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Open Source Hardware Project

These workshops, detailed on this wiki, are part of a larger 2 year project "Understanding Open Hardware and Citizen Science" detailed at the OSCDnet website

The research is being led by Irene Agrivine, Denisa Kera, and Hermes Huang.

The full project description of "Open Source Hardware for Citizen Science in Indonesia, Nepal, and the Philippines: Mapping Networks, Understanding Outcomes and Testing Models" can be found here: File:OSCDnet_OSHW_Indonesia_FinalProposal.pdf

This project is one of 13 projects funded by the Open and Collaborative Science in Development Network, which is being run by Dr. Leslie Chan of the University of Toronto, Scarborough and iHub, "an Innovation hub and hacker space for the technology community in Nairobi."

About the Project

Laboratory equipment is often unavailable in the Global South due to high acquisition costs. This unavailability is perpetuated by divides in knowledge production centered in the North, which denies the South recognition and validity. This divide is manifested in international aid through the idea of technology transfer, which was embraced in neoliberal policy in the “development decades” following World War II (Perez, 1988; Kumar Mehta, 2001). This has created inequality and dependency on the West for scientific knowledge and research (Posadas, 1999). We want to highlight practices and interactions between research and communities pioneered in the Global south, which paradoxically offer a model for the “west” to adopt, and question the predominant obsession with science effectiveness reduced to patents and publication in closed journals. Attention must be drawn to DIY and maker approaches, which insist on the possibility of building laboratory equipment with open source hardware tools and, in the process, democratize technology infrastructure. Furthermore, we claim that by building laboratory equipment, communities are empowered to define their own scientific and development challenges and goals in their local context outside the technology transfer rhetoric. The specific hardware that these communities have begun to create and iterate include, but are not limited to, microscopes, polymerase chain reaction thermocyclers, laminar flow cabinets, and centrifuges. Open Source Hardware production has been ongoing in Indonesia since 2005 and aims to address issues of affordability and access to lab equipment faced by many Southern countries. This project seeks to map existing stakeholders and initiatives in Indonesia, while determining to what extent similar projects may be utilized in Nepal and the Philippines. The project’s aims to gather data for network analysis of Open-Source Hardware (OSHW) for science initiatives in Yogyakarta (Indonesia) since 2005 to evaluate them as a catalyst and model for open and community-based science efforts in Nepal and Thailand. The activity also include practices of collaboratively designing, building and repurposing electronic components and tools, address the critical problem of the lack of customizable, repairable and affordable scientific laboratory equipment.

Research Project Budget

The total project budget is 79,910 CAD, and a detailed breakdown can be seen at OCSDNet Detailed Project Budget.

Bootcamp Yogya

Activity

The Bootcamp Yogya consist on two main activity, the first one is the the pre-Bootcamp Yogya session, which happen from June to August 2015, and the second one is the main bootcamp that happens from September 1 until 11 2015. The pre-Bootcamp Yogya was made for the facilitator and researcher guided by our project investigator and project counsultant. It is one of the ways to prepare their mindset and craftmanship on open hardware project. Later on they will responsible on assisting the bootcamp participants on the process of formulating problems and designing hardware. The main bootcamp will gather some participants from Indonesia and other countries; they came from different background of expertise and discipline. Together they will be given some problems that happen especially in Jogja, in order to design and create a prototype tools as the solution for such problems. The bootcamp activity consist of the research whether it is field research or discussions, and making the prototype.