While health authorities focus on top-down measures to get COVID-19 supplies to hospitals in need, home-grown initiatives are enlisting regular people to create open-source equipment. Rather than wait for the impact of government efforts to persuade manufacturers to move into emergency production of ventilators and protective equipment, the sharing economy is already saving lives with home-made masks and 3D-printed ventilators.

A dearth of adequate medical supplies was implicated in an increase in coronavirus mortality in Italy, compared with Germany and South Korea, where supply was adequate.

Meeting a desperate need for ventilators through open-sourcing

Health authorities say the immediate short-term need is to get more ventilators, which compress and decompress air for patients who are too weak to breathe on their own.

In Ireland, a community called Open Source Ventilator sprang from a Facebook discussion to develop a simplified, low-cost, emergency ventilator that can be produced at scale from mostly 3D-printed components. Developed in collaboration with frontline healthcare workers, the emergency ventilator can be fabricated from locally sourced supplies and materials so its manufacture is not dependent on a global supply chain.

Before you rush out to hack together your personal ventilator, however, health experts warn that ventilators can do more harm than good if they are not properly constructed and operated. It is necessary to have the correct timing and air pressure, filtration, humidity, and temperature. Improper use can damage lung tissue and may even induce pneumonia. Faulty equipment can aerosolize the virus, causing it to infect others. Johns Hopkins has specifications for open-source ventilators. 

Home sewing corps fashion DIY masks

There are open-source projects in numerous cities focusing on producing masks for personal uses and to protect healthcare workers. COVID-19 is one micron wide and most medical masks filter particles down to three microns. So while wearing a mask doesn’t stop all virus particles, it significantly reduces the risk of infection. There is a multitude of how-to videos for how to sew your own mask with the fabric you have but health authorities caution that cotton, as shown in this video, is not good at stopping small particles so air filters should be added to protect down to three microns.  The Federal Drug Administration has guidance on producing and wearing DIY and 3D-printed masks during the pandemic.

Home computing power is put to work for drug research

The previous initiatives are aimed at short-term relief but in order to stop the spread of the disease and curb its deadly impact, we need to develop new drugs. The SARS-CoV-2 virus depends on proteins to reproduce, including an important one called the protease. Researchers want to find a molecule that can latch onto this protein and destroy it, paving the way to a therapeutic drug. That research requires a lot of computational power, which is why computer engineers have found a way for average people to donate their computer processors when they’re not using them. The Folding@home project uses software to unite home computers in a network that functions like a distributed supercomputer that can simulate possible drugs to cure the disease. The project is now over twice the size of the world’s largest supercomputer with more than an exaflop of processing power, meaning it can do a quintillion calculations per second. So far, 77 candidate drug compounds have been identified but users have raised concerns about abuse.

There are a number of ways for average people to get involved in fighting this pandemic and it’s clear that it will take all of us to beat the coronavirus. Whether you want to build a ventilator, sew a mask or contribute your excess computing power for research, the sharing economy means we can all play a part.

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This article is part of our reporting on the community response to the coronavirus crisis:

• The People’s COVID-19 Response needs you
• The coronavirus pandemic calls us to share more than ever
• 10 ways to share during the COVID-19 pandemic
• Coronavirus catalyzes growing wave of grassroots action despite social distancing
• 14 community-minded books to read during the 2020 quarantine
• Things got a whole lot more local than I expected due to coronavirus
• My new pandemic routine
• How these US immigrants are giving back to their new community during the COVID-19 crisis

The post Open-source medical supplies battle COVID-19 appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Introduction

E.F. Schumacher’s seminal work Small Is Beautiful (1973) champions the idea of smallness and localism as the way for meaningful interactions amongst humans and the technology they use. Technology is very important after all. As Ursula Le Guin (2004) puts it, “[t]echnology is the active human interface with the material world”. With this essay we wish to briefly tell a story, inspired by this creed, of an emerging phenomenon that goes beyond the limitations of time and space and may produce a more socially viable and radically democratic life.

We want to cast a radical geographer’s eye over “cosmolocalism”. Antipode has previously published an article by Hannes Gerhardt (2019) and an interview with Michel Bauwens (Gerhardt 2020) that have touched upon “cosmolocalism”. Cosmolocalism emerges from technology initiatives that are small-scale and oriented towards addressing local problems, but simultaneously engage with globally asynchronous collaborative production through digital commoning. We thus connect such a discussion with two ongoing grassroots developments: first, a cosmolocal response to the coronavirus pandemic; and, second, an ongoing effort of French and Greek communities of small-scale farmers, activists and researchers to address their local needs.

Cosmolocalism in a Nutshell

Τhe most important means of information production – i.e. computation, communications, electronic storage and sensors – have been distributed in the population of most advanced economies as well as in parts of the emerging ones (Benkler 2006). People with access to networked computers self-organise, collaborate, and produce digital commons of knowledge, software, and design. Initiatives such as the free encyclopedia Wikipedia and myriad free and open-source software projects have exemplified digital commoning (Benkler 2006; Gerhardt 2019, 2020; Kostakis 2018).

