OSHWA Board Nominees

Author : alicia Date : August 27, 2013

We have 14 board nominees for the 5 open seats on the OSHWA board. This post is going to get a little a long, so for sanity here’s a PDF spreadsheet of the nominees. As every nominee answered Yes to having 5 hours a month to give to the board, we did not include that question in each nominee’s data. As our bylaws state, members holding an individual membership will get to vote in the 5 new board seats, corporations do not get a vote. The vote will be open Sept. 6th-7th. Members will be emailed a link to vote. Here are the nominees in random order:

Name: Star Simpson

Why do you want to be on the board?

I care a lot about hardware and its openness, and I’d like to be a part of supporting its future. Open hardware is important to me because I feel there is nothing more powerful than being enabled to learn and create. And when we share knowledge, we all become more so enabled.What qualifies you to be a board member?

Do you currently serve on the boards of other organizations?

Not currently.

What qualifies you to be a board member?

I make hardware (largely based around electronics — http://starsimpson.com to see more). I have also cared about open source hardware for quite a long time — I ran the session to discuss a future open hardware license at Foo Camp in 2009. Before that I was president of MIT’s hackerspace, MITERS, where I introduced countless fellow undergrads to the joys of building hardware there.

Do you have an interest in serving as the board President?

Yes

Name: Bryant Patten

Why do you want to be on the board?

Open Hardware represents a huge opportunity for transforming both K-12 education and moving people from passive consumers to active makers. The OSHWA is at the center of this emerging group and is doing the key foundational work to keep the movement healthy and expanding. I would like to help that process in any way possible.

I mean…who wouldn’t want chance to hang out with all these cool people?

Do you currently serve on the boards of other organizations?

Open 1-to-1, Board Member
Open IT Lab, Advisor
Global Education Open Technology Foundation, Board Member

What qualifies you to be a board member?

As the founder of the National Center for Open Source and Education, I have spent the last 10 years advocating for Open Source (software, hardware and data) in schools. I have been an invited speaker at conferences around the world as well as consulting with a variety of clients regarding Open Source issues. Finally, I have started several companies, backed 52 Kickstarter projects and built what may have been the world’s first Internet-connected, arduino-monitored elementary school compost pile.

Do you have an interest in serving as the board President?

Yes.

Name: Marudhachalamurthi

Why do you want to be on the board?

To share my knowledge and guide the team to achieve the organization’s goal.

Do you currently serve on the boards of other organizations?

No. I am new to the board

What qualifies you to be a board member?

Work as Techincal Head and CTO for many organisations

Do you have an interest in serving as the board President?

Yes

Name: Alfredo Herrera

Why do you want to be on the board?

I have been following with interest the evolution of OSHWA, and it is very exciting. I became aware of open source hardware when it was presented as the method to be used by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) in its humanitarian initiatives launched in 2008: to make available Humanitarian Technology designs as open source for the benefit of humanity.
I am nominating myself to the board because I want to put my industry and volunteering experience to work for the benefit of the association. Also, I would like to make available my IEEE network to the benefit of the association to hopefully bring closer together the normalizing activities of the IEEE with the growth efforts of OSHWA. I see a lot of potential benefits to both organizations from a closer association; but I also believe that I have to first commit to learning from the more senior members of OSHWA.

Do you currently serve on the boards of other organizations?

No. Although I have volunteered actively at the IEEE, I am not part of their board nor any other.

What qualifies you to be a board member?

I believe my 16+ years of experience in large telecom organizations (Nortel/Ericsson), and 16+ years of volunteering for the IEEE has trained me for such a role. I am currently a member of the Steering Committee of IEEE’s Special Interest Group on Humanitarian Technology (SIGHT), and this may enable me to extend the reach of OSHWA to a new population:
http://www.ieee.org/special_interest_group_on_humanitarian_technnology.html

I have also served as:
* vice-chair (2005-2011) and chair (2011-2013) of the IEEE Ottawa chapter of the Technology Management Council.
* Secretary (2008) of the IEEE Ottawa section.
* chair (2007) of the IEEE Workshop on Accelerating Computationally Intensive Applications
* Founder (2009) and chair (2010-2012) of the IEEE Canada Humanitarian Initiatives Committee.

Do you have an interest in serving as the board President?

Name: Max Whitney

Why do you want to be on the board?

I’m a big fan of the Open Source Hardware Association. That’s the fundamental reason. I think open source hardware can be as transformative of devices as open source software has been for code. I’ve been a member at the Brooklyn hackerspace NYC Resistor since the first lease was signed. I’ve watched how having community, workspace and open information has made previously unattainable projects come into being, from 3D printers to telephone controlled pneumatic robotic arms.

Do you currently serve on the boards of other organizations?

I do not.

What qualifies you to be a board member?

There are three sets of experiences that qualify me to be an effective member of the OSHWA board. As the manager of a technology department at a university I’ve learned to navigate politics and budgets at a large non-profit. As a member of the technology and product review boards for the Sakai Foundation (now the Apereo Foundation) I successfully fostered common cause among widely disparate constituencies, including universities, schools and private vendors. As a member of NYC Resistor I’ve learned how to create a healthy community based on consensus.

Do you have an interest in serving as the board President?

Name: Matt Joyce

Why do you want to be on the board?

