to differentiate their identity in terms of competitive advantage, which is something I was not sure it would happen.

What couriers think about platform cooperatives in Barcelona?

Ricard Espelt, from Dimmons research group at Open University of Catalonia, showed preliminary results of their research on platform couriers working in Barcelona: they are isolated from the perspective of law and they had to rely on emergent or alternative unions. Nor them nor the stakeholders have reached an agreement on how to solve their problems. They are themselves divided in between those that favor the creation of alternative- more coop-oriented-platforms, while others rather prefer to fight for labor rights in the current platforms.

The good news is, therefore, that there are couriers open to alternative forms of organization such as platform cooperatives. I do not think that it is crucial to know how many are they, but their existence, for that fact changes completely the feasibility of their existence. That is important, particularly in those countries in which legislation is leaning towards profit-oriented platforms.

Do algorithms contribute to shape the legal status of platform workers?

Anna Ginès i Fabrellas, professor and researcher at ESADE Business School, took a fascinating look at platform algorithms in terms of how they actually intervene/shape the legal status of workers:

• In terms of the debate “platforms as technological firms that just mediate between offer and demand”, vs “platforms as service providers” (algorithmic management), Anna convincingly argued that the role of the algorithm is so crucial in managing the delivery of services that this platforms cannot escape from the fact that they are service providers. And by the same token, platforms are a relevant productive infrastructure.
• When looking at algorithms as subordination, she showed that the massive data collected by geolocalization systems turns out to be a very effective form of control/management.
• Finally, the nature of platform algorithms (or at least the current ones) kills any dimension of workers entrepreneurship, for they adopt the most relevant decisions.

Anna paid attention as well to the new forms of worker’s precarity, and the different approaches to battle them. Being platform cooperatives one of them, she also pointed to the French regulation of platform worker’s rights, or the proposal of an entirely new legal regime for them.

As I see it, platform cooperatives are the straight-forward solution, because it not requires legal changes on their side.

Would a UBI help a transition to platform cooperatives?

Finally, Melisa Renau, also from Dimmons at UOC, presented her analytical model for conflict social relationships, applied to the courier’s case. Her research question is “How and if UBI could affect power relations between employers and workers by increasing and improving workers’ exit and voice options in the platform economy. Her elegant model, that draws from the Hirschman’s triangle and the Birnbaum and Wispelaere exit options models, showed that UBI is not a silver bullet:

• the empowering potential of a UBI depends on endogenous and exogenous variables.
• Providing economic independence does not mean ensuring equality,

While there is a hype around UBI, I see much more desirable the platform cooperative option, based on workers ownership and multistakeholder governance, (or open value networks, for that matter).

Finally, some of the best outcomes of the event came from the intervention of platform workers. I participated in a walk with two women that founded a union for cleaning ladies like them that deserved a dissertation at UAB. They showed outstanding intelligence, courage, and dignity in front of the abuses of the platform business model. And I could not help to tell them that I will contact them to talk about cooperative platforms.

New Reshaping Work regional events are on the way at Amsterdam, Novi Sad and Stockholm. They will equally stress the importance of research-based knowledge. Keep your eye on the growing list… or organize one in your city!

The post Prospective future of platform cooperatives: my takeaways from Reshaping Work Barcelona 2019 appeared first on P2P Foundation.

• Design Driven Strategies for Manufacture 4.0 and Social Innovation. Florence (Italy)
• Open Design and Manufacturing through event-based learning. Dabrowa Gornicza and Lodz (Poland)
• Citizens Centered Innovation and Design for Open and Distributed Manufacture. London (UK)
• Prototyping Artisan – A Designer who makes. Bilbao (Spain)

Introduction to the workshops

The report contains a presentation of the four training activities implemented by the OD&M Alliance between October 2018 and June 2019, respectively in Italy, UK, Spain and Poland.

The trainings have been developed, in the first instance, on the basis of the insights gathered through the exploratory study implemented by the Alliance over the course of 2017 . The study was aimed at achieving in depth understanding of the types of collaborations that Universities, communities of makers and firms across Europe and China are currently developing around the making culture and, by extension, open design and manufacturing. Besides, the study was aimed at gathering insights about possible innovations in higher education – including curricula and teaching and learning methods – that would lead to better and increased cross-sectoral synergies in the emerging OD&M field.

The training projects have been further advanced through a round of co-design implemented first at the international level (see London Co-design workshop Report available at www.odmplatform.eu), and then at the local levels of the four EU nodes, with the involvement of local stakeholders and external experts.

These co-design activities, which included workshops, desk research and stakeholder consultation, have led to the identification of key characteristics of each training, in terms of strategic positioning, target-group(s), types of learning challenges, learning outcomes and assessment and validation of competencies. More broadly, the trainings have been operating as testbeds for prototyping possible innovations within the higher education institutions involved, in order to explore the application of open design & manufacturing as a means to drive new cross-sectoral alliances, as well as to boost new knowledge and skills via new teaching and learning methods.

