Thursday 15 May 2014

It occurs to me there's no definitive guide to what I'm actually doing.
So; bullet point style:

  • I've arrived in New Delhi with the intention of putting together an appropriate technology working group for designing and implementing various scrap makable lowtech, mainly in one of the slums near where I'm staying.
  • The group will ideally consist of people who have existing access to workspace and informational resources, and people from the slum itself who will be using what gets made in their everyday lives. They'll thereby be in a better position to maintain and improve it.
  • Once the crew's in place have a sit down with a bunch of people from the slum and find out what they actually want and need.
  • Start designing whatever we collectively decide will be the best things to make, taking into consideration local resources, culture, ergonomics, etc.
  • Have one family from the slum be the test household for each bit of tech, with one or more people  from that family as part of the build team for it. 
  • That family effectively beta tests the tech by using it, and making fixes and improvements via the family members who were involved in making it.
  • Once the tech is at a level where we're confident that most of the bugs have been worked out we roll it out to other households who want it.
  • Testing and improvements continue as needed.
  • Anyone, those involved in the build or otherwise, is free to produce and sell anything that gets made for their personal profit. Also to give workshops teaching their construction.
  • Anyone who sees that working out for them is free to do the same.
  • I move on to the next place, hopefully the working group has sufficient cohesion and momentum to keep all this going for as long as they find it interesting to do so. Individuals are also free and encouraged to travel with this model, setting up groups of their own as they go. Everything gets fed back into whatever open source community comes up around it all.
  • Repeat as necessary.

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