While the first wave of digital commoning included open knowledge projects, the second wave has been moving towards open design and manufacturing (Kostakis et al. 2018). Contrary to the conventional industrial paradigm and its economies of scale, the convergence of digital commons with local manufacturing machinery (from 3D printing and CNC milling machines to low-tech tools and crafts) has been developing commons-based economies of scope (Kostakis et al. 2018). Cosmolocalism describes the processes where the design is developed and improved as a global digital commons, while the manufacturing takes place locally, often through shared infrastructures and with local biophysical conditions in check (Bauwens et al. 2019). The physical manufacturing arrangement for cosmolocalism includes makerspaces, which are small-scale community manufacturing facilities providing access to local manufacturing technologies.

Unlike large-scale industrial manufacturing, cosmolocalism emphasizes applications that are small-scale, decentralised, resilient and locally controlled. Cosmolocal production cases such as L’Atelier Paysan (agricultural tools), Open Bionics (robotic and bionic hands), WikiHouse (buildings) or RepRap (3D printers) demonstrate how a technology project can leverage the digital commons to engage the global community in its development.

Two Cases of Cosmolocalism

While this essay was being written in March 2020, a multitude of small distributed initiatives were being mobilised to tackle the coronavirus pandemic. Individuals across the globe are coming together digitally to pool resources, design open source technological solutions for health problems, and fabricate them in local makerspaces and workshops. For example, people are experimenting with new ventilator designs and hacking existing ones, creating valves for ventilators which are out of stock, and designing and making face shields and respirators.

There are so many initiatives, in fact, that there are now attempts to aggregate and systematise the knowledge produced to avoid wasting resources on problems that have already been tackled and brainstorm new solutions collectively.[1] This unobstructed access to collaboration and co-creation allows thousands of engineers, makers, scientists and medical experts to offer their diverse insights and deliver a heretofore unseen volume of creative output. The necessary information and communication technologies were already available, but capitalism as a system did not facilitate the organisational structure required for such mass mobilisation. In response to the current crisis, an increasing number of people are working against and beyond the system.

Such initiatives can be considered as grassroots cosmolocal attempts to tackle the inability of the globalised capitalist arrangements for production and logistics to address any glitch in the system. We have been researching similar activity in various productive fields for a decade, from other medical applications, like 3D-printed prosthetic hands, to wind turbines and agricultural machines and tools (Giotitsas 2019; Kostakis et al. 2018).

The technology produced is unlike the equivalent market options or is entirely non-existent in the market. It is typically modular in design, versatile in materials, and as low-cost as possible to make reproduction easier (Kostakis 2019). Through our work we have identified a set of values present in the “technical codes” of such technology which can be distilled into the following themes: openness, sustainability and autonomy (Giotitsas 2019). It is these values that we believe lead to an alternative trajectory of technological development that assists the rise of a commons-based mode of production opposite the capitalist one. This “antipode” is made possible through the great capacity for collaboration and networking that its configuration offers.

Allow us to elaborate via an example. In the context of our research we have helped mobilise a pilot initiative in Greece that has been creating a community of farmers, designers and fabricators that helps address issues faced by the local farmers. This pilot, named Tzoumakers, has been greatly inspired by similar initiatives elsewhere, primarily by L’Atelier Paysan in France. The local community benefits from the technological prowess that the French community has achieved, which offers not only certain technological tools but also through them the commitment for regenerative agricultural practices, the communal utilisation of the tools, and an enhanced capacity to maintain and repair. At the same time, these tools are adapted to local needs and potential modifications along with local insights may be sent back to those that initially conceived them. This creates flows of knowledge and know-how but also ideas and values, whilst cultivating a sense of solidarity and conviviality.

Instead of Conclusions, a Call to Arms

We are not geographers. However, the implications of cosmolocalism for geography studies are evident. The spatial and cultural specificities of cosmolocalism need to be studied in depth. This type of study would go beyond critique and suggest a potentially unifying element for the various kindred visions that lack a structural element. The contributors (and readership) are ideally suited to the task of critically examining the cosmolocalism phenomenon and contributing to the idea of scaling-wide, in the context of an open and diverse network, instead of scaling-up.

Cosmolocal initiatives may form a global counter-power through commoning. Considering the current situation we find ourselves in as a species, where we have to haphazardly re-organise entire social structures to accommodate the appearance of a “mere” virus, not to mention climate change, it is blatantly obvious that radical change is required to tackle the massive hurdles to come. Cosmolocalism may point a way forward towards that change.

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant no. 802512). The photos were captured by Nicolas Garnier in the Tzoumakers makerspace.