The document contains a summary of the activities implemented, methodology applied, learning challenges explored in each node and prototypes realized. More qualitative results and outcomes stemming from the training are instead documented in the final impact report (D5.3).

OD&M Team, June 2019

Download the report here: OD&M Training and Activities

Lead image: WeMake Open Design by wemake_cc

The post Industry, Design, Makers: Open Design and Manufacturing trainings appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Description

A new way of thinking is emerging for developing strategic pathways for local to planetary economic and ecological viability. This way of thinking centres around the ideas of “peer to peer production”, “the commons”, and “cosmo-localism”. This course will give participants emerging strategies to address critical development challenges using new cosmo-local and commons-based production strategies and thinking. Cosmo-local development describes the process of bringing together our globally distributed knowledge and design commons with the high-to-low tech capacity for localized production and self-organization. It augurs in an era in which the legacy of human creativity is at the disposal and service of those with the most needs, and in which our systems of production can be sustained within planetary ecological boundaries.

Over 15 cases will be presented on a variety of topics and themes, including:

• Examples in agriculture, for examples Farm Hack, Le A’terlier Paysans and FarmBot
• Examples in manufacturing, including Open Motors, AbilityMade and OpenROV
• Examples in medicine and health, including Fold-it and the Open Insulin Project
• Examples in housing construction, including Hexayurt and Wikihouse
• Examples in the circular economy, including Precious Plastic
• Examples in urban development, including Fabcity and Ghent city as commons
• Examples in water management, including Hack the Water Crisis (Stop Reset Go)
• Examples in crypto-programming, including Holochain
• Examples in disaster response, including Field Ready

The course is run in the format of ‘action learning’. This means that participants will form into groups (5-8 people) based on topics that are meaningful to them, and will engage in a problem solving (anticipatory innovation) process through-out the course. Participant will be introduced to the key ideas and guided through the problem solving in a step by step format, so that the ideas are applied in the context of real development challenges. The course is a unique offering combining anticipatory innovation and systemic futures design thinking that will give participants renewed leverage in generating ideas for positive social change.

Objectives of Course:

• Learn from 15+ examples and cases
• Learn concepts in

1. Peer Production
2. The Commons
3. Cosmo-local production

• Understand cosmo-localism as both

1. A seed form that can be applied and scaled from social enterprise
2. A political economic vision which provides new policy pathways

• Develop networks and connections with others that carry forward momentum
• Develop process skills in applying these models in the context of specific development and organisational challenges

Expected Outcomes of Course:

• A new set of concepts and understanding for development
• An understanding of how these strategies are applied
• A set of examples and cases that clarify how they function
• Ideas developed in the workshop that can be carried forward into the world
• Inclusion in an extended network of people interested in these new development strategies
• A cosmo-local production design canvas that will provide a template for applying the ideas elsewhere (this will be a simple to use canvas that can be printed in an A2 or bigger paper that will be linked to the course content)

The course is being run by Dr. Jose Ramos (Action Foresight), in conjunction with Prof. Shishir Kumar Jha and Raji Ajwani (Indian Institute of Technology – Mumbai) and Michel Bauwens (P2P Foundation).

About the presenter

José Maria Ramos is interim research coordinator for the P2P Foundation, director of the boutique foresight consultancy Action Foresight, is Senior Consulting Editor for the Journal of Futures Studies, and is Senior Adjunct Professor at the University of the Sunshine Coast. He has taught and lectured on futures studies, public policy and social innovation at the National University of Singapore (Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy), Swinburne University of Technology (Australia), Leuphana University (Germany), the University of the Sunshine Coast (Australia) and Victoria University (Australia). He has over 50 publications in journals, magazines and books spanning economic, cultural and political change, futures studies, public policy and social innovation. He has also co-founded numerous civil society organizations, a social forum, a maker lab, an advocacy group for commons governance, and a peer to peer leadership development group for mutant futurists. He holds a B.A. in Comparative Literature, a Masters degree in Strategic Foresight, and a Ph.D. in critical globalisation studies. He has a passion for the coupling of foresight and action, which has included both theoretical work through published articles, consulting work for federal, state and municipal governments, as well as citizen experiments in methodological innovation. He is originally from California of Mexican ancestry. Born in Oakland, he grew up in a very multi-cultural suburb of Los Angeles. After living in Japan and Taiwan, where he studied Japanese and Mandarin, he moved to Melbourne Australia to be with his wife, De Chantal. They have two children, son Ethan and daughter Rafaela. His other great passion is in considering who we are as planetary beings, which includes his ethnographic study of alternative globalizations, writings on planetary stigmergy, and research on cosmo-localization. This line of work connects him to the truth that we are all brothers and sisters inter-dependent with our planet and each other for our survival and wellbeing – our shared commons.

Workshop Schedule

Module Activities DAY 1

Day one (morning)

Deep dive into p2p / cosmo-local ideas and examples.

