We are all hackers nowbut will we become builders too?

SIGCHI Belgium

Mark VanderbeekenSenior partner, Experientia (Turin, Italy)

Brussels, 29 June 2009

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Today I want to present a new phenomenon that shifts the balance from corporations and institutions, to people. I am not sure how important this trend will become, because there are many obstacles, which I will talk about as well. But I think we need to be aware of it, start envisioning its possibilities -- something we will start with in the workshops -- and perhaps even support it wherever we can.

This is the first time I give this presentation, and I therefore invite you to provide me with ample feedback and comments, so that I can improve it later on.

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Arduino the Cat, Breadboard the Mouse and Cutter the ElephantBy Seaweed Studiowww.vimeo.com/4313755www.seaweedstudio.co.uk/eat/archives/65Publicly available content

Before mass production

Basic materials (wood, stone, metal, plants and animals) widely available. Transportation expensive.Main exchange: knowledgeRead-Write culture (L. Lessig)

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Mike Kuniavsky at LIFT France last week quoted Lawrence Lessig (Stanford University) who invented Creative Commons.

Read-Write Culture: strong diffusion of making things, everyone made things, and these variations/innovations were pushed back into culture and societywww.orangecone.com/archives/2009/06/when_bits_meet.html

20th Century

We moved into a Read-Only culture

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Self-expression is limited to selection among pre-packaged options. You got low prices but at the expense of the flexibility of ideas.

The world of To and For

“Industrialisation created a world in which goods and services were delivered to and for people. “Charles Leadbeater, The Art of With, March 2009

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Often in the name of doing things for people traditional, hierarchical organisations end up doing things to people. Companies say they work for consumers but often treat them like targets to be aimed at, wallets to be emptied, desires to be excited and manipulated.www.cornerhouse.org/media/Learn/The%20Art%20of%20With.pdf

“The world of To and For starts from people as

bundles of needs, rather than as bundles of

capabilities and potential.”

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Coping mechanisms: adaptation

Convenience adaptationPerformance adaptationEconomy adaptationSocial significancy and identity adaptationPleasure adaptation

Suzan Boztepe, “User-Value-Based Product Adaptation” (2005)

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Convenience: three types of ovens, or saving vs. reordering/managing timePerformance: food processors to prepare tarhana: crush more than 100 lbs of boiled peppers and several kgs of dried doughEconomy: product adaptation to increase a product’s economic value, e.g. through after sales servicesSocial significance: status, maintaining facePleasure: making products more aesthetically appealing.http://ead.verhaag.net/fullpapers/ead06_id166_2.pdf

Advent of digital technology

21st Century

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With the current pervasive presence of digital technology, these digital 'tools' are increasingly defining how we live, communicate, learn and work.!

Many think of this as nauseating and constraining.

We feel that we are forced to live the way big corporations have designed it for us. We feel no longer free to do what we want.

Could we be moving back to a Read-Write culture?

21st Century

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Lessig suggests that digital technology has made the 21st Century a Read-Write culture again, but that our 20th Century laws and organisations have not recognised it, and are actually actively seeking to prevent this.

The world of With

“The web invites us to think and act with people, rather than for them, on their behalf or even doing things to them.”

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The web is an invitation to connect with other people with whom we can share, exchange and create new knowledge and ideas through a process of structured lateral, free association of people and ideas. The principle underlying the web is the idea of endless, lateral connection.”

“Innovation invariably comes from a version of with:

creative collaboration and conversation in which people share and blend their ideas”

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Why shouldn’t we?

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Why can't we design our own tools anymore? Is it really true that corporations always know better what we want? What about those people who fall outside of the mainstream, and have needs and contexts of life that require special tools, that these people can design themselves better than anyone else?And are we not all sometimes out of the mainstream?

Very few companies understand the world of With,

so we all hack

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In!fact, we are increasingly becoming tech hackers and tinkerers, adapting our digital tools to a great variety of human needs.!Tinkering is about seizing the moment: it is about ad-hoc learning, getting things done, innovation and novelty, all in a highly social, networked environment. This phenomenon has only just started. The open source hardware revolution has hardly kicked off, also due to the fact that digital technology that surrounds us is not always easy to modify, and because the legal framework is not there.Here are some examples

“Street hacks”

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How Matt Gross of The New York Times is cheaply connected to the US:

• Incoming: US phone > US mobile > Skype In > forwarded via Skype out > Italian mobile

• Outgoing: Fring (on iPhone) > SkypeOut (via WiFi)

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frugaltraveler.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/24/staying-in-touch-internationally-on-the-cheap/

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Telephoto mobile phone lens hack by UK artist Kerrin Mansfield.