Endnote

[1] Volunteers created the following editable webpage where, at the time of writing, more than 1,500 commons-based initiatives against the ongoing pandemic have been documented: https://airtable.com/shrPm5L5I76Djdu9B/tbl6pY6HtSZvSE6rJ/viwbIjyehBIoKYYt1?blocks=bipjdZOhKwkQnH1tV (last accessed 27 March 2020)

References

Bauwens M, Kostakis V and Pazaitis A (2019) Peer to Peer: The Commons Manifesto. London: University of Westminster Press

Benkler Y (2006) The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom. New Haven: Yale University Press

Gerhardt H (2019) Engaging the non-flat world: Anarchism and the promise of a post-capitalist collaborative commons. Antipode DOI:10.1111/anti.12554

Gerhardt H (2020) A commons-based peer to peer path to post-capitalism: An interview with Michel Bauwens. AntipodeOnline.org 19 February https://antipodeonline.org/2020/02/19/interview-with-michel-bauwens/ (last accessed 27 March 2020)

Giotitsas C (2019) Open Source Agriculture: Grassroots Technology in the Digital Era. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan

Kostakis V (2018) In defense of digital commoning. Organization 25(6):812-818

Kostakis V (2019) How to reap the benefits of the “digital revolution”? Modularity and the commons. Halduskultuur: The Estonian Journal of Administrative Culture and Digital Governance 20(1):4-19

Kostakis V, Latoufis K, Liarokapis M and Bauwens M (2018) The convergence of digital commons with local manufacturing from a degrowth perspective: Two illustrative cases. Journal of Cleaner Production 197(2):1684-1693

Le Guin U K (2004) A rant about “technology”. http://www.ursulakleguinarchive.com/Note-Technology.html (last accessed 27 March 2020)

Schumacher E F (1973) Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered. New York: Harper & Row

The post Small and local are not only beautiful; they can be powerful appeared first on P2P Foundation.

It has been roughly a decade after the days that people first discussed Open Design. It has hitherto evolved from a concept, to a movement, to a viable business choice.

The RepRap 3D printer has been one of the first and most successful examples of open design. A 3D printer that could replicate itself is more than a design solution; it is a bold statement on the technological capacities of our time. A thing built to create other things, now creating copies of itself. Creation, being one of the core human characteristics, is now embedded in our creations.

It is, thus, no wonder it has sparked a wave of enthusiasm across diverse communities. Different visions of open innovation, distributed manufacturing and an automated self-sufficient society embody, to a lesser or larger extent the notion of open design. Though as much as the vision extends, the actual practice remains rather restrained. And while RepRap based 3D printers may have evolved to a billion dollar industry, industrial uptake of open design and open manufacturing is, arguably, still not there to see.

Part of the problem, as it is often the case, is structural. As a social activity, the open sharing of ideas and collaboration to create useful things by the users themselves has a self-evident merit. It can lead to better technologies, more learning from the side of the users, broader access to means of making and less waste, due to on-demand production and better maintenance capacity. But as a business option it goes almost against the foundations of everything we understand as the purpose of an enterprise.

In the end of the day, is able to survive to the extent it succeeds to exchange their products and services for money. Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations, identifies this practice of exchange as a core survival tactic amongst individuals too. In a society where people produce themselves only a small fraction of the things they need, they exchange the products of their labour with these of other people to get the rest of it. It is then the common sense that markets and money is in fact the very purpose of the economy.

From a different perspective, the economy is about provisioning. It is the sphere of human activity that serves to cover societal needs: from the basic means of subsistence, to things and actions meant for pleasure and self-actualisation. From this point of view, sharing is actually a very economic function. Even more, on many instances it serves to create and distribute vital resources much more efficiently than markets. However, at least until recently, sharing could not be generalised as a capacity providing for human needs at scale. Therefore, it was mainly restrained to those domains where the costs of enforcing the rules necessary for market exchange were simply too high to bear.

But what the internet revolution brought about is much higher capabilities for communication and coordination based on shared information and human sociality. The sphere of these domains where market exchange is not the common sense has rapidly expanded. It became possible for people to pool, rather than exchange, the products of their labour on much greater scale, thus creating a much more generalised capacity for societies to serve their needs.

That is of course not to suggest that markets and money are simply done away with sharing and open design. Nevertheless, they no longer serve as the sole imperatives stimulating human creativity and coordination, if they ever have been. And it is vital for the flourishing of our societies to recognise, support and further stimulate these dynamics in our economic institutions. Even when access to better design and user experience is now more available than ever, businesses, especially small ones, will not invest in these possibilities before clear returns can be foreseen, in terms of covering their overheads, wages and taxes.

In the transitioning from the feudal order to the industrial one, no markets could ever exist and no exchange could take place if there weren’t for the provisions and enforcement of property rights and trade agreements. Likewise, in order to reap the benefits of the new technological capabilities, we need legal provisions to re-establish the relationship of businesses with their user communities now largely participating in the design and production; support measures like universal basic income for workers to be emancipated and devote their creative energy where it most needed in their local societies; and collective institutions that generalise and support pooling of productive capacities wherever possible, from digital platforms of open design, software and knowledge to open spaces for collaborative production, distributed manufacturing and needs-based design for societal needs.

The post Is Open Design a Viable Economic Practice? appeared first on P2P Foundation.

In these almost ten years 创客 chuangke (Chinese for makerspace) have boosted, shrunk, evolved. In 2019 the panorama is capillary diversified throughout the country: the strong policies of incentives actuated by the government starting from 2015 and the great diversity of the cultural and business landscapes in cities of 1st, 2nd, 3rd tier make the “mass entrepreneurship innovation” policy interpreted and implemented differently.

