This book is a work of intense dedication, with an imperative and belief that we must document the current situation and focus on developments into the future for peer work in this country. It’s development and production has been a triumph of collaboration; co-produced and written by 29 leading ‘lived experience’ peer workers, lived experience advocates and allies from across Australia.

It consists of a collection of evidence and perspectives collated to reflect and inform the mental health and broader human services and disability sectors on current thinking, practice, literature, activities and challenges of lived experience peer work in this country.

Some of the writers and contributors (plus over 40 other people who workshopped some of the material) have pioneered peer work in Australia. Others have focused on researching and reporting about the efficacy and experiences of peer workers and services. Further perspectives are from the point of view of those allies who opened doors to enable persons with lived experience and peer workforces to take their rightful, respectful place in services. The publication’s development has been financially supported by a collaboration between Mind Australia and Flourish Australia.

Very few realize that the development of peer work in Australia has a thirty-year history. It has evolved from being a disruptive consumer-led practice to being accepted as an important element of good recovery. People with mental health issues, families and service providers now expect peer work to be a part of the mix of support offerings that are available. This book, a world first, seeks to articulate the need for further development of more specialized elements of contemporary peer work practice.

Readers will develop a new understanding of the powerful and deeply meaningful work that peer workers undertake, including being a vital component of a multifaceted team and being agents of culture change. They will see the empathic way in which peer workers walk alongside people who have experienced similar distress and support them without trying to ‘fix’ their situation; rather they support the person to believe in themselves, so that they discover their own solutions, self-agency, self-advocacy, strengths, capabilities and possibilities. Peers achieve this by using their personal lived experience purposefully and their professional experience in ways that no other profession can replicate. Peer work bridges the gap between people accessing services and people who treat, support and care about them.

The book helps explain why Australia has seen phenomenal growth in the peer workforce over the past five years. However, peer work is still a comparatively under-utilised approach to service delivery, and formal peer supervision, career development opportunities and evaluation has lagged behind implementation of peer workforce roles.

“Peer work in Australia” is a valuable resource for decision makers, service providers, policy writers, funders, people accessing mental health services, carers and family members, peer workers, managers, researchers and academics, clinicians, students and lecturers in human services and related areas.

Photo by AlishaV

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We’ve already covered Ability Mate’s Hack-a-Home project in the blog. Here is an inspiring update written by the hack-a-homies themselves. The following text was originally published in AbilityMate’s website.

MelT’s Summary

Imagine what it’s like to have a makerspace inside a residential area….

Imagine what it’s like to design your own assistive device from scratch….

Imagine what it’s like to work alongside designers and engineers to create innovative solutions….

That’s what AbilityMate did over the past month. Partnering with Northott Innovation and UTS, we launched a global first initiative, Hack-a-Home. This involved setting up makerspaces inside Northcott’s disability group homes at Beverly Park, Guilford and North Parramatta. Each house has four 3D printers installed, along with all the tools and materials needed for prototyping, and the staff and residents had one week to prototype and design assistive devices they need. We all know there is never a one-sizes-fits-all when it comes to assistive devices in the disability sector, so we want to give our users the opportunity to design something for themselves. Something that can be 3D printed. Something that can make everyday tasks just that little bit easier.

A team of designers and engineers at AbilityMate spent two days per week at each house to lend a helping hand and sort out any technical difficulties with the printers and TinkerCAD. As a designer and peer mentor, it was incredibly rewarding to see our users head down the creative path and bring their own assistive devices to life. From the time they come up with an idea, to the minute they create a rough sketch on paper, to creating a prototype using different materials, up until the moment when their curious eyes watch the 3D printers bring their product to life layer by layer. The smile on their faces is a constant reminder of why I love what i do!

This is a list of some of the popular assistive devices created:

1. Cup holder
2. Straw holder
3. Wheelchair joystick

It still amazes me see the potential of 3D printing and its ability to create life changing technologies.

AbilityMate’s  rebel UX designer, MelT

Beautiful Kay with her new cup holder!

MelF’s summary

The Makers Movement is a massive driving force behind the work i do. Like many others, it gets me out of bed every morning. It’s a movement that is contributing solutions to so many of society’s biggest environmental and social issues like consumerism, supply chains and waste.

What excites me about this movement and the Hack-a-Home project specifically is that they blur the lines between designer, maker and consumer. Ever since joining the maker movement i’ve wanted to be part of a project that combines tools, equipment, culture and knowledge with design challenges at the exact location the problems are experienced. I can now tick that off my bucket list because Hack-a-Home exemplifies the positive impact co-design and location-based fabrication can have.