I believe the Open Source Hardware can work. I believe it is a necessity for some industries to begin to move forward in their own natural economic evolutions.

I’ve always believed that the evolution of technology is very much an organic process. I like using the tree analogy when discussing the importance of Open Source in the market place. When technology is new it sprouts like a fresh new leaf. It’s green, it needs lots of sunlight, and it may not survive for very long. It’s like any good startup. But as that technology matures and grows in use, it turns into a branch. From it sprouts more new technology. And eventually those technologies become their own branches. By that time the technology is a trunk technology from which many branches have grown. Trunk technologies need to be open, standardized, and free for them to be healthy. And their health is a necessity for all the branches and leaves upon which they are depended.

I’d like to help get that point across to folks who maybe don’t understand the importance of OSHW just yet.

Do you currently serve on the boards of other organizations?

Not at this time. In fact, I am not sure anything I’ve ever sat on could be called a ‘board’.

What qualifies you to be a board member?

I’ve got significant background in Open Source. I have been involved with the OpenStack foundation since before it’s inception having worked on the team at NASA that built the nova project and formed with rackspace to create the project.

I’ve build hardware, but I’ve got no financial incentives that will color my decisions as they relate to OSHWA. I keep an open mind, and I prefer numbers to opinions.

Do you have an interest in serving as the board President?

Name: Emile Petrone

Why do you want to be on the board?

Through Tindie, I’m supporting most likely the most open products of anyone (we are approaching 1,000 products and 300 makers). We have a vested interest in the success of open hardware and have built our business around supporting this philosophy.

Do you currently serve on the boards of other organizations?

What qualifies you to be a board member?

The lessons learned from being the CEO and founder of Tindie. I’ve seen hundreds of projects go from an open design to a physical device. The lessons from those experiences I think is invaluable to OSHWA, and members looking to take a project to market.

Do you have an interest in serving as the board President?

Name: Far MCKon

Why do you want to be on the board?

I think OHSWA needs to continue growing, and find a way to become a standards setting organization, much the way IEEE has. I have watched as terms like ‘Organic’ and ‘Whole Foods’ have been perverted because there is no organization at all calling out those who demean or dement the terms.

I think there needs to be some stick (and/or Bad Cop) as part of OSHWA to call out bad actors in our community in a respectful and clear way, and to help set a standard for interoperability, community support, and growth is.

My main interest would be to work to create a OSHWA Bronze/Silver/Gold/Platinum ranking/branding system and partner system. This would work by legally defining several of Phil T’s ‘Unwritten Rules of Open Source’ and would be used as a positive branding solution to highlight the best players in our community.

I would also like to create a ‘OSHWA awards’ to run anti-seasonal to OHS, so there is a spring celebration to keep open source in the related news.

Do you currently serve on the boards of other organizations?

I have been on the board of several organizations (RocWiki.org, Ant Hill Cooperative, The Hacktory, and Hive76), but am not currently on other boards.

What qualifies you to be a board member?

I have a depth of experience in Cooperatives, Hackerspaces, and in running operations for a small business. I understand the incentives of the passion driven developer, as well as the needs of a small business owner/manager.

I also have a clear project I want to accomplish to help grow the OSHWA. I would mostly like to join the board, get the operations set up for the membership/ratings system, create the awards system and host the first awards or two, and finally retire and move on to some other cool idea.

Do you have an interest in serving as the board President?

Name: Jeffrey Warren

Why do you want to be on the board?

Open hardware and open hardware culture are bringing the kind of disruptive change we’ve seen in FOSS to new areas, and I’m cautiously optimistic about its ability to effect widespread change outside the hyper-online crowd. But it’s going to need a broader focus than many of the (still exciting) initial projects which have defined “open hardware” — beyond circuit boards and 3D printing to encompass areas such as agriculture, environmental science, health, and others which have a direct impact on the every day lives of billions. This is already happening, and I want to be part of defining and shaping what open hardware means — and in particular its social, political, and environmental aspects. There’s a great deal of work to be done to make OH more inclusive and to encourage its use to further the agency, equality, and capabilities of all kinds of people, and to inspire young new open hardware contributors to see these technologies as a means to achieve those goals.

Do you currently serve on the boards of other organizations?

I’m on the advisory board for the WeGov project (http://techpresident.com/topics/wegov).

What qualifies you to be a board member?

I’m a co-founder of the Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science (publiclab.org) and have spent a lot of time in the past few years collaborating with hundreds of other Public Lab contributors on open hardware projects. One of my focuses has been to explore and implement a “starter kit” strategy where the Public Lab nonprofit assembles, sells, and distributes DIY kits for several of our major open hardware projects, in order to promote our community’s work, recruit new members, standardize open hardware platforms, and develop a sustainable funding source for the nonprofit’s community programs. This has meant developing retail channels and branding and packaging for tools which remain community-driven and supported, and improving how these objects speak to and support our mission and our open source ethos.

Do you have an interest in serving as the board President?

Name: Gabriella Levine

Why do you want to be on the board?