During several sessions, we have interviewed Eduardo Alarcon Gallo, the communication officer for 新车间Xinchejian[1], on if and how the source of funding and revenues, as well as impact potential on learning and business models, have evolved in this decade.[1] the first maker-space in China, founded in 2010 by David Li (李大维), Min Lin Hsieh (谢旻琳) and Ricky Ng-Adams (伍思力) in Shanghai, renown to be a true hackerspace with Chinese characteristics.

What is the financial status of XinCheJian?

Xinchejian is a no-profit establishment run by volunteers: it survives cutting down the costs.

What is XinCheJian?

Xinchejian is a makerspace. It is a community. It is a place to learn and experience, a place for STEAM.

XinCheJian also embraces business, it’s a place to cooperate and create, to help to create start-ups, and create win-win connections with schools, universities and companies.

How has the government’s set of incentives following the policy “mass entrepreneurship innovation” supported you?

It has not, until spring 2019. We have been offered several times, but we preferred singular sponsorships from different companies throughout the years to focus on our independent community and activities.

This year, nevertheless, the rent of our historic venue has increased quite considerably, to a point where it was not sustainable for us. We have been offered some other venues for free, but after careful consideration, we considered our location a real value and an asset for our activities and legacy. We believe the strongest element of a makerspace is its community, of both memberships and at large. After all these years our community is here, where we are. Moreover, this neighbourhood, differently from others, has kept its initial population of small vendors, craftsman, industrial workshops, repairmen; we know them, we collaborate: in a way the neighbourhood it’s part of our community at large.

Therefore, in spring 2019 we have applied for government funding to sustain the rent’s cost. We have not participated in other ways to the government policy.

Has the 2015 policy “mass entrepreneurship innovation” changed or influenced your activities? Did you perceive the Bubble[2]?

We did not feel the Bubble, I did not even hear about it. We are not new makers trying to do good. Nobody ever came here and told me “… we do not trust the movement or your space”.

As a maker I know the spaces which are active and thrive both in China and abroad, I am not aware of the details of other situations.

My experience is that it could take a couple of years to establish a healthy community around a space; a sudden growth of 189 beautiful spaces in 6 months may lead to the fact that some could remain empty if they were not established to further collate a community already growing in the area.

How were you funded?

At the beginning we were sponsored by companies which were interested in relating their brand to our community and members, companies like BMW, Frog, DF Robot. From the very first start, we designed and held workshops for the sponsoring companies on themes like DIY, electronics, SW design, and others. These activities provided us with enough income to grow and thrive.

How has the companies’ interest evolved?

Today the interest of the companies has evolved and it is distributed among the offer of the 16 different Maker-spaces now active in Shanghai.

In addition to the workshops and courses on themes like DIY, electronics, SW design, now the companies are asking for an array of different activities: it is more complex, more sophisticated, layered and deeply integrated with companies’ HR culture. For example, alongside hackathons and DIY workshops, we are asked for courses on ideation processes, innovation management, sustainability, design thinking, and activities for team building and family days.

We are developing similarities to a service company.

How are you funded now?

We are funded by the companies which are interested in what our community can offer and our structured and custom-designed services.  We are now leveraging our human resources in our community to allocate them to the project of our client. The most common topics are still related to machinery, hardware and software design, but we are also asked about soft skills. There is now a new project management layer added to the professional service: especially for those companies which, due to the specific project’s size and duration, won’t need to hire an employee, but just outsource with us. We can offer a vast database of people, competences and services. In the free-lancer hour-fee, there is a percentage for Xinchejian to help it continue to be the bridge.

Our community counts hundreds of people as Xinchejian members, thousands as collaborating non-members. We connect and collaborate with individuals, centres and also other communities (like Coderbanker) with a common focus on business.

Can we then refer to it as an organic and synergetic community’s business model?

Yes, sure.

As makerspace, our membership is 100 yuan per month. Being a non-profit based on a community, it is difficult to escalate our model and to run a business sustainably. The management is horizontal, not vertical, so, at times, the decision-making process can be slow or have not a clear and consistent direction. Therefore the makerspace needs to remain a makerspace.

On the other hand, the companies and startups that are born here in Xinxchejian give back a percentage of the revenues of the activities that are related to the space.

Also, as I mentioned, we provide services to companies through our pool of hackers of whom fees we receive a percentage.

Many companies come to Xinxchejian to collaborate with all aspects of our community because they are aware there is a symbiosis and a win-win; the very members act often as a connection to the industrial world. We have built a reliable brand.

From a business model point of view, what is opensource for you?

Opensource is a tool, one of the many. Well managed, it can support gaining a big community in and around the space, but it is hard to monetize. We do not push mandatory opensource, for us, it is one more tool to create and sustain healthy community learning and business models.

From a business model point of view, what is opensource for you?

Opensource is a tool, one of the many. Well managed, it can support gaining a big community in and around the space, but it is hard to monetize. We do not push mandatory opensource, for us, it is one more tool to create and sustain healthy community learning and business models.

Your community: how did you build it and how have you kept it? Can you tell us about its evolution?

I could summarize these years in three main phases.

