[Gllug] OSHUG #14 — Open for Change Pt.2 (Hexayurt, O+S, Onawi), Thursday 24th November.

[Andrew Back]

Hello,

The next Open Source Hardware User Group meeting will be in one week.
Details below for anyone interested in coming along.

Cheers,

Andrew

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OSHUG #14 — Open for Change Pt.2 (Hexayurt, O + S Project, Onawi)

24th November 2011, 18:00 - 20:00 at Centre for Creative
Collaboration, 16 Acton Street, London, WC1X 9NG (51.529049,
-0.116436)

Registration: http://oshug.org/event/14

Back in May at OSHUG #10 we heard about three projects concerned with
effecting positive change. At the thirteenth meeting we'll be
continuing with this theme, and hearing about the Hexayurt disaster
relief shelter, documenting Appropriate Technology for the needs of
others, and open renewables.

- Free and Open Source Housing

The Hexayurt is an award-winning replacement for the disaster relief
tent which provides shelter at 20% the cost of a tent. It is designed
to be manufactured anywhere in the world at any scale, from local
materials, as Free hardware, to house humans in need. The Hexayurt
Project maintains the designs and makes them freely available. An
estimated $250,000 worth of Hexayurts were built at Burning Man this
year.

Vinay Gupta is one the world’s leading thinkers on infrastructure
theory, state failure solutions, and managing global system risks
including poverty/development and the environmental crisis. He works
at both the theoretical level, building models and mapping tools and
at the practical level, as the designer of the Hexayurt, he helped
start the US National Defense University STAR-TIDES program on
humanitarian assistance, consulted on urban resilience for Arup, and
is an associate fellow of the UCL Institute for Security and
Resilience Studies.

- The Needs of Others

One of the areas seeing heavy influence from the Free and Open Source
Software (F/OSS) movement is Appropriate Technology, and the O+S
Project is working from the perspective of its documentation. It is
investigating the difficulty in translating from F/OSS to Appropriate
Technology at both a practices and principles level, and how we must
go further to meet the goals with the world’s poorest people.

Al Razi Masri is a recent Manufacturing Engineering graduate and
founder of the O+S Project. In addition to which he is working on
documentation for the Hexayurt Project and instructional documents for
other Appropriate Technology.

- Open Hardware and Renewable Energy

Onawi is a non-profit organisation promoting open hardware for the
development of non-domestic wind energy systems. Open hardware is
becoming increasingly popular, as we can see in the recent initiative
by Facebook to open up the technology behind their data-centres.
However, most open hardware projects are targeted at hobbyists or
those looking for custom do-it-yourself alternatives to mass market
products. While this is a very positive aspect, at Onawi we believe
that open licensing and collaborative development could have a far
reaching impact on industrial production. In particular, Open Hardware
could provide the horizontal technology transfer of renewables
required to fight climate change in developing countries.

Javier Ruiz is a UK based digital activist and social entrepreneur
promoting open data, open standards and open licensing as the basis
for a better future based on transparency, participation and
collaboration. His practical work cuts across various spheres ranging
from citizen journalism, archives to renewable energy. His background
is in anthropology and technology management, and you can normally
find him at the Open Rights Group.

Note: Please aim to arrive for 18:00 - 18:20 as the talks will start
at 18:30 prompt.

Registration: http://oshug.org/event/14

-- 
Andrew Back
http://carrierdetect.com
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