Joshua M. Pearce is the John M. Thompson Chair in Information Technology and Innovation at the Thompson Centre for Engineering Leadership & Innovation. He holds appointments at Ivey Business School, the top ranked business school in Canada and the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at Western University in Canada, a top 1% global university. At Western he runs the Free Appropriate Sustainability Technology (FAST) research group. His research concentrates on the use of open source appropriate technology (OSAT) to find collaborative solutions to problems in sustainability and to reduce poverty. His research spans areas of engineering of solar photovoltaic technology, open hardware, and distributed recycling and additive manufacturing (DRAM) using RepRap 3-D printing. He wrote the Open-Source Lab and Create, Share, and Save Money Using Open-Source Projects.
Authored Comments
This is a good thought provoking piece. I haven't been scooped yet in my own work - but I can imagine the frustration that would come with it. If we can take money out of the equation it certainly makes it much more possible to live by a pure hacker ethic as credit for an idea (even if it is stolen and completed by someone else) can be traced back to the originators. As automation eliminates the need for more jobs - the current economic system may itself lay the foundation for this to become more widespread (e.g. if the majority of society is living on a guaranteed basic income ala Canada's new experiments http://business.financialpost.com/news/economy/hamilton-lindsay-and-thu…).
Very cool -- Have you looked at doing a 3-D printable version?