At the very first beginning, there was a clear separation between staff members and other members. At times there was not much awareness of one another within the two groups and members took the place (Xinchejian) for granted not knowing the existing challenges on economic sustainability and other issues.

In a second phase, the first generation of staff was growing bigger, through interests related to their history in Xinchejian, but outside of it, and there was some detachment.

Through long experience, we have grown into the opinion that to grow and keep a wide and solid community for our place, members’ participation to the various issues occurring was fundamental: it would facilitate stable commitment, spread a sense of responsibility on both staff and regular members, and transparency would bring trust.

Therefore, in this third phase, we have reorganised internal fluxes and added a management take on the activities. We have established several departments: maintenance, external communication, workshops, party committee, open night, finance. Our economic situation is now completely disclosed through a big whiteboard, visible for anyone who enters the space, with detailed incomes and expenses: not being fully aware proved to be a real barrier for our community.

Our choice has been proven to be the right one, now also the staff group has evolved: it comprises also active and committed makers who use the space every day. The heavy users have hence committed also into maintaining the space.

Which is the impact of XinCheJian on business models?

For what concerns the other makerspaces, we are often looked at as a model, for example, our membership is 100yuan/month and the other spaces follow.

For what concerns other businesses, I do not feel we can influence the sector since we are a non-profit.

On the other hand, the companies and startups that are born here are new and innovative: in my opinion, they are influencing the market with new ways and new business models.

–Precious Plastic, for example, is a 100 countries’ business model offering to all teams around the world blueprints and toolkits to create a recycling station. The Shanghai branch was born here and they create and sell mainly activities on recycling awareness, educational with universities and institutions, CSR with companies.

–Tokylab is an edutech STEAM company with the goal to empower anyone to invent and create in 5 minutes with no previous knowledge. It collaborates with companies and institutions. It is a new business, it is softwareless, this allows to major savings on the maintenance and updating.

–Vincihub organizes flight lessons with the helicopter flight simulator that they developed in XinCheJian.

As I mentioned before we also offer a support system for a new way to freelance.

How do you see XinCheJian’s impact?

The impact on society at large I reckon is substantial since the 21st-century skills are DIY. One learns how to learn, create, share, give and take within the community. Achieving your goals within a community enhances your soft skills.

Broadly it has an impact on innovation through products, services and business models.

What would you say is typically Chinese about XinCheJian?

Approximately 40 or 50 % of members and managers are Chinese.

Images source: https://www.facebook.com/xinchejian/

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[1] the first maker-space in China, founded in 2010 by David Li (李大维), Min Lin Hsieh (谢旻琳) and Ricky Ng-Adams (伍思力) in Shanghai, renown to be a true hackerspace with Chinese characteristics.

[2] From the implementation of the 2015 policy “Mass Entrepreneurship Innovation” China has experienced incredible growth, reaching the biggest number of incubators and makerspaces in the world. The first high-tech business incubator was born in 1987 (in Wuhan, Hubei province), the first makerspace in 2010 (Xinchejian in Shanghai), the second one in 2011 (Chai Huo in Shenzhen), and at the end of 2016 China owned 3.255 incubators and 4.298 makerspaces triggering the creation of 223.000 SMEs. The numbers of the active makerspaces fluctuate considerably between 2015 and 2018: this phenomenon of sudden opening and closing have been referred to as The Bubble.

The post The Evolving Business Strategy Of A Community In The First Chinese Makerspace appeared first on P2P Foundation.

The leitmotif of this year’s LUMEN Conference was the practical aspects of the implementation of Law 2.0, including change management at universities. The debate featured the main stakeholders of the science and higher education system, including the representatives of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education (MNiSW) and other government institutions, university and academic association authorities, academic staff, management practitioners, as well as outstanding representatives of the academic community from Poland and abroad.

The Conference ended with a special session during which the nominees and winners of the 3rd edition of the Leaders in University Management Competition LUMEN 2019 and review good management practices at Polish universities based on materials submitted for the Competition was presented.

Polish OD&M Training called “Open Design & Manufacturing through event bades learning” was presented as a good practise with 5 other projects in Special prize section for projects which are exceeding main categories. Those projects include three main aspects – Management, Development and Cooperation.

Video presenting thePolish OD&M Training:  https://drive.google.com/open?id=1mR7KYo48ksed1zmOveTmRNdE58X8mOMu

The post Lumen Prize for Polish OD&M Training 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.

The post Global Jam – Dictionary of Cosmolocalism appeared first on P2P Foundation.

There is much hype around circular and collaborative economies over the past few years. From Davos to the European Union, everyone is eager to grab a piece of the new mode of industrial development. But what lies beneath these grand narratives?

In this 3-part short series we attempt to critically review the current discussion on the circular and collaborative economy and provide insights from some alternative trajectories.

This short series based on a workshop on circular, collaborative and distributed production designed and facilitated by Chris Giotitsas and Alex Pazaitis on the occasion of the participation of OD&M project at the 83rd Florence International Handycraft Fair, on April 24, 2019 in Florence.

Part 1: On the circular economy.