I am 100% passionate about sharing information to fuel innovation. I am dedicated to working on Open Hardware projects, most significant current work is Protei inc, Open Hardware shape-shifting sailing vessels to explore and preserve oceans, and sneel (sneel.cc), and as a means to explore and define what is Open HW and what is its potential. I have recently worked with many entrepreneurs on the accelerator “Unreasonable at Sea” to define a sustainable business model for Protei, as well as working with Andrew Katz to define a CERN license derivative that will apply to Protei, so I am well versed not only in the technology but also the legal / business implications of OSHW. I am extremely committed to good documentation, sharing knowledge, teaching others to work and engage with design solutions using OSHW (especially arduino , rasp pi, etc) through workshops or courses. I post on Instructables often [http://www.instructables.com/member/gabriellalevine/ ] and my own blog www.levinegabriella.com/category/ongoing/ ]

My biggest passion for work lies in experimenting [coding, wiring etc] on projects using new & appropriated open hardware electronics [beaglebone, rasp pi, arduino due] see my recent post on OSHW fueling innovation: http://tedxnavesink.com/fueling-innovation-through-shared-technology/

I just returned from teaching “exploring biomimetic interfaces” at CIID in copenhagen but a big focus on the course was using OSHW and what its impact is, potential business models, and GOOD DOCUMENTATION: http://www.levinegabriella.com/exploringbiomimicry/ciid
and I will be teaching a similar course at ITP this Fall.

A lot more about me:
I am a creative technologist and open-source hardware designer interested in the relationship between technology and ecology. I create sculptural and robotic works that mimic environmental phenomena and animal behavior. I design modular Open Hardware toolkits for biomimetic robots for environmental exploration and preservation, and to explore how shared information fuels innovation. I am passionate about sharing information, biomimetic robots, PCB’s, electromechanical actuation, wireless sensor networks, coding, good documentation, and inventing creative solutions.

I am COO of Protei Inc, Open Hardware robotic morphological sailboats to clean and explore the oceans, and inventor of Sneel, robotic swimming snakes to explore unknown territories.

I just returned from a radical experiment, circumnavigating the world by boat. I was a Fellow of the Unreasonable at Sea accelerator, exposing Protei to 14 different ports worldwide, while innovating through a design-based approach of the Stanford d. School, through field research, user-testing, design thinking, and hands-on engagement. On the journey, I led global hackathons centered around the topic of building DIY aquatic robots.

I studied Biology and Piano at Cornell University and Oberlin College, then worked doing Cancer Research at Albert Einstein College of Medicine before abandoning the lab for the outdoors to become a wildland fire fighter based in Oregon. I hold a Masters degree in Design and Technology from ITP, Tisch School of the Arts, NYU.

Since 2010, I have exhibited work internationally including Ars Electronica, MIT Media Lab, Meta.Morf Electronic Arts Biennial (Norway), and the American Museum of Natural History. I received the 2012 Prix Ars Electronica Hybrid Arts Award, the first Artist in Residence at Instructables, the NYU Task Force Green Grant, and the Gulfstream Navigator Savannah $100K Ocean Exchange Grant. I teach Biomimetic Design courses as a visiting professor at CIID (Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design), and adjunct professor at ITP. I have presented globally at symposia and lectures including the Open Hardware Summit 2011 (NYC), Startup Festival (Bangalore), and Unreasonable at State (US State Department), and soon at TEDxNavesink on “Open Hardware Fueling Innovation and Global Adventures with Open Hardware Robots”. My work has been written up in Wired, InHabitat, HyperAllergic, CNN, Vice Magazine, NY1, and Scientific American.

I freelance as a creative coder, and I am organizing DARC civilian Drone conference in NYC in October.

Do you currently serve on the boards of other organizations?

>>Ocean Exchange advisory board: http://www.oceanexchange.org/ [the ocean exchange supported protei through a 100K grant that I was awarded last year, sponsored by Gulfstream]
>>Director & President of Open H2O: http://open-h2o.org/user?destination=home [open source hardware for the oceans, dedicated to proliferating new open technologies for marine exploration and preservation]
>>COO & on BOD of Protei Inc (protei.org) , shape shifting, open hardware, robotic sailing vessels for ocean preservation and exploration

What qualifies you to be a board member?

I am extremely organized, and I am extremely knowledgeable about OSHW, projects, and OSHW’s implications in business. I have experience building and running companies [open h2o and protei], I have experience doing community development around OSHW projects, as well as many remote meetings via skype to organize, plan, and move ahead with logistical changes to set up companies. I am flexible, cooperative, available, and passionate about working with a team of directors to support OSHWA and move it forward in the most appropriate direction. I am passionate, rational, and impartial, and I believe that I can drive the organization forwards while listening to everyone’s opinions equally. I am good at stepping back and hearing everyone’s wishes and desires, but I am also good at keeping track of time and trying to cooperate to make group decisions in a timely fashion.

Do you have an interest in serving as the board President?

Yes

Name: Alexander Vail

Why do you want to be on the board?

I am a young maker who works for an RC toy company, where I do things like 3d print robots, research new products for us to carry, and build cool things for my bosses. I believe that OSHW is incredibly important for the rapid evolution in technology, and if it becomes the prevalent type of hardware, humans will be able to achieve greater things more rapidly. I see some really amazing things happening with OSHW right now, and wish to contribute more back to the community.

