This report was assembled by the co-organizers of the Makers for Global Good Summit, Stephanie Santoso, Kate Gage and Sam Bloch, with help from summit participants. The summit was made possible through the generous support of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Engineering for Change and in collaboration with The Tech Museum of Innovation. For more information on Makers for Global Good, visit makersforglobalgood.com.
5. ○ Making tools, technologies and spaces for design, building and fabrication
more accessible to individuals with disabilities.
○ The intersection between making and social justice- making as an
opportunity for civic engagement.
○ Data protection, governance and risk mitigation when innovating in high
stakes, high risk contexts.
○ Increasing access to Maker technologies and lowering barriers to scale.
SESSION I: IMPACT INVENTING AND OPEN COLLABORATION
This session focused on examining the ways we can think about the impact of the solutions
that are being developed and the role that open source and open sharing can play in the
development, dissemination and distribution of solutions across communities. We heard
from three different organizations on this topic.
Lemelson Foundation
Lemelson Foundation has been supporting the
development of invention based enterprises (IBE)
as an approach to solving some of the toughest
challenges facing society in areas such as medical
diagnostics & treatment, energy and agriculture.
The foundation works in a variety of ways to spur
invention including supporting organizations who
provide inventors with the support and guidance
needed to ensure products go to market and have
a societal impact.
The Lemelson Foundation believes the most important products invented in the next 20
years will be those that address critical social and environmental issues, and reach and
serve communities with the greatest needs. For this reason, the foundation focuses on
what it calls the impact inventing framework:
1) Environmental Responsibility: Thinking about the end-of-life of a new technology to
better understand its life cycle and potential environmental impact.
2) Financial Self Sustainability: Free products are good, but lasting impact can be
achieved if there is a market need for it that can help sustain growth.
3) Positive social impact: Positive pro-social orientation to address the pressing issues
of our day.
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12. What can a technologist do about climate change?
Hosted by Tito Jankowski, Impossible Labs (tito@impossiblelabs.io)
1. Empower youth to see climate change as an opportunity for their own success
2. Technology innovation as an opportunity for climate change mitigation
3. Climate change as an educational and civic engagement opportunity
How Might We?
● How might we put climate change right in front of you? Local > Global
● How might we turn the Fremont Library into a EPA-grade air quality testing lab?
Fremont Library also has a seed lab.
● How might we get citizen scientists to check out air quality sensors at the Oakland
Tool Lending Library?
● Possible social innovation workshop at the Tech Museum of Innovation
● How might we use that experience in a pop-up fashion and take it to the streets?
Next Steps
● Think small, 3 week project
○ What is the smallest thing we could do to test a potential partnership?
○ How can we use data that The Tech already has to share it and ask people if
they want to be involved?
○ Connect with Galvanize or other learning groups in SF?
○ Schedule a site visit up to Manylabs for The Tech team
○ Interested in discussing further? Email Tito tito@impossiblelabs.io
How can we help K-12 youth become a new generation of problem
solvers to address critical local and global issues?
Hosted by Trey Lathe & Jakki Spicer, Maker Ed and David Coronado, Lemelson Foundation
● Open-ended problem solving can be chaotic. One question is how we reconcile that
with more structured teaching approaches.
● On the other hand, open-ended problem solving may not be as unstructured as one
might think, particularly when you talk about the ways in which engineering and
design thinking have distinctive processes.
● Engaging teachers in pivoting their teaching styles and mindsets to embrace more
open-ended problem solving can take several years and is a more gradual process.
● Traditional learning for indigenous peoples is ‘making’ centered, but the words and
language are often different. Acknowledging that the maker-focused approach to
learning isn’t completely new and that there are older approaches to teaching that
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Thoughts:
● Right skills now is a U.S. program that partners with local community colleges to
educate/train students for the skills needed by industry (eg. computer science,
robotics maintenance, etc.).
● Consider novel ways of financing the training that looks like equity.
● Need to have a test facility for makers- the goal would be to leverage the test facility
for not only their products, but also the other companies that are building products
off of theirs.
● How do you get, $10M for example, to start scaling such an operation. It would take
about 1 year to get the factory going within the U.S.
● We could approach the people who would benefit from having a local
manufacturing capability. Sell them a voucher that would essentially give them right
to the service. Essentially, you work to crowdfund the opportunity.
● Frame the investment in the Theory of Change - how can you build the case beyond
net present value and make the argument that X number of jobs, businesses, etc will
be created. Emphasize the social impact of the facility beyond just a monetary
return.
● Hybrid value chain needed: Need to find other sources of capital including
foundations.
In the age of open source and customization, how does
manufacturing adapt?