15+ case studies and examples from around the world

Content: Farm Hack, Le A’terlier Paysans and FarmBot, Open Motors, AbilityMade and OpenROV, Fold-it and the Open Insulin Project, Hexayurt and Wikihouse, Precious Plastic, Fabcity and Ghent city as commons, Hack the Water Crisis (Stop Reset Go), Holochain, Field Ready

LUNCH

Day one (afternoon)

Presentation of principles of cosmo-local production and commons based development.

Content

• The theory of the p2p economy.
• Foundational concepts.
• The theory of commons governance.
• Foundational concepts.

Lectures followed by discussion and Q&A.

Open discussion on participant reflections.

Dive into some of issues and challenges people are grappling with. Break into groups and begin to explore the nature of the problems and issues that they are facing.

DAY 2

Day two (morning) Re-articulation of the key ideas and then groups jump into practical and applied group work.

Content: The anticipatory experimentation method (AEM) steps 1-2

Identify the “used future” and develop a preferred future

LUNCH

Day two (afternoon)

Developing the proposal, articulating ideas to solve the local issues and problems, and developing ideas for real world experimentation.

Content:

• The anticipatory experimentation method (AEM)

steps 3-4

• Ideating solutions and real-world experiments

Presentations and discussing next steps as a network

What is cosmo-localism?

Cosmo-localization describes the process of bringing together our globally distributed knowledge and design commons with the high-to-low tech capacity for localized production. It augurs an era in which the legacy of human creativity is at the disposal and service of those in need within ecological planetary boundaries. It is based on the ethical premise, drawing from cosmopolitanism, that people and communities should be universally empowered with the heritage of human ingenuity that allow them to more effectively create livelihoods and solve problems in their local environments, and that, reciprocally, local production and innovation should support the wellbeing of our planetary commons.

“Cosmo-localization is a new paradigm for the production and distribution of value that combines the universal sharing of knowledge (cosmo), but the ‘subsidiarity’ of production as close as possible to the place of need (‘local’), essentially through distributed local manufacturing and voluntary mutualization. The general idea is not to impede technological progress though intellectual property, in an era of climate change where we cannot afford the 20-year lag in innovation due to patents; and to radically diminish the physical cost of transport through local production. Cosmo-localization is based on the belief that the mutualization of provisioning systems can radically diminish the human footprint on natural resources, which need to be preserved for future generations and all beings of the planet.” Michel Bauwens

“what is light (knowledge, design) becomes global, while what is heavy (machinery) is local, and ideally shared. Design global, manufacture local (DGML) demonstrates how a technology project can leverage the digital commons to engage the global community in its development, celebrating new forms of cooperation. Unlike large-scale industrial manufacturing, the DGML model emphasizes application that is small-scale, decentralized, resilient, and locally controlled.” –Vasilis Kostakis and Andreas Roos, Harvard Business Review

More information

Links to cosmo-localization:

• Peer Production and the Commons

• From redistributive urban commons to cosmo-local production commons

• Cosmo-Localization And Leadership For The Future

• Cosmo-localism and the Anthropocene

The post Futures of Production Through Cosmo-Local and Commons-Based Design appeared first on P2P Foundation.

For 24 hours we will jam on all the concepts and definitions for cosmo-localism. We intend to identify and flesh out all the killer ideas and concepts that make CL a profound vision and possibility for the 21st Century.

Why:

Many hands make light work, and the knowledge of CL is emergent and distributed. We can get to a first cut of the concepts better through the contribution of many experts and readers. Your ideas and perspective are needed

What will happen:

The editors for the cosmo-local reader (Sharon, Gien, Jose, Michel) will facilitate during the 24 hour period, will keep zoom conference window open to answer questions and discuss any issues, and contributors (you?) will make any contributions into the dictionary that they want.

Where will it happen:

The dictionary page is here.

People can begin to add ideas beforehand, or wait till the jam to add things.

This zoom link will stay open to allow for anyone to pop in, say hello, ask any questions and have a conversation if necessary.

https://zoom.us/j/316495572

Attribution:

Any contributors will be acknowledged in the dictionary.

* The dictionary will form part of the Cosmo-local reader, to be published early 2020.

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From the RIPESS page:

“More than 300 people from 46 different countries will meet from 5th to 7th April at the University of Barcelona, in the first international preparatory meeting for the World Social Forum of Transformative Economies 2020 (WSFTE 2020). It will be a working meeting with organizations linked to transforming economies, networks and movements at local and international level.

The aim will be to get to know the different actors, establish the challenges to be discussed, and the process towards the WSFTE 2020. It is also intended to agree the work plans, the governance model and validate the next steps to follow.”

The meeting will be the first step in the process of confluence between movements and actions that transform the economy. The next milestone in this process will be the WSFTE of 2020, to then continue with a common global agenda that collects the shared challenges and how to face them from the transforming economies.

RIPESS, as one of the three driving networks of the WSFTE 2020 welcomes all SSE people and organisations to Barcelona and we wish you a very productive meeting!

For all the information about the WSFTE 2020 and the process that starts today, you can visit the Forum website www.transformadora.org

The post World Social Forum of Transformative Economies – 1st International Meeting appeared first on P2P Foundation.