Although none of my work can be shared with the community (yet), I have been showing a lot of my friends about Arduino, 3d printing, automated multirotors (think drones), and whatever else peaks their interests. I want to spread OSHW to young children and show them that the future does not involve patents and copyrights and publishing companies, but does involve innovation, sharing, and freedom to hack, create, and play.

Do you currently serve on the boards of other organizations?

I do not serve on any board for any other organization.

What qualifies you to be a board member?

What qualifies anyone to be a board member? I believe the people on this board are people who are passionate about OSHW, and they want to help spread OSHW so that people can know how awesome it is to share, create, and play! That is what I want to do, in fact, that is what I do! I just want to contribute my energy to the community to work with the community to spread it in a higher amplitude!

Do you have an interest in serving as the board President?

Yes

Name: Zak Homuth

Why do you want to be on the board?

With Michael Woodworth and Stephen Hamer, we created Upverter because we truly believe in the power of open source hardware.

Hobbyists and professional all over the world create awesome pieces of design and great devices. Historically it has been a long and tortuous process. The tools were not adapted, expensive and limited. And there was no place to share ideas and useful pieces of design.

For too long the hardware hackers were not able to collaborate, exchange feedbacks / reviews / advices because they were isolated. And collaboration was totally nonexistent for decades.

We decided to create tools to make hardware creation easier and connect people to help hardware designers achieve their ultimate goal: bring innovative ideas to life and make the world a better place.

I want to be on the board and do everything I can to help and support the hardware open source movement, the maker revolution, and the admirable and dedicated hardware hackers who create new devices and share their work with the community.

Do you currently serve on the boards of other organizations?

Yes, on the board of Upverter.

What qualifies you to be a board member?

I am the CEO of Upverter. Open source hardware is in our DNA. I am a former electrical engineer and a passionate hardware open source designer. I work every day with the team to make hardware creation smoother, easier and faster.

We decided to give our tools for free to hackers willing to share their work with the rest of the world. This is our promise. And I want to do as much as I can to support this community of awesome people!

Do you have an interest in serving as the board President?

Yes

Name: Amnon Aliphas

Why do you want to be on the board?

Networking

Do you currently serve on the boards of other organizations?

ITT Technical Institute school of Electronics

What qualifies you to be a board member?

I am an experienced entrepreneur, founder of DSPWorld and TechOnline (both companies acquired by UBM).

I am also the Chair of the School of Electronics in Wilmington, MA

and I have a Ph.D. in EE from Stanford University

Do you have an interest in serving as the board President?

Name: David Mellis

Why do you want to be on the board?

I’m interested in developing and promoting open-source hardware in a number of different ways:

1. Collecting and sharing best practices for open-source hardware and promoting it as a strategy for product development.

2. Continuing to extend open-source hardware to domains beyond electronic circuit boards: e.g. machines, furniture, consumer products, etc.

3. Promoting personal manufacturing that builds on and contributes to open-source hardware, particularly by exploring strategies for handling regulations (e.g. FCC or USB) that pose difficulties for small-volume production.

4. Improving the legal basis for open-source hardware, both through the continued development of open-source hardware licenses and through the development of strategies for handling patents and open-source hardware.

Do you currently serve on the boards of other organizations?

No.

What qualifies you to be a board member?

I have experience with open-source hardware on both a practical and theoretical level. As a co-founder of the Arduino electronics prototyping platform, I’ve seen first-hand the opportunities and challenges of open-source hardware. As a PhD student at the MIT Media Lab, I’ve been developing open-source consumer electronic products and publishing research on open-source hardware.

I’ve also been closely involved with the Open Source Hardware Association and its precursors. I helped to draft the open-source hardware statement of principles and definition and to edit the OSHWA frequently-asked questions and best practices document. I was the review chair for the Open Hardware Summit in 2011 and 2012, helping to shape the program for the event. I helped to compose the open-source hardware community survey.

In short, I’ve been deeply involved in both open-source hardware and the Open-Source Hardware Association, giving me the experience to help them prosper in the future.

Do you have an interest in serving as the board President?

Nominations for OSHWA board member positions

Author : alicia Date : August 13, 2013

OSHWA is looking for 5 new faces to join the board of directors for the Open Source Hardware Association. Please fill out this form to become a nominee or forward the link to the person you wish to nominate for them to fill out. The purpose of this form will be to tell voting members a bit about yourself. We will be publish the nominees and their answers on Aug. 27th. Board members hold a 2-year position. Once board members have been chosen by the community, the board will appoint a President, VP, and Secretary. Board responsibilities include fundraising, advising on goals and direction and carry out compliance with the organizations purposes and bylaws. Current board members will meet with nominees who are present at the Summit during lunch on Sept.6th. Board members Windell Oskay, Danese Cooper, and Addie Wagenknecht will remain on the board. Nominations will be open until Aug. 26th.

Nominee form.

Member voting will take place Sept 6 &7. Want to vote in the election? Become a member if you’re not already! Please note that only individuals can vote, corporate members cannot.

Open Source Hardware Community Survey (2013)

Author : David Mellis Date : July 29, 2013

Catarina Mota and I put together an updated version of the annual Open Source Hardware Community Survey. Here’s a summary:

Our goal is to arrive at a better understanding of who we are as a community, why and how we use/make open-source hardware, and how our practices and numbers are changing over time. For this purpose, we are asking all those who use and/or develop open-source hardware to please respond. The aggregate results will be made publicly available after the survey closes. By publishing your responses, we hope to provide the public with insights into the practices and experiences of the people involved in open-source hardware.