Photo by HD41117www.flickr.com/photos/hd41117/2538184989/sizes/o/Available under Creative Commons - Attribution - No commercial - No derivative license

via Jan Chipchase, Nokiawww.janchipchase.com/blog/archives/2008/08/bending_light_l.html

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Spanish teenagers armed with only a 90 euro camera and latex balloon have managed to take stunning pictures of space from 20-miles above Earth. www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5005022/Teens-capture-images-of-space-with-56-camera-and-balloon.html

www.flickr.com/photos/meteotek08/sets/Photo by Meteotek08Available under Creative Commons - Attribution - Share Alike 2.0 license

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Dual SIM card allows two SIM cards to be used in almost any GSM mobile phone at the same time.

Tinkering is bottom-up, iterative, experimental, practical and improvisational: informal and disorganized, accessible to anyone who is willing to learn.Photo taken in Accra, Ghana, 2007 by Younghee Jung, NokiaFrom presentation by Jan Chipchase, Nokia, publicly available at:www.janchipchase.com/blog/presentations/JanChipchase_DuncanBurns_StreetHacks_vFinal_external.pptAvailable under Creative Commons license

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Potenco pull-cord charger generating enough power for 20 minutes of talk time from one minute of pulling.

www.flickr.com/photos/maneno/2932277363/sizes/o/Photo by ManenoAvailable under Creative Commons - Attribution - No commercial - No derivative license

Hacks by communities

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Arduino - an open-source physical computing platform based on a simple I/O board and a development environment that implements the open source Processing / Wiring language.

www.arduino.ccPhoto from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Arduino_Diecimila.jpgAvailable unde r GNU Free Documentation license

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Lilypad, a microcontroller board designed for wearables and e-textiles.

www.arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardLilyPad

Photo by designdanadesigndana.wordpress.com/2009/04/14/communication-is-the-key/img_38201/

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TinkerKit is an Arduino-compatible physical computing prototyping toolkit aimed at design professionals.

www.tinkerkit.com/

Illustration by Lok Neville Lee, Tinkerkitwww.tinker.it/files/tinkerkit.pdf

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DIY Dronesdiydrones.com/

Photo by DIY Dronesapi.ning.com/files/i91jfgppQACVTQ-G8AzVmfXNlfpbezSRUs-uyiHKn1QK3jbZqHSFteCNTs8LY2-BO8NlodeOXaDADL4GRCj120JEwFI3vHSt/DSC04511ar.jpg

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Blimpduino

diydrones.com/profiles/blog/show?id=705844%3ABlogPost%3A44817

Photo by DIY Dronesapi.ning.com/files/uhMlCtYK9RZ5JBKdUMc0HkOj1g6AkkyuXv0QJjZGoSTmBL85ug3u8lEU3A3d7dMiC9NeT7j36MMDXMlpetLnIPv2oLYRJUDv/IMG_4507.JPG

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Linksys wireless router that was released in 2002 as a simple $150 router for home use. But hobbyists quickly discovered that its firmware was based on Linux and thus legally open source. Within months, hackers had written new code that gave the device radically new features: They boosted the antenna power, turned it into a signal repeater, and constructed self-healing neighborhood mesh networks.Based on the free work of amateurs, the router is now one of Linksys' all-time best-selling products.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linksys_WRT54G_series

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BerkShareswww.berkshares.org

Photo:http://lh5.ggpht.com/_ognFOelLQ4U/Rqyflq5WPQI/AAAAAAAABEA/luOqztLFbFc/IMG_0792.JPG

Small scale commercial initiatives

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Zoybar - open source hardware platform for music making

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A co-creation community inspired to develop and create innovative music instruments and effects in an open platform environment.

www.zoybar.net

Photo by Zoybarhttp://www.zoybar.net/photo/zoybar-hardware-parts-2?context=featured

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modu is a concept of a modular phone which is both a standalone phone and also the core of a range of variety of terminal devices.

modu contains not only a slot for a SIM card, but also all the transmission technology needed for a mobile device to work.