Where it all started

Lets face it, the Maker Movement could be more inclusive to people of all abilities, genders and backgrounds. I experienced this while travelling Australia and the USA in 2014 visiting 40+ makerspaces, fab labs, tech shops and artists co-ops etc. This is something that’s talked about a lot at AbilityMate. When Johan my co-founder and I met Samantha Frain and Liz Forsyth from Northcott Innovation back in 2015 we got talking about this and also about some of the challenges they were trying to solve with Northcott customers. The issue of Assistive Technology abandonment rates came up. It was at this time the concept of “popping up” makerspaces at Northcott houses was born. Someone said “What would happen if the people who needed bespoke one off products were able to design and make them in the comfort of their own homes” – Said the collective genius in the room.  It was moments later that Hack-a-Home v0.1 was born!

What an incredible collaboration!

Now I’d like to congratulate a few key people and organisations who made Hack-a-Home not only possible but successful:

• Samantha Frain and Liz Forsyth – Northcott Innovation. Not only did they back the concept and commission the project they pumped it full of enthusiasm and momentum. Apart the major logistical task of co-ordinating 30 customers and 30 staff members from 3 separate houses Sam and the Northcott team particularly took the project to a new level by placing a research lens on it. Together we established Human Research Ethics approval and will be officially reporting on the project when the 6 month interviews are completed.
• The Northcott customers who embraced our team the tools and like always where the experts in creating their own solutions.
• The Northcott house manager and carers, couldn’t have done this without you guys.
• The AbilityMate team and volunteers who i just love and admire. The team took on this project and made it shine. They gave up their weekends and racked up a lot of mileage. Special mentions to volunteers Brodie Elliot, Conroy Bradley, Samuel Leung and Jack Frisch
• Michael Crouch Innovation Centre contributed generously to the project by providing tools equipment and their amazing staff member/maker extraordinaire Ade Ogunniyi!
• UTS Institute for Public Policy and Governance for assisting with the research element of the project
• The Northcott marketing team for doing a great job on capturing all the stories and PR.

What were we researching?

The research element of Hack-a-Home will be reported on after the last interview take place in 6 months. The aim of this research project is to answer the following research questions:

• How does the level of independence in everyday activities and social and economic participation experienced by people with high / complex (disability) support needs change when provided with customised Assistive Technology (AT) devices created through 3D fabrication?
• How are the retention rates and utilisation rates of AT devices impacted on by customisation?
• How does participation in person centred co-design practices impact on the experiences of people with high/complex disability support needs?
• How does establishing 3D fabrication technology within the home environment of people with disability impact on rates of AT utilization and/or abandonment?

Future Potential

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) (2012) about one in five or 4.2 million Australians are classified as having some form of disability. The ABS finds people aged between 15 and 64 and living with a disability have lower labour force participation and higher unemployment rates than people living without disability, lower levels of educational attainment, and lower participation in cultural, recreational and sporting activities.

Assistive technology is used extensively by the elderly and people living with disabilities in Australia and elsewhere and has a high and beneficial impact on quality of life relative to cost. According to the NDIA, around 40% of NDIS participants have identified AT as a support need in their individual and tailored NDIS Participant Plans.

3D printing has the potential to support the AT and disability services marketplace and enable new service delivery models. For people with disability, this pilot study of Hack-a-Home has the potential to enhance how innovation in AT product, service and system development can increase their independence and economic and social participation.

The pilot study also has potential to benefit families/carers that provide over 55 million hours of support annually to people with disabilities through new ways of working.

For AT providers and disability services, the pilot study will provide an understanding of critical success factors needed to foster AT innovation and upkeep.

Stay tuned for the final report, video and iteration of Hack-a-Home!

Ciao,
Mel Fuller

Ian’s golf picker-upper!

Brodie’s Summary

Hack-a-Home was a rewarding and exciting program that I enjoyed being a part of. In my role as a CAD designer, I worked with customers at each home and their carers to design solutions for day to day problems that the customers ran into. I was blown away in many cases by the level of participation and the creativity of ideas everyone had to offer. This guided me in many of the designs I managed to create and print out for the customers.

A few of my favourite projects included Kay, who wanted a cup holder for her walker. With her help, we managed design a customised cup holder that bolted on using the holes that were unused for adjustment of the walker. Being able to be part of a completely customised design for a certain problem was very rewarding and I think Kay enjoyed having something that worked specifically for her.

Another project I found enjoyable was Marina’s toggle. Given the range of motion in Marina’s right hand, comfort and accuracy whilst controlling her motorised wheelchair was difficult for her at times. Through speaking with Marina, we created a toggle which was taller and a more effective shape to facilitate the knuckles she used to drive her wheelchair. Marina was very pleased and appreciative with the new design and seeing her drive around with the new toggle brought a big smile to my face.

Working and sharing time with each of the customers was not only educational but a great deal of fun. I felt very privileged to be so welcomed into their homes and being able to discuss and work on problems that they wanted solved.

Brodie

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From the original notes to the podcast:

Within Envisioning Real Utopias, Erik Olin Wright argues that a social economy could be promoted if the state, through its capacity to tax, provided funding for socially organised non-market production and that the institution of an unconditional basic income could be one such policy. By partially delinking income from employment earnings, an unconditional basic income would enable voluntary associations of all sorts to create new forms of meaningful and productive work in the social economy. The result would be economic democracy by creating conditions of social power, organised through civil society to establish social empowerment.