Please help us understand the open-source hardware community by taking the survey.

You can also check out last year’s results.

Brief History of Open Source Hardware Organizations and Definitions

Author : catarina Date : July 10, 2013

As the open source hardware community grows it has become increasingly common for researchers and reporters to ask us about the history of the movement. However, this is a difficult question to answer since open source hardware’s history is made of many stories, the stories of people, companies and organizations all over the world who, over the last decade or so, chose to work openly and share their knowledge with others. Given the difficulty in identifying and describing all the contributions to the movement, we decided to tackle a smaller task: the history of OSHW-related organizations and definitions, which is now available on the OSHWA website.

We are well aware that, in our attempt to describe the main contributions, we may have gotten some things wrong or missed important details, so we’d also like to invite the community to help us not only perfect this draft, but also keep the history alive by adding new organizations and important events as they unfold. For this purpose, we created a google doc to be edited collaboratively.

Open Hardware Summit: Call for Papers Extended

Author : windell Date : June 21, 2013

Good news if you’re still working on— or haven’t yet started —your proposal for this year’s Open Hardware Summit: The call for papers has been extended, so you’ve got another week to fine tune your talk, poster, or demo proposal.

Submissions are now due by JUNE 28, 2013.

Attend the 2013 Open Hardware Summit

Author : windell Date : June 10, 2013

Tickets are now on sale for the 2013 Open Hardware Summit, to be held September 6, 2013 at MIT.

We look forward to seeing you there!

OHS 2013 Call For Papers

Author : windell Date : May 31, 2013

The Open Source Hardware Association invites submissions for the fourth annual Open Hardware Summit, to be held September 6, 2013 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The Open Hardware Summit is the world’s first comprehensive conference on open hardware; a venue to discuss and draw attention to the rapidly growing Open Source Hardware movement. The Open Hardware Summit is a venue to present, discuss, and learn about open hardware of all kinds. The summit examines open hardware and its relation to other issues, such as software, design, business, law, and education.

We are seeking proposals for talks, posters, and demos from individuals and groups working with open hardware and related areas. Submissions are due by JUNE 21, 2013. Please see the complete call for papers for additional details.

OSHW Doc Jam Followups: Releasing the Format to the Community

Author : simone Date : May 16, 2013

Finally! I’m able to followup after the First Open Source Hardware Documentation Jam!

As many of you might know, at the end of April, I’ve been the facilitator of a Jam in New York city: it was the First Open Source Hardware Documentation Jam – OSHW Doc Jam (see http://www.opensourcewarehouse.org/ for details): the event has been sustained by many Sponsors and Supporters and OSHWA supported the event from the beginning.
We held the event with the objective to start a fruitful discussion about how to share more documentation regarding Open Source Hardware projects.

NYJAM-jpg — One of the Jam groups at work – thanks to Bilal Ghalib for this amazing picture.

We had almost 40 people working along the three days to think about possible strategies and solutions, prototype (some times) and sharing them with the public in real time.

Two parallel Jams in Berlin and Amsterdam were held and we are now opensourcing the format to share the lesson we learnt and allow others to use this format for this or other application fields.

I just want to give you a short comment on the content we discussed, even if the oshwa will be following up in the next weeks with the discussion (we are thinking to use public hangouts, and Social Media. There are a bunch of good places online to discuss about open hardware and we will be posting the news there (eg: OSHWA mailing list, Ouishare Factory Facebook Group, The Open Manufacturing google group, etc…)

My mission as Int’l Branches Chair here at OSHWA is to help OSHWA grow internationally: I’ve also created this Facebook group called Open Source Hardware Community https://www.facebook.com/groups/194351110718598/ to trigger a contextual discussion on building a stronger OSHW community of users and creators worldwide so…please join!

The Results

Coming back to the Jam; let’s focus a little bit on the documentation we are releasing today. The discussion at the Jam was mainly related to three separate threads:

1) Standardization: Having a more interchangeable format, a shared information *standard*, and interconnected data among the different portals, platforms, companies and projects producing and/or hosting OSHW documentation

2) Experience: Identify user experience issues, challenges and gaps in the documenting process so that we can create tools that make documentation creation easier

3) Movement / Organization: mostly related to how to replicate the event in itself and create more handy, easy to replicate formats.

We had actually run nine sessions as follows

Standardization

Remixing Derivatives Versions Components
Websites Interoperability
Taxonomy and Standards

Experience:

How to document your project while building
OSHW // OSS Parallels
Connecting Makers Socially
Accessibility of documentation

Movement / Organization

How to replicate the JAM
Ideas to create a Documentation Sprint

It’s not the objective of this post to going deep in the content since the discussion just started and we’ll keep you informed about the next steps and how to join. Here at this link you can find all the documentation available in a google docs directory https://drive.google.com/#folders/0BwJSOhVDu4bQSU1hZkhUc0cyMms. A zip file is also available. All documentaion is released in CC-BY. This will be hugely useful to anyone moving her steps in the OSHW industry with a product, a startup or even just a passion

The Metodology

Here’s a link to a PDF file describing the Jam Format so that you can use it on your own https://docs.google.com/file/d/1vFKpGmpyQGFEXrwxBk90AKIdRyIOowVPkONR9VPMtPLB0UDTI1gHdctLKzmde5ZD2xH9gy_mh0X_s66N/edit?usp=sharing

Here’s a Google Doc you can Download or Fork https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cxiXM7nl-ZsXUWCt-CPNwWZSeeMBdb2M-b2JCvOCqkU/edit#

Here Follows the methodology description in text.