www.modumobile.com (from Israel)

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Bug Labs is creating a Lego-like hardware platform that tinkerers and engineers can use to create their own digital devices. Users start with the BUGbase and add Bugmodules to create a several in one gadget. The BUGbase is a general-purpose Linux computer about the size of a PlayStation Portable, encased in white plastic. This has four connectors that plug right into the motherboard. The modules include an LCD screen, a digital camera, a GPS unit, a motion sensor, a keyboard, an EVDO modem, and a 3G GSM modem. There are also places to add USB, Ethernet, WiFi, and serial ports. Bug Labs is planning on making 80 modules over time, and hopes outside companies and developers will create their own.

“The Long Tail of Gadgets”: from a small number of companies building gadgets with markets of millions, to millions of innovators creating devices for the few.

www.buglabs.net

BUG vonHippel

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A breakout module to which you can connect sensors, wires, and USB devices.

This module is named after Dr. Eric von Hippel of MIT who wrote the book Democratizing Innovation. www.buglabs.net/modules/bugvonhippel

OpenMoko

Social Electronics

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OpenMoko, a spinoff of Taiwan's First International Computer, established to build an open source touchscreen smart phone.

Developers have created multiple widget toolkits, telephony frameworks and user interface shells that have been successfully programmed to run on the OpenMoko hardware.

Social Electronics, an approach that leverages community involvement and collaboration with consumers. www.openmoko.com

Open Prosthetics Project

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Open Prosthetics Project, a project to create useful and innovative prosthetic devices and release the designs into the public domain.

This project is an open source collaboration between users, designers and funders with the goal of making the creations available for anyone to use and build upon.

Their hope is to use this and our complementary sites to create a core group of “lead users,” and to speed up and amplify the impact of their innovations in the industry.

openprosthetics.org

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VIA OpenBook

Released under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 license giving customers the flexibility to bring their own innovative style and brand value propositions to the Mini-Note market segment. This also helps customers reduce product development costs and speed time-to-market.

www.viaopenbook.com

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XORP is the industry's only eXtensible Open source Routing Platform

www.xorp.org

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Asterisk, an open source telephony engine and tool kit. It is a telephone private branch exchange (PBX) originally created in 1999 by Mark Spencer of Digium.

www.asterisk.org

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Shapeways - printing steel

www.shapeways.com

What might this mean?

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What would our world be like if technology was easy to modify?

Emerging markets

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What could!this all mean for people in emerging markets?

Advantages

• Knowledge transfer• Cost reduction of design

process• Explore and encourage

innovators• Accommodate different

points of view41

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Mobile phone repair shop, IndiaPhoto by Jan Chipchase, Nokia, 2005, publicly available at:www.janchipchase.com/blog/archives/2005/07/post-3.htmlAvailable under Creative Commons license

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Working on the circuit board

Photo taken in Accra, Ghana, 2007 by Duncan Burns, NokiaFrom presentation by Jan Chipchase, Nokia, publicly available at:www.janchipchase.com/blog/presentations/JanChipchase_DuncanBurns_StreetHacks_vFinal_external.pptAvailable under Creative Commons license

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Reverse engineered repair manuals

Photo taken in Delhi, India, 2005 by Jan Chipchase, NokiaFrom presentation by Jan Chipchase, Nokia, publicly available at:www.janchipchase.com/blog/presentations/JanChipchase_DuncanBurns_StreetHacks_vFinal_external.pptAvailable under Creative Commons license

Uganda tech incubator and software development firm

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appfrica.org facilitates, mentors and incubates entrepreneurs in software in East Africa and Uganda.

The mission is to offer opportunities and work experience for East African software entrepreneurs so that they can then use their talents to bolster the growing local markets by offering products and services.

a local mobile portal for Facebook

uses Facebook Connect to allow questions to be

asked and answered in a Twitter-like

interface

OhmSMS - get an SMS when your

power is back on

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status.ug – an inexpensive, and efficient, mobile gateway for Ugandans to update Facebook via their mobile phone.

answer birdwww.appfrica2.com/ugtek

OhmSMS – Get an SMS when your power is off at home or at the office, simply by keeping a cheap mobile phone plugged into an outlet.http://appfrica.net/blog/archives/1815

Handasa Arabia

Internet based organisation that aims to support electronics innovation and research in the Arab world.Working on the OFOQ, the Arabic open source PDA.

