OSE Apprenticeship
Introduction
The goal of the OSE Apprenticeship is a 6 month to 1 year program designed to get change-minded individuals started on replication of land-based facilities based on the OSE model of regenerative societal design. The OSE Campus is can be a regenerative farm, a hackerspace, an educational campus, an ecoindustrial park, or other related entity. Our model of change is to build infrastructures which provide for the pursuit of happiness in harmony with natural life support systems.
The focus of the learning is site design and build - from the built environment, to renewable energy production, tools and machinery development, and land stewardship- towards building working, regenerative communities that change the world. Along with this comes the study of governance, entrepreneurship, and philosophy that underlies this work. We infect participants with notions of possibility that arises from building tangible things - and provide the opportunity to continue development with OSE after the apprenticeship. We will be hiring, based on enterprise surrounding the Seed Eco-Home project, which has a goal: to solve housing. In our innovative model, collaborators set their own performance-based pay - based on gaining the necessary skills and experience for their chosen path.
This is the on-site version of the OSE Mentorship - which introduces in-person collaborative design as well as access to the workshop and land-based facility for building and testing of real things.
Teamwork
We work as teams. We are all about unleashing collaborative genius. The first cohort of 12 includes 12 apprentices, 2 class mentors (Adjunct professor of architecture, adjunct professor of engineering). The whole group works directly with Marcin and the rest of the world on solving pressing world issues. Using OSE's global collaboration techniques, we engage in an open and transparent process aimed at creating rapid learning and rapid transformation of the world's institutions according to best practices. The day-to-day is learning by doing - both design and builds. There is a strong emphasis on documenting, as the intent is to have participants replicate OSE-inspired operations all over the world.
Thus there are 3 main relationships here, and 4 tracks.
1. The base team works as a pair: 2 apprentices, where one documents. Here strong documentation and video skills must be learned. Because we are showing how to reboot civilization from scratch - starting with how we are educated and collaborated to do so. That happens by continuous reporting. We all work on exposing design - because understanding design is key to redesigning a world that works. Thus, we produce design guides that demistify and create access. Each student's annual project involves creating at t least a small design guide around a project that pushes the state of art in any topic - whether house design, regenerative agriculture, engineering, or design of economic institutions. We all collaborate on this, and invite the wider world to do so as well.
2. The second layer is working with the mentors, who provide design guidance and engage in socratic dialogue.
3. The third layer is the internet - for working openly. Guided by Marcin and OSE's collaborative development protocols, we engage with the larger global community. We also host on-site events, such as workshops, the Extreme Enterprise Hackathon, and the Summer of Extreme Design-Build
Schedule and Intent
Typical schedule involves 1-2 hour of lecture 5 days per week, 1-3 hours of design time, and 5 hours of build time. The mentors serve as workshop instructors. The focus of the lecture time is learning how to learn, and learning how to design.
The schedule is designed to teach critical thinking and design skills - towards a capacity of taking problems and solving them by First-Principles Reasoning and Socratic Design where we bring out collective genius. This is done by a teaching style focusing on Learning how to Think, and Learning how to Design. We all teach eath other. We value supercooperators, not superstars.
The program is literally about building civilization from scratch, from humble beginnings, up to modern civilization manifest in the OSE Campuses. The OSE Campuses are organized largely around lifelong learning, and are a breeding ground for movement entrepreneurs who gain economic independence to pursue world-changing work.
We question everything - not only how to redesign society - but why we should do so. For a given product, we don't just say - how do we produce it better-faster-stronger-more open-more collaborative. Instead - we ask - should we be producing it in the first place. This gets into philisophy - grounding ourselves in humility and learning so we can stand on the shoulders of giants - not on the shoulders of midgets. Socratic Design reflects some of our notions - that knowledge can't be transferred, it must be brought out. That many of our ideas are based on inaccurate assumptions - and humility can bring us past these.
Integrated learning to us means that we ask why something should be built - then how we design it - and then we get our hands dirty building the things - so that we have a full feedback loop on the appropriateness of what we have done.
About 75% of the time will be spent on new design and innovation, and about 25% of the time will be spent on more mundane tasks of site infrastructure. However, the 25% of the time will still be about innovation: because we design group processes for effective builds - and document the same - so at all times it's about a cycle of innovation-documentation as we midwife new paradigms into existence.
Activities
- Day to day - Students works as pairs - developer and documenter, with role switching as needed. Generally with 2:1 ratio of hands-on learning (building) to classroom (videos, lectures, design time, documentation time). For the documenter in each pair, the ratio is reverse - 1:2 of hands on to docementation/video production. This is a socratic process of learning via direct engagement.
- Philosophy of Collaboration Seminar - once a week we gather for a 1-3 hour seminar in which we delve deeper into important questions related to collaborative design for a transparent and inclusive economy of abundance, via socratic dialogue. The intet is creation of collaborative genius. All hands get on deck to prepare for this one month ahead of program start each year.
- Build Days - Saturdays are build days, where we work on infrastructure builds such as construction, machines, or agriculture.
- Extreme Enterprise Hackathon - students in all tracks are required to participate in a 3 day enterprise-building event that results in economic transformation of a specific industry.
- Summmer of Extreme Design and Build - in the heat of the summer, we collaborate on transformative builds.
Degrees Offered
Through this work, we are also able to privide tech school, bachelors', and master's degrees after 2 years. And up to PhD or equivalents if more time is spent. We all contribute to open source, digital, collaborative enterprises - our change model being replication of decent enterprise.
Tracks
- Build - you can learn welding and metal fabrication, house construction including plumbing, electrical, carpentry, mechanics, machine building, microcontrollers and automation, CNC machining, aquaponics, PV installation, heavy machinery operation across diverse machine areas from housing to 3d printers to autonomous tractors. We offer only integrated skill sets - for example, you can't just learn welding or aquaponics, but must diversify to at least 3 areas in a 1 year period. We encourage 30% of work in another track, such as Design or Enterprise tracks.
- Design - house design, machine design, landscape design, mechanical design, product design, basic power electronics design, and more.
- Enterprise - this includes 30% of the
- Movement Entrepreneurship - For those interested in a full Open Source Ecology PhD level equivalent - meaning mastery of a generalized skill set appplied to solving Pressing World Issues
Cost
The payment scale is from $6000 to $24,000 including room and board per year depending on track taken and the financial situation of the student.
Hiring
We are hiring for 2 positions: adjunct professor of Architecture, and adjunct professor of Engineering. Advanced degree or equivalent experience is required, as candidates are required to have strong research, teaching, and design skills. All candidates are required either to have significant hands-on work experience (construction, workshop, tool use, fabrication, agriculture, etc) - or are expected to gain solid proficiency during their tenure.
Day to day activity is teaching and mentorisn, and at the same time learning from and collaborating with the group.
The job offer is for one year, with advancement opportunity. The intent for the adjunct professorships is to take on an advancement track of replicating an OSE Campus to another location.