Please get back to us for any comment or feedback!

How to organize a Jam Based on Open Space Technology (as implemented for the First Open Source Hardware Documentation Jam – OSHW Doc Jam, held in NY 26 to 28 of April 2013)

Version 1.0

Original Authors/Contributors: Simone Cicero, Catarina Mota, Marcin Jakubowski, Jay Cousins (with his unvaluable suggestions on destructuring the format)

License: Public Domain

How to organize a Jam Based on Open Space Technology (as implemented for the First Open Source Hardware Documentation Jam – OSHW Doc Jam, held in NY 26 to 28 of April 2013)

Pre – event activities

Infrastructure

To create the communication infrastructure, we used a wordpress theme dedicated to events. More in details we used eventor theme. You should take into account that your website features:

A blog
A page for Sponsors (paying to support the budget)
A page for Partners (providing support, sending participants, other non strictly monetary suppor)
A page for the Agenda
A page for a bunch of hosts if any

Some lesson learnt:

keep the message clear and explain to the people what is all about
keep the message clear and explain to the people what is going to happen
Put an evident call to action in the homepage for registration

Advertising the Event

Materials needed

a PR kit with Event short description, Press contacts, Website, Host description, Event description, images to use. All should fit into one page.
a blueprint for an Invitation letter people can use to invite communities. Imagine this being posted on a forum, mailing list, etc…
A general text that you can use to explain about the event on emails/contact requests

Advertising the event is a bit tricky. Our strategy worked pretty well and was basically made of:

Posting the information in relevant message boards and mailing lists (we did for OSHWA, OKFN, etc…)
Ask for relevant blogs to cover the news
Search for local meetups that could be interested and send the information to the meetup organizers
Search for relevant people on Linkedin (or other social media) and contact them directly

Event Execution

The Production team: you should have a basic team of no less than three people if you’re aiming at an event of medium to big size (50-100 registered attendees). We used the Trello web application to keep track of the activities. Trello is a simple KanBan board. To get familiar with Agile methodologies and KanBan you can check wikipedia resources.

You should keep it simple for people that wants to join the team and contribute with the smaller effort possible (communication, recruit, logistics, others). This shall be the more open possible. We basically included anyone seriously willing to contribute. Even from remote. Their contribution was decisive for the event success.

How we included people? By providing them with access to the Trello board and by hosting alignment hangouts.

The main responsibilities / contributions of the production team are:

event design/adaptation
communication: help to create buzz, awareness, cover the news on blogs and journals
recruit: recruit people that could contribute with decisive contributions
logistics: help with the event organization (location, food, etc…)

Each of this contribution shall have an accountable person. The use of RACI Matrix is suggested.

The Inspiring Methodology

Our Jam format was inspired to the principles of Open Space Technology. En excellent review and links about the methodology are available on wikipedia and we suggest you to read about it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-space_technology

How we actually implemented it

Our event spanned on three days, kicked off on Friday at 6 PM, closed on Sunday at 6 PM.

Setup

Session Proposals Wall: A piece of paper where you can hang proposed sessions (starting time – Ongoing/Closed)
Ongoing Sessions Wall: A piece of paper where you can hang sessions (starting time – Ongoing/Closed)
Closed Sessions Wall: A piece of paper where you can hang session reports in printed version
A prototyping table: A place that is dedicated to prototyping (may feature: Paper, Scissors, Cardboard, Colours, Big Sheets of paper, a 3D printer :), etc…)

Sessions move between the boards as they progress.

We had our personal interpretation of the format and we ended up with a mixed one with:

A first content focused phase in the form of short pitches. In our case it was about presenting initiatives dealing with OSHW Documentation. We planned it on Friday Evening
A second phase where we held the Open Space discussion with all participants in a circle and asked people to submit topics to the discussion. Each topic that was relevantly shared was picked as a Session Proposal
A short Session Agenda planning: we planned almost half of the proposed session session for saturday morning, afternoon or even sunday.