In his return to the Department of Political Economy and the University of Sydney, as an Honorary Professor, Erik Olin Wright revisits and further develops these arguments with crucial import for economic policy and envisioning anti-capitalism in and beyond Australia.

The post Erik Olin Wright on Unconditional Basic Income: Progressive Potentials and Neoliberal Traps appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Karun Cowper speaks with urbanist, activist and “Audacities” initiator Sharon Ede on “cosmo-localisation” in the New Economy in Australia and beyond.

About Sharon Ede

Sharon is an urbanist and activist who works to build the sharing/collaborative movement in Australia and beyond. In 2017, she established AUDAcities, a catalyst for relocalising production of food, energy and fabrication in cities, in ways that enable more wealth to be retained and fairly distributed in the local economy: www.audacities.co

In 2012, she set up Share Adelaide, the first presence in Adelaide about the sharing and collaborative movement, and is the ‘ideator’ of ShareNSave, an initiative of the South Australian government which maps community sharing assets, and which has been made open source.

In 2010, she co-founded the Post Growth Institute to help spark a movement for ‘the end of bigger, the start of better’. Post Growth initiatives include Free Money Day, a global stunt designed to spark conversations about sharing; the EnRich List, a cheeky take on the Forbes Rich List, which instead celebrates those whose life and work contributes to enriching futures for all; and How On Earth, a book about how not for profit enterprise will become the primary business model by 2050.

For several years, she wrote a blog on helping change agents become more effective with communication and change for sustainability at Cruxcatalyst (crux = the heart, catalyst = change).

She has had a long association with Global Footprint Network, learning from GFN founder Mathis Wackernagel during an internship in the US in 2001.

During her university days, she spent five years working as a full time volunteer with Urban Ecology Australia, a nonprofit community group that promotes the development of ecological cities through education and example, which initiated Adelaide’s ‘piece of ecocity’, the international award winning Christie Walk.

Originally published in Perth Indymedia

Photo by NichoDesign

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How much faith can we place in corporations to save us from climate change?

The following is extracted from An Inconvenient Truth: How Organizations Translate Climate Change into Business as Usual, by Christopher Wright and Daniel Nyberg and Why corporate promises to cut carbon can’t be trusted by the same authors.

Abstract

“Climate change represents the grandest of challenges facing humanity. In the space of two centuries of industrial development, human civilization has changed the chemistry of the atmosphere and oceans, with devastating consequences. Business organizations are central to this challenge, in that they support the production of escalating greenhouse gas emissions but also offer innovative ways to decarbonize our economies. In this paper, we examine how businesses respond to climate change. Based on five in-depth case studies of major Australian corporations over a 10-year period (2005–2015), we identify three key stages in the corporate translation of climate change: framing, localizing, and normalizing. We develop a grounded model that explains how the revolutionary import of grand challenges is converted into the mundane and comfortable concerns of “business as usual.” We find that critique is the major driver of this process by continuously revealing the tensions between the demands of the grand challenge and business imperatives. Our paper contributes to the literature on business and the natural environment by identifying how and why corporate environmental initiatives deteriorate over time. More specifically, we highlight the policy limitations of a reliance on business and market responses to the climate crisis.”

Discussion

Christopher Wright and Daniel Nyberg: “How much faith can we place in corporations to save us from climate change?

In a recently published paper, we explore how major business corporations translate the grand challenge of climate change into strategies, policies and practices over an extended period of time. Our research involved a detailed cross-case analysis of five major corporations operating in Australia over ten years, from 2005 to 2015. During this period, climate change became a central issue in political and economic debate, leading to a range of regulatory, market, and physical risks and opportunities, and each of these five companies were leaders in publicly promoting their engagement with this issue.

However, despite different industry contexts (banking, manufacturing, insurance, media and energy) we found a common pattern over time in which initial statements of climate leadership degenerated into the more mundane concerns of conventional business activity. A key factor in this deterioration of corporate environmental initiatives was on-going criticism from shareholders, the media, governments, and other corporations and managers. This ‘market critique’ continuously revealed the underlying tensions between the demands of radical decarbonisation and more basic business imperatives of profit and shareholder value.

The corporate translation of climate change into business as usual involved three phases. In the first framing phase, senior executives presented climate change as a strategic business issue and set out how their businesses could provide innovation and solutions. Here, managers associated climate change with specific meanings and issues such as “innovation,” “opportunity,” “leadership’” and “win-win outcomes,” while ruling out more negative or threatening understandings (e.g. “doom and gloom,” “regulation,” “sacrifice”).

In a classic expression of this win-win ethos, the global sustainability manager of one of our case organisations (and one of the world’s largest industrial conglomerates) argued: “We’re eliminating the false choice between great economics and the environment. We’re looking for products that will have a positive and powerful impact on the environment and on the economy.”