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www.handasarabia.org

FabLabs

MIT-sponsored personal fabrication workshops

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General-purpose platform for making just about anything using a collection of computer-controlled manufacturing machines.

fab.cba.mit.edu

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FabLab in Afghanistan

Sustainability

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Open Sustainability Network: open source water pumps, solar panels, weather kits and wind meters

www.platform21.nl52

www.platform21.nl

Open Source Sensing

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This is an open source-style project with the goal of bringing the benefits of a bottom-up, decentralised approach to sensing for security and environmental purposes.

The intent of the project is to take advantage of advances in sensing to improve both security and the environment, while preserving — even strengthening — privacy, freedom, and civil liberties.www.opensourcesensing.org

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Tweet-a-Watt, an open wireless home-power monitoring system.

www.ladyada.net/make/tweetawatt

Education

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Aalto UniversityNew programme is fully based on prototyping, hands-on learning and multi-disciplinary teams.

MITWhat would happen if state-of-the-art research infrastructure, large library collections and world-class faculty were no longer scarce?

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http://www.aaltoyliopisto.info/en/

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E-puck mobile robot, designed for micro-engineering education by EPFL (Lausanne, Switzerland).

Michael Bonani and Francesco Mondada at the ASL laboratory of Prof. Roland Siegwart

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-puck_mobile_robot

Politics, policy and development

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Democracy? Participation?

European Commission• Working document

(29/09/08): “Early challenges regarding the ‘Internet of Things’”

• Communication (18/06/09): “Internet of Things - an Action Plan for Europe”

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www.smart-systems-integration.org/public/documents/publications/Internet-of-Things_in_2020_EC-EPoSS_Workshop_Report_2008_v3.pdf/at_download/file

ec.europa.eu/information_society/eeurope/i2010/docs/future_internet/swp_internet_things.pdf

eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2009:0278:FIN:EN:PDF

Rwanda tech strategy

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Everywhere you go in Rwanda, there are huge spools of fibre optic cable. In two years, every district of the country will be connected to each other and the Internet.Rwanda sends 300 students at a time to India Institute of Technology to develop skills in hardware, software and telecom they can bring back to their home country.First steps will include all government forms are moving online in the country, along with medical records.Ambition: to become a place that can churn out IT services for Rwanda first, and surrounding countries like Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda second. IT is core not only for the education, connectivity and productivity, but the future economic development of Rwanda.

www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/24/how-to-cross-the-digital-divide-rwanda-style

India

“Open source hardware could well be India’s best bet to get started with a hardware industry, without spending years designing microchips from scratch.”Express Computer, June 2009

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www.expresscomputeronline.com/20090601/market01.shtml

What are the bigger companies

doing?

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one laptop per childlaptop.org

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Simputer

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simputerwww.simputer.orgwww.amidasimputer.com

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Lego mindstorms - They’ve open sourced the code and the hardware, and now offer a service called Lego Factory which allows fans to build novel models and pieces and have them produced by Lego’s real-world factory.

mindstorms.lego.com

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OpenSPARC - an open source processor used in Sun SPARC servers

www.opensparc.net

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www.android.com

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www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/20090623corp_b.htm

www.nokia.com/press/press-releases/showpressrelease?newsid=1324456

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An Alcatel-Lucent venture, based in Antwerp, Belgiumwww.touchatag.com

So why is this happening?

• Cultural change because of the web

• Price of designing and making goods is dropping

• It has an ethical force: from passive consumers, to active and enpowered creators

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While the price of moving goods will be increasing, the price of moving knowledge is decreasing. This is likely going to fundamentally change how things are made and our relationship to this production.

Barriers

• History of To and With• Legislation and regulation• Intellectual property protection• Lack of expertise • Physical implem. and testing• Lack of business models

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Creating is inherently pleasurable.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0HCW7lyIHQ

Thank you

mark@experientia.com

www.experientia.com

www.experientia.com/blog

twitter.com/vanderbeeken

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In the short term, proprietary products are generally going to win because they can more tightly control inputs and output and therefore provide a more complete user experience.

In the long term (10 years +), I think that open systems will almost win, because the systems will adapt better to people’s needs, be better understood from end to end, there will be more places for individual innovations to happen, and people will come to expect a more open ecosystem.