Here’s the detailed description of the phases

Start	Phase	Description and Activities
Friday 6 PM	Meetup	Welcome and Name Tags
Friday 6.30 PM	Meetup	The team introduces the background of the event and the resources we created. Short Projects Presentations
Friday 7 PM	Tools and practices	A brief session about: – Jam Methodology (OST) – principles (such as session suggested duration, podcasting interviews, documenting) – location facilities – tools to use and best practices for documentation is given by the hosts (short presentation)
Friday 7:10 PM	Meetup	We sit in a big circle of chairs The host team will greet the people and briefly re-state the theme of the gathering.
		All participants are invited identify issues or opportunities related to the theme and to their skills and ideas. Participants willing to raise a topic will take the mike/stand and talk about the issue: people is encouraged to feedback. At some point, the facilitator identifies the session, writes it on a sheet of paper and adds it to the proposals. The session leader shall be identified at that very moment to enhance the possibility the session is actually run. That person must make sure that a report of the discussion is done and posted on the Reports wall once the session is closed (so that any participant can access the content of the discussion at all times) No limit exists on the number of items/sessions proposed.
		We bring some drinks and some lite dinner snacks
		A second open session is run, hoping that the discussion during the drink was fruitful
		Before the event closure people are encouraged to gather around the proposal wall and discuss with the leaders. at the end of the day, every participant shall choose the session proposals she’s interested in joining from DAY2
Saturday 9:30 AM	Breakfast meeting and Ignite meetup	We serve breakfast there so that people meet and start to warm up
Saturday 10:00 AM	First Batch of Work: Solution Brainstorming	Session Leaders and interested folks gather around the proposal wall. As soon as a consistent interest is formed around a Session this session moves on Session Wall, picks a Table and moves on. We shall encourage that sessions are kept under 2hrs: then the documentation is shared. Follow-up sessions can be re-scheduled obviously. This process is reiterated continuously during the day, as long as a session closes people can join others in running sessions or propose/start other ones. Putting a Session in the proposals leaves people the possibility to express interest so that after few sessions the leader (or someone else) could decide to kick off.
Saturday 12:30 PM	Reporting / Cross fertilization Session	Session Leaders are asked to give a 5 minute report of all the sessions they coordinated during the morning.
Saturday 1 PM	Lunch	Lunch is served: it stays there with not specific lunch time. Work continues in the Background
Saturday 7 PM	Reporting / Cross fertilization Session	Session Leaders are asked to give a 5 minute report of all the sessions they coordinated during the day.
Sunday 10:00 AM	Breakfast meeting and Ignite meetup	We serve breakfast there so that people meet and start to warm up
Sunday 10:00 AM	First Batch of Work: Solution Brainstorming	Repeating saturday kick off.
Saturday 12:30 PM	Reporting / Cross fertilization Session	Session Leaders are asked to give a 5 minute report of all the sessions they coordinated during the morning.
Sunday 1 PM	Lunch	Lunch is served: it stays there with not specific lunch time. Work continues in the Background
Sunday 5 PM	Reporting / Next steps focus session	Session Leaders are asked to give a 5 minute report of all the sessions they coordinated during the day. A very special focus is requested in Followups/What’s next
Sunday 6/7 PM	Wrap up	Participants are left to wrap up for next steps, finalize documentation. A common drink outside the venue is encouraged to slow down and say bye.

People can join or leave sessions at any moment. Sessions could be close or even cancelled at any moment. The session leader is responsible of the quality of the documentation.

Opting for only Digital Documentation

Even if the principles of OST asked for having documentation readily available in paper or visual format, ee opted for having only digital documentation.

We setup a Google Folder and created a Session brief Template to be used at each session kickoff.

Session Leaders were asked to
Create a folder named after the session, create a Session Brief copy for the session
Add documents in the session folder

We also kept an excel file with ongoing session information and links to the session folder.

Ticketing

We used Eventbrite for ticketing, we priced the event at 10$ just to lower the no show rate respect a free to attend event. A slightly higher price may have helped with budget and lowering no shows rate.

Video Documentation

Having a video operator to document the JAM will be a plus

Food

Food is very depending on your budget, style and everything. Our lesson learnt on food is that you tend to underestimate no show rate (we had a no show rate, decreasing from almost 30% on day 1, to almost 50/60% on day 3) and overestimate people appetite. Whatever are you planning to cater for, divide by a three at least.

Requirements for the Location

KEY Time availability – You need the location for all the event timespan plus 4/6 hours in advance
KEY Possibility to attach Paper Sheets on the wall with tape
KEY A plenary room for the number of people you are looking for (ideally a place where we you can put up to a number of tables for eight people in line with expected attendance – no show rate)
KEY Chairs for all
KEY A projector
NICE2HAVE Amplified mike
KEY Many Plugs and cables (each table shall have at least 5/6 plugs available)
KEY Good Wi-Fi Network connectivity
NICE2HAVE A dedicated space for Lunch (not on the working tables)

Materials to be provided

NICE2HAVE Whiteboards with whiteboard markers
KEY Few Sharpie magic markers for white sheets
KEY Few Large white sheets for creating the session walls
KEY Post Its
NICE2HAVE Few sets of Coloured markers
NICE2HAVE A printer available
KEY Drafting Tape

Target Composition of the attendance before the event

Before the event, we had an attendee number and composition target. Ideal target was to have 75 participants with a composition made of:

35% Stakeholders of open source hardware community (OSHWA, OSE, others).
15% SW Developers (web/front end, backend/data, CAD programmers)
20% participants from the UX / Design realm
20% Facilitators, managers and reporters
10% mixed participants

We created separate tickets on eventbrite, asking people to pick one specific role and we made some relevant invites, especially from the open source hardware community and this helped having relevant insiders at the table. You can actually follow the same approach.