The most widely known and basic definition for a circular economy (accepted even by the European Union) entails cycles of production, ranging from repair, to maintenance, to re-use, refurbishment, and last to recycling. For this conceptualization to work, products need to be designed to fit these cycles. Meaning that we need to rethink how we design and make things. For instance, a phone may be designed so that it can be more durable, easier to repair and easier to recycle. So far so good.

However, considering the production and distribution networks today, that would presumably take place on a global scale. A product would be produced in one place, then purchased on the other side of the planet, then repaired or refurbished and resold somewhere else entirely. Until ultimately it is recycled for material and entering the cycle all over again. The question here, then, is: who would do the repair/ refurbishment/ recycling on that scale? As it is currently conceptualized, it is the service provider or the manufacturer that does it. How? Would manufacturers have processing facilities all over the planet, or would the products be sent to their locations thus increasing energy consumption and pollution? Doesn’t this reverse the whole point of circularity related to sustainability?  

Furthermore, how would manufacturers and service providers keep track of all these products? Apparently, it is with the help of the “Internet of Things”, by making products smart and trackable. But if we’re talking about a circular system of this complexity then this means that the “manufacturer” would need to have massive operational capacities and resources as well as tracking (or surveilling really) data to an alarming degree.

From a different perspective, if one looks at the EU reports on the issue of circular economies they will find assessments based on collected data and while there is plenty available on a state and municipal level (regarding, for instance, recycling) there is next to none when it comes to industry. That is hardly surprising. It is costs money to track and collect information and when there is no clear profit foreseen, then why would a private manufacturer do it? The idea is to incentivize industry to change their practices. Allow them to make money in a different, more sustainable way. But even then, why would they share data? And how would the protocols and processes of one huge manufacturer work with those of another. They are competitors after all and the profit of one signals the loss of another. 

So, circularity without being open source, is not really circularity. By making it so, then it would ensure interoperability for start. Meaning the products of one manufacturer would work with those of another. Open licenses and standards for parts, tools, materials as well as the sharing of all relevant information would mean that the product of one manufacturer would be possible to be repaired or maintained by whomever locally. Their materials would also be easier to locate, distribute, and reuse. However, at least for now, this seems not to be the goal.

When it comes to the circular economy, we are attempting to apply a concept on a production system that is incompatible. And the attempts so far, seem either too small or they end up being co-opted to such a degree that they lose any transformative potential.  

Part 2: On the Sharing Economy

As a global society, we are facing what could be understood as an existential dilemma with the sharing economy. As a phenomenon, the sharing economy has been increasingly gaining attention since -roughly- 2004, as it gets more and more share in the global markets. But sharing, as a practice, is not a new phenomenon. It has been present in communities since the dawn of human history. And, frankly, in our current form of economic organisation we have not always been very fond of it…. 

Those of us who have been old enough to witness a primitive type of audiovisual technology called “Digital Video Disc” (aka DVD), have often found ourselves irritated with -and simultaneously amused by- aggressive anti-piracy ads like this one. In all their ridiculousness, comparing a downloaded movie with car theft, what they were basically tackling was early forms of peer-to-peer file-sharing.  

So what has happened in less than 10 years that made sharing (esp. over the internet) from a criminal activity to the whole “sharing is caring” story? 

Apparently, the answer lies in some people making enormous amounts of money through sharing. A glimpse on the net worth of Mark Zuckerberg or the market value of tech start-ups like Uber or AirBnB nicely illustrate this. On the other hand, a closer look in their underlying infrastructures (and also their tax returns) shows that, despite profiting on sharing capacities, they are not equally interested in sharing themselves. So, to put it bluntly, what is interesting about sharing, is the sharing economy. What is less obvious is what it is about the economy that is of the interest of sharing. 

In a broader view, the economy can be described as a system that caters for the production and distribution of the means necessary for our subsistence and well-being. In the specific kind of economic system we broadly refer to as capitalism, economic affairs usually involve two main institutions: (a) private property; and (b) market exchange. The latter is fundamentally dependent on the former, and, respectively, the former rationalises the latter. This line of economic understanding also by and large underpins the definition of the sharing (or collaborative) economy from the European Union (European Commission (2016). A European Agenda for the Collaborative Economy. Available): 

“[…] the term “collaborative economy” refers to business models where activities are facilitated by collaborative platforms that create an open marketplace for the temporary usage of goods or services often provided by private individuals” 

And further it is pointed out: 

“Collaborative economy transactions generally do not involve a change of ownership and can be carried out for profit or not-for-profit” 

More or less, the understanding of sharing on behalf of the EU is reduced to the extent it can relate to these fundamental institutions of property and exchange. The focus is then placed on regulating issues evolving around these relations, concerning both things and people, including labour, liability and taxation. 