While these general statements of intent responded to the inherent tension between corporate and environmental interests, convincing stakeholders of the benefits of “greening” initiatives was never assured, and critiques evolved amongst stakeholders and customers who felt their organizations’ environmental efforts either lacked sincerity or failed to satisfy profit motives.

In a second localizing phase, managers sought to make these initial framings directly relevant by implementing practices of improved eco-efficiency, “green” products and services, and promoting the need for climate action. Internal measures of corporate worth were developed to demonstrate the “business case” of climate responses (e.g. savings from reduced energy consumption, measures of increased employee satisfaction and engagement, sales figures from new “green” products and services, and carbon pricing mechanisms).

Companies also sought to communicate the benefits of these initiatives both to employees through corporate culture change initiatives, as well as external stakeholders such as customers, clients, NGOs and political parties.

However, over time these practices attracted renewed criticism from other managers, shareholders, the media, and politicians and in a third normalizing stage, climate change initiatives were wound back and market concerns prioritized. In this stage, the temporary compromise between market and social/environmental discourses was broken and corporate executives sought to realign climate initiatives with the dominant corporate logic of maximizing shareholder value.

Examples here included declining corporate fortunes and new CEOs who promoted a “back to basics” strategy, the shifting political context which unwound climate-focused policy measures like the Clean Energy legislation, new fossil-fuel related business opportunities, and the dilution of climate initiatives within broader and less specific “sustainability” and “resilience” programs.

As one senior manager in a major insurance company : “Look, that was all a nice thing to have in good times but now we’re in hard times. We get back to core stuff.”

Our analysis thus highlights the policy limitations of relying on market and corporate responses to the climate crisis. We need to imagine a future that goes beyond the comfortable assumptions of corporate self-regulation and “market solutions,” and accept the need for mandatory regulation of fossil fuel extraction and use.

In an era in which neoliberalism still dominates political imaginations around the world, our research thus highlights ‘an inconvenient truth’ for political and business elites; the folly of over-dependence on corporations and markets in addressing perhaps the gravest threats to our collective future.”

Photo by arbyreed

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We’re working with AbilityMate, UTS and Northcott on a global first project to give people with disability the opportunity to learn about 3D printing and create their own assistive technology. We want people with disability to be active creators of their own technology solutions, not passive recipients of a solution designed by others.

Hack-a-Home is a fantastic opportunity to change the way the disability sector sees assistive technology and how they view supported living environments.

For every piece of assistive technology given to a person with disability, 70% of those devices will be abandoned. We hope to change that by putting the choice and control into the hands of our customers and our frontline staff. Using the principles of co-design and wrap-around supports we will give every customer, support worker and manager from Northcott centres in Beverly Park, Guildford and Parramatta the opportunity to learn about digital fabrication and make their own customised solutions.

​

How it works

The Hack-a-Home pilot puts MakerLabs into three of Northcott’s long-term accommodation services over 4-6 weeks. The 30 people with disability living there will have the opportunity to identify daily living activities where customised assistive technologies could increase independence, enhance wellbeing or increase social and economic participation. It builds on elements of the ‘Remarkable Enabled-by-Designathon’ which saw the AbilityMate team work successfully with people with disability and students over three days to develop assistive technology prototypes.

Want to know more? Get in contact with us.

Samantha Frain

0438 373 336

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To read the full Vision and Pathways report (bringing together four years of research and engagement on how to rapidly cut southern Australian cities’ greenhouse gas emissions), click on the image below.

The post Two Action Pathways: Green Growth vs Commons Transition appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Australian cities need to reduce their emissions to avoid catastrophic climate change, potentially profoundly impacting our future lifestyles.

A fantastic new report by Dr Seona Candy, Kirsten Larsen and Jennifer Sheridan, University of Melbourne, following our own Commons Transition templates. They were assisted by our colleagues in the Commons Transiton Coalition (Australia) Jose Ramos and Darren Sharp. The following was originally published in the University of Melbourne’s Pursuit publication.

It’s 2040.

As you wake and look outside, things might not look hugely different to 2017 – there aren’t any hoverboards or sky highways – but Australian cities have managed to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent.

And how your day unfolds will look very different depending on how we reached this point.

As you step outside some changes are obvious. Renewable energy is now everywhere. You pass bladeless wind turbines, and solar farms on city skyscapers. On your way, you walk through an urban farm and the concrete jungle is greener with roof and vertical gardens throughout the city. But you’ve had to make some concessions in terms of privacy and lifestyle.

So what’s changed? And how did we get here?

These are just some of the questions explored in the final report from the Visions and Pathways 2040 research project which looks at how we can rapidly reduce Australian cities’ emissions to avoid catastrophic climate change as we approach the end of what’s being called the ‘critical decade’.

WE’RE GOING THE WRONG WAY

The report finds that exactly how we achieve emissions reductions will have a profound impact on what life in Australia is like in the future. Many of the technologies required to get us to a greener future already exist – but what’s important is how we apply them and who drives the change.