Facilitation

It’s highly recommended to have at least one experienced facilitator (at least in workgroup facilitation, better if also familiar with service design) per each 8/10 persons. We had only one at the Jam and it was pretty tough

Preparation Work

The preparation work can be shared through a Blogpost and a direct Email to registered attendees:

The objective of the info will be to:

Address potential ways for people to contribute
Linking attendees to materials and references:

Existing materials and definitions
Relevant UX design materials for people who don’t know
Great videos or articles

This should be published on the event blog at least a couple of weeks before and an extended version shall be sent via direct mailing one week before the event starts.

Lesson Learnt and Open Issues

People can’t stay focused for three days: we suggest to keep the event shorter. A good Idea could be meeting up on Saturday morning. Another possibility is to close the event on late saturday night
The subject should be broader/more loose: we had a bunch of good sessions but probably, a less focused epic would have helped to unleash more creativity and be more inclusive to non specialized attendees.

OSHWA Welcomes Simone Cicero to the team!

Author : alicia Date : April 16, 2013

Simone Cicero has been appointed OSHWA’s International Branches chair! Simone is a strategic consultant and social hacker. Italian connector and Core Member at Ouishare, Founder of the Italy based Hopen Think Tank promoting the Open, Free and p2p alternatives. Simone has a wide experience in corporate IT and Business Processes and is an active open source advocate since the early 2000s. He’s also a co-creation event facilitator and designer.

He runs meedabyte.com blog where he connects the dots about change and society.

If you’d like to contact Simone about helping with his committee, please email him: simone[at]oshwa.org

View other team members on Our Team page.

Open Source Hardware Documentation Jam

Author : catarina Date : March 17, 2013

The power of open source hardware lies in the ability to build upon others’ work and good documentation is the key to making this happen. We believe that documentation best practices can increase contributions to open source hardware projects significantly. For this reason, OSHWA has partnered with Open Source Ecology and Everywhere Tech to host a collaborative event to arrive at an open source hardware documentation platform based on a set of shared standards. Read more about the event and register at opensourcewarehouse.org

Open product development has the potential to transform the economic system by making widespread collaboration possible. If there are easy mechanisms for viewing and updating open product documentation, products can evolve rapidly under the hands of many contributors. However, several obstacles often stand in the way of contributions and improvements. Below is a list of problems and possible ways to approach them.

There are no unifying standards or best practices for creating high quality documentation. Beyond the excellent work done by Phil Torrone, David Mellis and Nathan Seidle for open source electronics, there is no clear description of what should be included in OSHW documentation in order to facilitate the replication, modification and repair of all types of OSHW. The internet has many disconnected pieces of open source hardware documentation, but much of it suffers in quality or clarity. Clear guidelines for taxonomy and structure can help address this. We propose an initial set of standards and guidelines to be debated and refined.
Documentation for OSHW projects is dispersed across many platforms, websites, wikis and blogs. As the number of projects grows it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find them. We propose a taxonomy to identify both hardware and documentation modules, which may lead to an online OSHW repository.
No clear definition of scope exists. While open source electronics has become one of the most visible facets of open source hardware, there is much more. The scope of open source hardware, and its best practices, should include items such as medical devices, houses, cars, and washing machines.
Lack of standard formats, clear organization, and technical jargon makes it difficult for the layperson to understand existing documentation. The goal of an improved documentation platform is to enable anyone, at all levels of expertise, to study, reproduce and improve open source hardware.
Language is a barrier for the dissemination of open hardware plans. We propose that all textual descriptions be linked to Google Translate and that a Visual Language for OSHW be developed to describe fabrication procedures – see The Noun Project and IKEA’s assembly instructions as examples.
There’s no simple way to remix and mashup hardware. We propose a modular approach to open source hardware documentation that would facilitate remix, mashup and branching.
Derivative work is difficult to track. Taking into account that OSHW is developed mostly by iteration and derivation, the number of branches of any successful OSHW project is significantly higher than what is typical of OSS projects. Given the proliferation of derivatives and lack of clear information about each, it has become difficult for users and developers to identify and decide what branch of a project to replicate or derive from. We suggest that a dashboard be adopted by all open source hardware projects containing essential information about each version or derivative, such as: name, brief textual description, hi-res images, hardware and software version, attribution, open source label (indicates which parts of the hardware are open source), status brief (honest description of the state of the hardware, software and documentation), changelog, dependency (what other hardware is required to run/use the hardware), compatibility (what it’s compatible with), genealogy (information on the hardware’s origins, derivatives and replications), etc. In addition to this overview about the hardware itself, we also suggest that adoption of a build dashboard containing information on difficulty level, cost, as well as time, tools, space and skills required.
Lack of appropriate software for designing, displaying and sharing plans makes collaborative development difficult.
It’s difficult to update and evolve open source hardware designs due to documentation dependencies – one small alteration affects several other components of the documentation.
Documentation is time-consuming. A clean, easily accessible platform would facilitate this. If the barriers to contribution are low and a universally-understandable format is developed, then combined micro-contributions of numerous developers can make the arduous task of proper documentation tractable.
Unclear licensing and fear of infringement of intellectual property (IP) rights discourage people from producing documentation. Documenting involves reuse of content from other sources. If people do not understand IP licenses or have little understanding of their own IP rights to use content, they may be afraid to contribute documentation. A clear how-to on open hardware documentation IP Issues, as well as a legal support framework, can mitigate this.