Nevertheless, the same document still cannot move away from pointing out -even if in a footnote- a certain element that is significantly different: 

“Collaborative economy services may involve some transfer of ownership of intellectual property […]” 

And I would add a hint: often without conventional market-based transactions. Earlier examinations of the phenomenon focus exactly on this dynamic, explaining those conditions that allow them to have massive economic impact. Harvard Law Professor, Yochai Benkler, more than a decade before the EU became interested in the sharing economy (Benkler, Y. 2004. Sharing Nicely: On Shareable Goods and the Emergence of Sharing as a Form of Economic Production. The Yale Law Journal, 114(2): 273-358), eloquently argues on sharing as a form of economic production and nicely summarises his position as follows (again in a footnote, yet for different reasons here): 

“I am concerned with the production of things and actions/services valued materially, throughnon-market mechanisms of social sharing […]” 

And then continues: 

“Sharing’, then, offers a less freighted name for evaluating mechanisms of social-relations-based economic production” 

The phrase “valued materially” concerns the real value of sharing, not the one expressed in financial markets or the balance sheets of Facebook’s partner advertising companies. It relates to the very human interaction of sharing stuff and our own time and capacities in things we consider meaningful, from food, shelter and rides, to knowledge, information and technology. The meaning, or value, of this interaction, contrary to the so-called sharing economy, is not guided by price signals between the people, commodities and services. It is a form of an economy, i.e. a system catering for human subsistence and well-being, based solely on social relations. And this is partly why a Harvard professor has to come up with a “less freighted name” for it, as we can all imagine the all-too-freighted name of it that any Fox News anchor would instinctively shout out based on the above definition alone. 

And here lies the real transformative dynamic of sharing as a form of economic production. It is this element that allows a group of uncoordinated software developers create better a web-server than Microsoft; or thousands of people, contributing their knowledge with no predefined structure, roles or economic incentives, create a digital encyclopedia that outgrows Britannica. But such sharing-enabled success stories typically don’t mobilise huge cash flows and don’t create “added value”, which basically entails an understanding of value stemming exclusively from selling stuff to people.  

Going back to our existential issues with sharing, our general position as societies is that we basically think of sharing as a nice thing to do, but lack the institutions to really appreciate its value for our economic system. This massively restrains the actual dynamics of sharing, which are gradually subsumed by the dominant private-property-and-market-driven system. 

There are of course great alternatives in the digital economy alone that build on this sharing capacity in a more humane and socially-minded way, from early neighbourhood tools and rides sharing platforms, to Free and Open Source Software, open design projects and Wikipedia. There is frankly as much sharing taking place on Facebook as in Wikipedia, at least on the front end. But the underlying value models and, subsequently, potential outcomes for the majority of the people involved are vastly different. 

For this we need to finally mature with regards to our issues with sharing and, eventually, make a choice for the kind of sharing for which we would design our institutions and societies. And hopefully that would be the one that would help us escape the current dead ends on the social and ecological front. 

Part 3: Needs-based design as an alternative paradigm 

Despite the serious conceptual and systemic problems described in the previous parts of this short series, it does not necessarily mean that there are no examples of true implementation for collaborative and circular practices right now. In fact, there are several technological development communities that make it happen to some significant degree. More specifically,  needs-based design and grassroots innovation as community-driven endeavours offer a serious alternative paradigm. 

In other words, communities can harness these ICT-enabled capabilities to collaboratively create technology for themselves, and promote sustainable practices based on shared values, knowledge and infrastructure. For instance, small-scale farmers in the agricultural communities of L’atelier paysan and Farm Hack, collaborate to produce tools and machines, often from recycled scrap material, suitable for their type of agriculture, which conventional market channels often fail to adequately cover. 

Yet, this type of self-construction activity is limited in simpler, frugal solutions, whereas  to address today’s challenges we need a broader engagement of design and engineering. But for a community to create complex technologies and systems, advanced skills still need to be employed, including designers, engineers and software developers. The main difference is the type of relationship they have with the community of users. This means the experts would act according to their own motives for engagement but with an explicit purpose to provide a solution which best serves the users of the technology. 

As far as the users are concerned, designers take up a specific purpose. They serve the role of guides or “Sherpas” (with reference to the ethnic group of the Himalayas that are expert mountaineers helping other groups). In that sense, the design process begins after a need within a community is made explicit. Then the designer meets with the community several times to discuss the parameters of the problem that needs solving and uses her expertise to design the solution, which is then reviewed by the community. This is an iterative process until a final artefact is produced, often through a collective process.

Nevertheless, engaging in such a creative activity  and simultaneously making a living out of its is no easy task, yet it is better than the alternative. Having a community as a base of support beats deciding to engage in “social innovation” on your own. At least if we are defining social innovation as something that you make for the common good rather than a thing to make money out of. For instance, designers in the agricultural communities mentioned above, could receive funds to help farmers refurbish or redesign an existing tool, or they could crowdfund within the community for the creation of a new tool. 

Such hybrid and radical models may lead to some sustainability for the designer willing to engage in social production. In our view however, for these terms to be genuinely meaningful in terms of sustainability, openness and equity, structural changes need to take place starting from a policy level. These communities provide a certain blueprint to inform the direction which needs to be taken. 

For instance, instead of incentives for manufacturers, perhaps more focus could be placed in empowering communities to tackle parts of the extremely complex problems of circular production. Likewise, user-communities can harness favourable licences and legal tools to build on shared capacities for collaborative forms of production and distribution. Individuals like designers could also be given incentives and support to engage with these communities in a relationship that is not profit-driven but informed by mutually shared values. 