Hosted by Michal Kabatznik, Tikkun Olam Makers (TOM)
● TOMglobal currently has 200 prototypes, but what happens next? How can we bring
these solutions to market? How do we bring the world of making together with
manufacturing?
● Consumers desire more niche, customized products.
● Individuals don’t necessarily know that they can go to a local makerspace to have a
solution made.
● In Shenzhen there are tons of skill sets that are currently underutilized. X.factory is
providing a space where these skills can be utilized and they’re building a technical
community that can be connected with those who have specific needs. X.factory is in
the process of figuring out the economics behind this and plans to hold a conference
on open manufacturing later this year.
● When it comes to an open source solution or device, can one still make a profit? The
answer is probably yes. Not everyone wants to make their own products. Some
would rather pay someone to produce the item for them.
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15. ● Open-source and profit are not an either or. People can differentiate and tweak the
open-source product and build a business model around it. The other parts of the
business model (like customer service, service delivery) are also important.
● Copyright (copyleft) protections are very hard to protect across-borders- there are
critical questions around enforceability.
● When it comes to manufacturing, TOM is going to be facing questions around
whether solutions meet industry standards. One major challenge will be how to
address the fact that real functional standards are different across countries or
groups of people.
What goes into the humanitarian fab kit?
Hosted by David Ott, Global Humanitarian Lab
● A FabKit is a minimum resource kit of tools, digital resources, personnel resources
(such as a trainer/manager) that can be shipped as the base for which affected
communities can a) begin rebuilding/fixing after a crisis (or just in general), b) direct it
towards a specific need, and c) start their own makerspaces.
● A FabKit would be the minimum needed in order to evaluate and then jumpstart.
Each FabKit would grow into an individualized maker space that directly responds to
what that community has identified it needs out of it.
● Needs to be replicable in any community regardless of infrastructure; resources that
become unreliable in a crisis or are unavailable in the first place.
● Shipping containers would be an ideal physical space for these FabKits, but may not
be available physically or are logistically difficult/expensive to transport. Something
light, that can be broken down and built back up (pop-up)
● Want to keep these under $10K for the software, tools, and structure; but transport
and other logistics, maintenance and safety, management personnel, etc. add to
costs.
● Each makerspace will be part of a larger eco-system; each eco-system then should
have access to the broader network of maker spaces around the world. The
challenge is solidifying the network itself, and then making the network accessible to
everyone.
● Measuring impact and evaluation- post-FabKit evaluation of need, evaluation of
impact, and monitoring of sustainability and effectiveness.
● FabKit being the bare minimum, subsequent challenge = acquisition of what the
community needs for it be impactful and scalable. What do they need, how will it be
part of the larger network, how will they use it? Each community will create its own
“custom” FabKit out of the minimum resource center. This is where human-centered
design and social innovation comes in. Contains 3 core elements - virtual, physical
and network.
● Volunteer engagement- you can’t focus entirely only on volunteers. They may be
available, but you need to find the right people for the job.
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Makers for Global Good Summit Agenda- May 19, 2017
#makeforglobalgood
http://bit.ly/makersforggnotes
9:00-9:30 Check-in and networking
9:30-9:35 Overview of the day- Steph Santoso & Kate Gage
9:35-9:40 Welcome- Leslie Zane, Director, The Tech for Global Good
9:40-9:45 Shashi Buluswar, CEO, Institute for Transformative Technologies
Discussion Sessions- 5 minute lightning talks and conversation
9:45-10:15 IMPACT INVENTING & OPEN COLLABORATION
■ David Coronado, Program Officer, Lemelson Foundation
■ Michal Kabatznik, Acting Director, TOM Global
■ Natalie Relich, Executive Director, OHorizons
Moderator: Steph Santoso
10:15-10:45 CO-DESIGN
■ Dara Dotz, Co-Founder, Field Ready
■ Alex Dehgan, Founder, Conservation X Labs
■ Rajiv Mongia, Director of Experience and Outreach in the Modular
Innovation Group and Director of Maker Outreach in the Corporate
Affairs Group, Intel
Moderator: Sam Bloch
10:45-11:00 BREAK
11:00-11:30 LOCAL INNOVATION
■ Kamau Gachigi, Executive Director, Gearbox
■ Dave Rauchwerk, Founder, NextThing
■ Emily Pilloton, Founder, Project H/ Girls’ Garage
Moderator: Kate Gage
11:30-12:30 LUNCH
12:30-1:30 Unconference sessions
1:30-1:40 Group discussion
1:40-1:45 Missions for Makers
1:45-1:55 Closing remarks
1:55-2:00 Wrap-up and next steps
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