Over the last four years, through research, workshops and engagement activities, the project has drawn on input from over 250 experts across industry, government, academia and civil society to determine how Australian cities could reach this goal. But also to design what these future cities might look like.

This group of experts came together because they can see Australia is not on track to achieve even its stated emissions reductions targets. These targets have been put in place by successive governments who have repeatedly weakened the numbers and the criteria – and still we cannot meet them.

Since the removal of the carbon price, Australia’s emissions have started to increase again. We are going the wrong way.

The Australian political context means the multitude of technical pathways are clear, but the cultural, political and economic pathways are not. The Action Pathways in our report consider the forces of change that might be required to achieve the drastic greenhouse gas emissions reductions we seek.

Many of the technologies required to get us to a greener future already exists. Picture: Amy Bracks/VEIL 2015

But how do we trigger political changes of this magnitude, and what is our own potential power in progressing these?

TWO PATHWAYS

The team designed two scenarios to demonstrate these positive outcomes – ‘Green Growth’ and a ‘Commons Transition’.

The first Green Growth scenario points to the role city governments, driven by community and stakeholder action, can play in discouraging organisations and businesses that are not explicitly and proactively decarbonising. This social and political mobilisation could help drive out the complicit acceptance and corruption preventing rapid reduction in fossil fuel use and development.

The Commons Transition scenario paints a new picture that re-empowers the citizen movement already evident in sweeping social changes in cities around the world. It draws on leading innovations in sharing and shareable cities; peer-to-peer, Open Design Distributed Manufacturing, cooperatives and platform cooperative movements, as well as some new, more radical cultural, political and economic initiatives.

These new movements are already gaining momentum. Citizen groups in countries like Spain, Iceland, Taiwan, Korea and Italy have not just challenged power, but also forged new political contracts that place citizens at the centre of city decision-making.

To ensure future cities achieve the necessary emissions reductions, we modelled them using the CSIRO-developed Australian Stocks and Flows Framework, which factors in not just for cities as they stand in 2040, but also the pathway that might get us there.

CONSUMING AND EMITTING

We took a consumption-based approach including both direct and indirect emissions. Direct emissions, like your car’s exhaust or burning gas to heat your house, occur within city boundaries. Indirect or embodied emissions are associated with the production of goods and services that support our urban lifestyles but are usually generated outside the city, like food, household appliances and electricity.

According to our research, direct emissions make up around 16 per cent of overall city emissions, equivalent to 52 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2013.

Changes to urban lifestyles like more active transport, reducing landfill waste, switching to electric transport coupled with clean electricity generation, as well as improving the design of our buildings, results in a reduction of these direct emissions of around 60 per cent by 2040 for both pathways.

The results indicate, though, that the majority of emissions related to a city lifestyle are produced outside city boundaries. Electricity generation contributes almost 50 per cent of the carbon footprint of southern Australian cities, with heavy industry and agriculture contributing around 12 per cent and 9 per cent respectively.

To significantly reduce city emissions, our report shows the accelerated replacement of fossil fuel power stations with 100 per cent clean generation technologies must be a priority. There’s also an urgent need to reduce heavy industry and agricultural production through recycling, lowering consumption of red meat and reducing exports, which account for the majority of indirect emissions in these sectors.

Changes to urban lifestyles like more active transport and switching to electric cars will have an impact. Picture: Amy Bracks/VEIL 2015

To achieve overall emissions reductions of 80 per cent by 2040 and in the critical short term, we also need to switch from forest clearing to forest preservation and regeneration, and rapidly increase other land uses that can sequester carbon (capturing and storing atmospheric carbon dioxide) like agricultural production systems and urban forestry.

IMAGINING A GREENER FUTURE

Emissions reductions of this scale can be achieved, but will require – and drive – massive transformation of our cities and even our societies, economies and politics.

Importantly, the report emphasises the important role of cities as cultural and political leaders – understanding, supporting and demanding change in production sectors and land-use outside the cities – as well as making the changes needed themselves.

The need for early and radical changes to land-use and management for carbon sequestration to ‘buy time’ for structural change, points to a critical role city dwellers can play as consumers of forestry, agricultural and food products, as well as directly in urban forestry.

To believe that these scenarios and action pathways are possible, any of them – let alone the ones we actually want – requires a leap of imagination. To make them possible requires a corresponding leap of determination.

The Visions and Pathways 2040 project challenges all of us – leaders and citizens alike – to be determined and prioritise reducing emissions before it’s too late, and points to the pathways that might just be able to get us there.

The project was led by the Victorian Eco-Innovation Lab at the University of Melbourne, and included researchers from Swinburne University and University of New South Wales. It was funded by the Australian Cooperative Research Centre for Low Carbon Living. Download the report from the Visions and Pathways 2040 website.