What this would look like may take many forms, especially depending on local cultures and social contexts. For instance, such a community in the US, which generally lacks serious welfare structures, means that farmers need to rely largely on themselves and each other. Designers that work with them, manage to secure limited funding through the national agriculture organisations and donors while doing also something else to secure their personal sustainability. A similar community in Europe, on the other hand, which still manages to maintain basic social welfare amidst austerity obsessions, means that designers and engineers working with the farmers can secure state funding. So the volume of the work, as well as the quality of tools and documentation can be significantly increased. 

In conclusion, collaborative and circular economies are possible. But we need, as a society, to engage with these ideas in more radical ways than it is happening at the moment.

The post OD&M: Designing for Sustainable Economic Transformations appeared first on P2P Foundation.

The development of cheap single-board programmable systems in the recent period, has significantly facilitated the prototyping of electronic circuits. One of the first open electronic platforms was the Arduino. This hardware platform is compatible with open programming systems. The Arduino platform was based on a simple design and was created mainly for educational applications. The use of popular interfaces for communication with peripheral devices in the construction of the device meant that many projects in the field of control, automation and the Internet of Things were created on the basis of Arduino.  The Arduino platform was established in 2003 and is successfully used in modern projects. Another popular device for prototyping of control systems is Raspberry Pi. Raspberry Pi is a mini-computer working under the control of the Raspbian OS. This operating system is based on Debian, a popular Linux distribution. In addition to the standard interfaces known from traditional PCs, this computer has a 40 pin GPIO connector, which allows designers to use devices connected with I2C, SPI or 1-Wire bus. Thanks to this device, it is possible to integrate the designed system with many peripheral sensors and automatic control modules. There are many other platforms on the market that have interfaces to integrate with popular sensors and controls, and allow programmers to create code in high-level programming languages. Due to their low cost, these devices can be a popular alternative to the most well-known and more expensive solutions. The most popular platforms of this type are:

• Orange Pi – Orange Pi is an open SoC computer. It has preinstalled operating system in Flash memory. This microcomputer has Allwinner H3 processor, it can run operating systems Android 4.4, Ubuntu, Raspbian. There is a version of this device equipped with a SIM card slot that allows data transmission in mobile networks.
• NodeMCU – A device with a WiFi module, based on the ESP8266 chip. It has 10 GPIO ports (serving PWM, I2C and 1-wire). The platform has been equipped with 4 MB of Flash memory. The system has a built-in single-channel 10-bit analogue ADC converter and USB-UART converter. The NodeMCU software is installed in the device’s memory, which allows you to create programs in the Lua script language. Developers can also use the popular C language.
• Onion Omega 2 – A single board platform for amateur use. One of the smallest IoT modules on the market that work with the Linux system. The device has a Mediatek MT7688 processor clocked at 580 MHz, has 64 MB of RAM and 16 MB of built-in Flash memory. The system has a built-in WiFi module and 15x GPIO, PWM, UART, I2C, and SPI interfaces. The module is controlled via a built-in web interface. The device manufacturer provides an account on its Cloud platform in the price of the device. This platform can be used for integration with other control systems and data sharing on the Internet.

These platforms are presented in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Platforms NodeMCU, Onion Omega 2 and Orange Pi.

These platforms can be used not only to create prototype systems, but also to build commercial data acquisition and control systems. An example of this type of solutions can be an agro-hydro-meteorological station, which was built on the basis of open hardware platforms. These platforms were used to integrate the IoT system with a professional meteorological station of the Vantage Pro company, and allowed to extend the functionality by measuring insolation, measuring evaporation and evapotranspiration, detecting the thickness of the snow cover, and measuring the water level. The constructed system is also used to generate alerts about dangerous weather events. The implemented system was installed in Krakow. It is currently used to transmit data and generate information about dangerous meteorological conditions. This system is fully autonomous due to power requirements. The physical installation of the system is shown in Figure 2. Pictures of installed stations were made available by InfoMet Katowice.

Figure 2. Meteo station based on open hardware platforms.

The relatively low price of the presented platforms allows their use also in educational projects. These platforms can be used in educational centers and schools that do not have large budget resources for their activities. One of the educational projects is a controlled robot platform based on the ESP8266 system, and a dedicated Motor Shield module. Thanks to these devices, it is possible to build an educational robot system. This system enables students to familiarize themselves with the basic problems of control, network communication and programming of embedded systems. This educational robot was also used in educational workshops as part of the ODM project. Despite the fact that the people participating in the workshop did not have any preparation in the field of computer science, they launched the presented robot platform. Participating in the workshop, he was able to familiarize himself with the methods of robot control, data transmission problems in Internet networks and programming of control systems in high level programming languages. The use of the robot in educational workshops as part of the ODM project is shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Educational Robot Platform.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg8MelZsI2A&feature=youtu.be

The presented examples present the applications of popular single board platforms in education and commercial activities. Applications of open hardware solutions will continue to grow thanks to IoT systems. The dynamic development of independent projects such as DWeb or Ethereum will allow to create innovative solutions in the field of data processing based on open hardware and software platforms.

The post Open Hardware Platforms in Business and Education appeared first on P2P Foundation.