Photo by RW Sinclair

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Darren Sharp: A new research report and engagement project explores how Australian cities can achieve rapid decarbonization and increased resilience in the face of climate change. The report, “Visions and Pathways 2040: Scenarios and Pathways to Low Carbon Living,” was led by the Victorian Eco-Innovation Lab at the University of Melbourne and funded by the CRC for Low Carbon Living. It describes two pathways for cities — Commons Transition and Green Growth — to achieve drastic greenhouse gas emissions reductions. The report paints a new narrative with re-empowered citizens at the vanguard of sweeping social changes already underway in cities around the world.

The vision for the Commons Transition pathway includes rapidly reducing consumption and shifting power structures to democratic and participative communities. The pathway to accomplish this vision, the report states, is for “citizens and communities to create and apply new ways of providing for themselves, building sophistication in how they manage these systems for the common good as peers. Governance and institutions adapt and evolve to operate as a ‘Partner State’ facilitating commons management.”

The Commons Transition Action Pathway attempts to imagine how a post-growth social model might work. How might people live with sufficiency? This pathway suggests that universal access to basic assets like housing and food, and open design distributed manufacturing, provide some answers. The importance of technology in the pathway relates to how successfully cooperative ownership models can be deployed to provide alternatives to platform monopolies like Uber, TaskRabbit, and Airbnb, which leverage data commodification, value extraction, and precarious labor through rent-seeking business models. The technology stack of this scenario rests on data sovereignty, commons-based peer production, and platform cooperativism which provide the elements for an ethical alternative to platform monopolies.

The Green Growth Action pathway explores how political changes of the required magnitude might be triggered by action in cities, within the current economic and political framework. The vision, as outlined in the report, is to ensure “the right policies are in place to incentivize corporate innovation for rapid decarbonization — government and business working together, within the current economic and neoliberal paradigm.” The pathway is for cities to lead, building political pressure to drive changes to state and national policy.

These emerging narratives and movements demonstrate that citizen-led solutions to city challenges along with democratic forms of community ownership and co-governance can drive actions to achieve sustainable urban transformation.

Jose Ramos and I co-wrote the “Commons Transition Action Pathway” drawing on the work of Michel Bauwens, Peer to Peer Foundation, Commons Transiton, Shareable’s “Sharing Cities: Activating the Urban Commons,” urban commons scholars Sheila Foster and Christian Iaione, as well as open design distributed manufacturing, platform cooperatives, and municipalist coalitions taking shape across Europe. Thanks to the report project leadership team: Kirsten Larsen, Seona Candy, Jennifer Sheridan and Chris Ryan. The project has developed tools to facilitate use of these scenarios for individuals and organizations. 

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AbilityMate is a Sydney (Australia) based social enterprise whose mission is to help people with disabilities access the equipment they need. Their vision starts by making custom-made 3D printed Ankle Foot Orthoses (AFOs) available to Australian children! The enterprise’s approach is to use 3D scanning & printing technology to fabricate customised designs for AFOs. They are developing 3D scanning equipment and are making it widely accessible on the World Wide Web in 2018. The enterprise was founded by Melissa Fuller and Johan du Plessis.

3D printed Ankle Foot Orthoses (AFOs)

AbilityMate initially started by running design jams and projects at community makerspaces. The aim was to help people with disabilities by developing custom made 3D printed devices. In this early phase the AbilityMate community would work directly with people with disabilities to assess their needs and 3D print the devices that made them more independent. This has been exploratory and the AbilityMate community has co-created a number of different designs for people in need of assistive devices. These designs have been made available online.

Hack-a-Home Project

A more recent collaborative research project which is still ongoing seeks to test “what happens when you put the means of production in the hands of those who need it”, whether the production of custom made assistive devices could be moved to the community requiring them. The project entailed conducting trainings at various residences where people with disabilities live. People with disabilities and their carers were trained to do various aspects of the design and production of assistive devices, from body scanning to 3d modelling and 3D printing. Overall, this project seems to have had a low general impact, as coordination has been challenging and production has only happened when AbilityMate makers have been present. However, the impact is large for individuals when they experience the power of being able to produce assistive devices to cover their own needs.

Open Source 3D scanner

The Magic Shoes project  

In mid 2016 AbilityMate started receiving many request form families in the Cerebral Palsy community who saw 3D printing as solution to the challenges they face. Members from this community requested that they have a go at 3D printing Ankle Foot Orthoses (AFOs). AFOs are customised leg braces worn to support posture and mobility of kids and are used for corrective therapy. Currently AFOs are prescribed and hand fabricated by a medical specialist called an Orthotist. After looking into how AFOs are currently made they realised that their approach of using 3D scanning and 3D printing could potentially create a more pleasant experience for children and reduce the turnaround times and wait times experienced by these families. Because of the large amount of work and investment required to make this a reality, AbilityMate was joined by 6 other impact driven organisations. The project includes regulatory affairs, a clinical study with 20-30 children, development of an open source 3D scanner, the establishment of 2 orthotics clinics to make 3D printed AFOs available and the release of an open source package including blueprints of the 3D scanner and findings from the clinical study. A considerable financial investment of $600,000 is required for a project of this size. With a strong collaboration in place and a successful proof of concept AbilityMate has raised $400,000 through crowdfunding and philanthropic donations and still needs to raise $200,00 to complete the project.

Magic Shoes project team

The AbilityMate model

Having explored the production of a number of assistive and medical devices, AbilityMate came to the realization that it needed to create a viable business model. Once it has done this, it will be able to apply the same model to other types of customised assistive and medical devices. The current focus of AbilityMate is therefore to establish this new enterprise model around the customisation and production of AFOs. They’ve started with  “The Magic Shoes Project” and now have now begun to set up a sustainable social business.

AbilityMate are a For Purpose technology start-up that’s incorporated as a Proprietary Limited Company. They have modified their constitution in line with a Social Benefit Company. It permits and requires Directors to act to deliver the purpose and to consider wider impacts of their decisions. AbilityMate will be engaged in the customisation and digital manufacture of custom-made assistive devices. AbilityMate’s products help orthotists achieve the clinical results they expect and deliver effective, cutting-edge options and better experienced to their patients.

In their experience the interaction with orthotists is critical to the safe delivery of 3D printed AFOs because these devices are corrective by nature not augmented like a prosthetic hand for example. AFOs are traditionally prescribed and made by Orthotists, after careful evaluation of biomechanical needs.

Moreover, many devices that are normally prescribed by health care providers have been subjected to clinical trials. Simply having a repository of open source templates for assistive and medical devices does not really suit a large percentage of the market. AbilityMate has learned that it has needed to create a model which incorporates the medical profession and clinicians that prescribe the devices. The new model has three basic aspects:

1. Open source body scanning devices;
2. A customisation and fabrication service (CFS);
3. A network of localised 3D printing facilities

Customization of AFO

The first barrier to overcome is the way in which orthotists develop AFOs in the first place. For things like AFOs, orthotists have traditionally used plaster casting which children tend to dislike. The first problem to solve is to find a way in which orthotists can digitize the production process. There are many types of body scanners, but they have not been widley adopted by the profession. Good scanners can cost between $20,000 to $30,000, and may not be made for scanning the legs of wriggly children. AbilityMate is therefore working on an open source scanner that will be available to anyone to make at a much lower cost.

Secondly, orthotists are not digital designers, they work with their hands, and do not normally have knowledge and experience with CAD and 3D printing. AbilityMate believe it is not realistic to expect orthotists to become experts at these. AbilityMate’s strategy is therefore to set up a customisation and fabrication service (CFS). This is currently the model used for orthodontics and other medical devices that require a high degree of customisation. The CFS would be an online platform set up and run by AbilityMate. AbilityMate would receive orders from orthotists based on digitised body scans and their prescriptions. AbilityMate will make arrangements to have the leg brace printed at a 3D printing facility located closest to the orthotist who placed the order. Before onboarding a 3D printing facility to join the platform, AbilityMate will ensure the facility has all the required quality control and regulation requirements in place.

Thirdly, to fund and protect users this model requires there are elements of open source IP and closed IP. By opening the IP of the 3D scanner they reduce barriers to 3D printing. It will also enable AbilityMate to reach kids in remote communities. They will also have to keep some IP closed. AbilityMate has received genuine concern from the medical profession about open sourcing templates and 3D designs for AFOs. Because AFOs are corrective devices there is a major risk in having an unqualified person designing and printing AFOs for already vulnerable members of the community. AbilityMate is also in the process of raising seed investment from impact investors. For them it doesn’t make sense to open the IP surrounding how to customise an AFO in CAD modelling. These barriers have really challenged their thinking about open design and cosmo localisation because their vision started out with ambitions to keep everything open! In reality this approach could have negative consequences on children and on AbilityMates’ ability to raise capital. As the business model evolves, they hope that the tensions between the vision for cosmo-localization and the practical considerations of AFOs and seed investors can be resolved and integrated.

Based on this three-part model their plan is to support the development of AbilityMate “Pods”. Pods would be localized operations that can support a number of territories in instantiating the model (a little bit like a franchise but using open source principles). AbilityMate would package as a service how to set up a full-fledged operation, which would include how to conduct 3D printing as a CFS, how to produce and use the scanners and upgrade orthotics clinics to digital workflows, and how to draw on an open design commons. AbilityMate would help people set up their own operations in different parts of the world to service their local areas.

Open clinical trials and university collaboration

AbilityMate have also learned that the production of medical devices based on open designs needs to be coupled with clinical trials and the validation of models and technologies of medical devices. In Australia, for example, clinicians/orthotists will not normally prescribe an medical devices that has not been validated through clinical trial. This means that from a medical profession point of view, there is no real value in having hundreds of innovative open source designs for medical devices if none of them have been trialled and validated. In addition to this, medical trials are very hard to do, they cost a lot of money because of the research costs involved. In their opinion, they believe that certain contexts warrant a more liberal approach to this. For AFOs, for example, it is better that kids have them than not. For other types of devices where there is higher risk, they feel clinical trials need to be strictly applied.

Therefore, the challenge is not just to cultivate an open design commons for assistive devices and medical devices, but to build an approach to prototyping, testing and trialling assistive devices and medical devices in conjunction with this design commons. This requires open data on clinical trials that others can build on, which allows for people to build on and create subsequent design optimizations. In essence there is a need to create a commons around clinical trial data and the validation of devices. AbilityMate have only just begun to have conversations with universities about this.

Values and principles and the role of the maker movement

AbilityMate is an expression of deep personal connections with the experience and challenges for people who are disadvantaged by disabilities. Johan’s grandfather, for example, had polio, which left him with an impaired limb. The social stigma of being cripple haunted his grandfather’s entire life, impacting his work opportunities, and had an impact on three generations of his family. Melissa has a cousin who was struck by a car and acquired a spine and brain injury, losing the ability to walk and speak. The state insurance, which was meant to last his whole life was quickly exhausted by medical costs for equipment, and she saw how her cousin’s family constantly improvised to figure out how to solve basic problems.

The maker movement has also had a big impact on the values and thinking of AbilityMate. Before starting on this journey, Melissa did a tour of 40 makerspaces / tech shops / Fab labs across the United States. Realizing the massive impact of producing material things, and the possibility this new model could have has been a motivation as well. The way in which the maker movement merges the idea of the user with the designer and the consumer has been significant. In 2014 Melissa started a community makerspace in Sydney which is where she and Johan met.

Fairness is also a key concept. AbilityMate do not want to do charity, but rather create a more fair and equitable system. They feel that the emergence of a global design commons levels the playing field and creates fairer opportunities for people to have access to assistive devices and equipment. Fairness also means the price of assistive devices. The current high costs of assistive devices adds yet another burden to people with disabilities. The global design localized production model provides a way to lessen that cost burden.

Overall, they feel four words help to express their values and principles:

1. authentic-ness;
2. transparency / openness;
3. courage;
4. fairness.

Team, skills and decision making

Melissa comes from a design and manufacturing background, and Johan comes from a computer science and startup background. There are 4-5 other people they work with. Their backgrounds include industrial engineering, marketing and product management, CAD modelling and UX design. There are also volunteers that are connected with local maker spaces, and some interns with a biomedical background. Overall engineering with a scientific approach is valued, the ability to test hypotheses and conduct rapid prototyping, engage in user centric design, entrepreneurial skills and fund-raising. Areas where they may need future support include legal, fund-raising and finance. But the intangibles are critical in their opinion. They feel that people must have a personal connection with the area, and they are always looking for people who understand the “why” behind why they want to be involved. Often there is a personal story or connection with the disability area.

In terms of work style they prefer to cultivate a culture of co-learning rather than hierarchy. Decisions are made in different ways depending on the context. Most the time there is a team conversation which is open. Meetings are weekly. If there are more urgent decisions to make then less people may be involved in a decision. They use Loomio’s method of working groups and ensure decision-making is transparent, documented and as open as possible. Overall they try to be as organic, open and inclusive in their decision making as they can. While Melissa and Johan are the driving force, they try and distribute this as much as possible, for example by trying to rotate pitching for money or when applying for competitions.

Strengths and weaknesses of open design logic and the future

One of the biggest challenges that they face is in articulating the benefits of an open design business model. There has been lots of scepticism on the part of potential impact investors and it has been hard for people to understand why they would want to give away their “IP”, a constant need to explain and educate people on the benefits of equity fundraising. Alternatively, the benefits of working within the open design business model is the clear resonance it has with many people, associated with its altruistic dimension and potential for social impact. People have been very attracted to the model and have wanted to help, which has made it easier to establish strong partnerships. This has also helped attract talent which has become part of the team.

They feel the open design business model is a critical strategy in addressing the many challenges that we have. They do not feel approaches that rely on patents and tight intellectual property will make enough of a difference. They feel the future of open source hardware is bright if people take the open design pathway. They are optimistic and feel the changes will come from the bottom up.

They see the outlines of a virtuous cycle developing across the open design distributed manufacturing development space. There needs to be ways to circulate value from users and clinicians back through designers and platform developers. As well, learning from other open design enterprises is critical, as the verification of such models helps to create knowledge and legitimacy. They feel it is a bit like social bootstrapping. When there are not a lot of cases it is hard to articulate the benefits of such a model and harder to get resources and people behind it.

At a social level they see an economic virtuous cycle emerging. When a valuable design is added to the global design commons and the benefits of that design begin flowing into the local community, then it frees up people and their time to do others things, and people can apply yet more open source strategies, in a virtuous cycle of economic benefits. As open design enterprises get on their feet and produce results, they capacitate communities to do more. This can include strategies for building circular economies into this model. Finally without a global design commons, local production is not possible, and without local design production then the global commons is not possible. Creating such virtuous cycles is key.

This report on AbilityMate was conducted by Jose Ramos in the context of the Open Design & Manufacturing project, co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Commission.

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