Civic Ventures

See http://www.encore.org/prize

Application

Mission

Open Source Ecology intends to build a collaborative development and manufacturing platform that revolutionizes the way that the economy operates today. We design our products in a different way. Our designs are simple and modular. Therefore, they are designed for a lifetime of service. Our goal is to have people gain full control over their technology, like playing with Lego blocks for life-size machines.

Open Source Ecology believes that the next economy is the open source economy - where we all have access to know-how so we can build upon it, unleash innovation, and leave nobody behind.

Our enterprise model is education for disruptive entrepreneurship. We share not only our machine designs, but also our enterprise plans - completely openly.

In 2014-2015, we intend to enter a high-velocity development phase of the remaining machines of the Global Village Construction Set. We intend to finish them all, and document them fully, by the end of 2015. This is our Apollo Project for a regenerative economy. From 2016-2021 - we intend to enter the replication phase - where we build more than 100 facilities world-wide. These facilities are the OSE Incubators - for entrepreneursip training - as a step towards the efficient economy. Our means is to generate a collaborative, open source product development capacity via a network of such development facilities.

OSE Organization Profile

Priority and Need: Describe your organization’s top needs for engaging the talent of an Encore Fellow and how these priorities will help advance your organization’s mission and impact. (Word Limit: 250) We are in the phase of building our organization. 1. Our top priority is recruiting an Operations Manager. 2. Our second priority is recruiting a Product Lead, followed by a Documentation Manager, and a Community Manager. 3. After the above are recruited, we would like to hire a Fundraising Professional and a Production Director to manage revenue generation from the nonprofit and for-profit sectors. 4. We are also looking for Project Managers for the various areas of the Global Village Construction Set: (1) Heavy Machinery; (2) Energy; (3) Power Electronics; (4) Precision Machining; (5) Robotics and Automation; (6) Materials. These positions will be sought after we recruit the Executive Team, such that we have the infrastructure to support these additional roles.

Leadership Commitment: Describe how the Encore Fellow will be engaged with your executive director and senior leadership team. (Word Limit: 250) The Operations Manager will be working right under the Executive Director. Product Lead, Documentation Manager, and Community Manager will report to the Operations Manager.

Fellow Orientation and Integration: Describe how you will bring the Encore Fellow onboard, provide training, introduce them to the staff and integrate them into the appropriate organization-wide culture, activities and operations. (Word Limit: 250)

OSE is expecting an extensive on-boarding period where the Operations Manager essentially shadows me (as the Executive Director) until all aspects of the operation are clear. We will develop protocols together, and I will approve these. Since we are recruiting for all 4 executive-track positions right now, as soon as the Product, Community, and Documentation positions are filled - the Operations Manager will work with these closely. Prior to their hire, the Operations Manager will assist in assessing and interviewing candidates. The Operations Manager is expected to take on a cornerstone position for 'keeping the ship in order,' and there will be a heavy focus on documentation of protocols for transparency and robustness, consistent with our culture of open innovation and learning.

Previous Experience Integrating Experienced Talent: Describe any history of integrating people with significant experience into your organization and effectively utilizing their talent. (Word Limit: 250)

Adrian Hong has joined OSE in the role of organizational consultant, and so far has proven to be priceless in helping OSE in structuring, recruiting, and transitioning to leagal/financial compliance. This is our best success to date. Besides this, this is the first time that we are advertising for permanent positions with competitive salaries.

Fellow Support and Development: Describe how you can help support the Encore Fellow to transition into an eventual career in the social sector, including any possibility of a paid staff role within your organization after the successful completion of their fellowship. (Word Limit: 250)

We are currently hiring and growing. We are looking for seasoned professionals to grow with our company.

Organizational Culture: Briefly describe your organizational culture and list key attributes of your organization that need to be taken into consideration to ensure a good fit with an Encore Fellow. (Word Limit: 250)

OSE has a culture of open, collaborative innovation and learning. We are committed to a long-term view for creative transition of existing systems into the next economy, which we believe will be the open source economy. We believe that open innovation is the route to an efficient and ethical economy. 1. Open source culture - openness is the route to unleashed innovation. 2. Ethical economy - there are fundamental issues of equity in today's economy, and we aim to transcend them without harming anyone and without leaving nature behind. 3. We take a long view - principled approach to creating essential change - and for regenerating the earth - not putting band-aids on deep problems. 4. Absolutely creative approach - transformation happens by creating new options, not taking down existing ones. 5. Learning organization - we value constant learning and improvement 6. Systems approach - we value an integrated, eco-system based approach, as opposed to reductionism. See also OSE Culture.

Board/Oversight: Briefly describe the size and composition of your Board of Directors or other oversight body. The Program Operator may also ask you later to provide specific evidence of institutional standing (such as a 501(c)3 letter). (Word Limit: 250) We are currently recruiting a board. We have a Founding Board of Directors - Board of Directors

Fellowship Funding: Each program has its own funding requirements. If you are applying to a specific program, please contact the sponsoring organization regarding its specific financial expectations for work hosts. Briefly describe your organization's ability to fund an Encore Fellowship. (Word Limit: 250) Fellowship Funding: Each program has its own funding requirements. If you are applying to a specific program, please contact the sponsoring organization regarding its specific financial expectations for work hosts. Briefly describe your organization's ability to fund an Encore Fellowship. (Word Limit: 250)

Suitability of Prospective Fellows: List the top three things you would like to know about an Encore Fellow candidate as part of his or her application process. (Word Limit: 250) I would like to know: 1. Whether the candidate has the correct balance of humility (to prevent mission drift) and starter spirit to operate in a complex, ambitious project which is building its structure - in order to help guide our organization to the next level of efficiency and excellence? Will the person put their personal agendas behind to listen and support our innovative and often iconoclastic approaches, or is the person tied to doing things a certain way which may not serve our organization? And, can the person serve selflessly as a mentor to our leadership team? 2. Does the candidate have a track record of experience to navigate through the basics of effective management? In addition to the established basics, how does the person deal with complexity and unfamiliar things - as our project is highly innovative. Is the person sufficiently savvy, fast-learning, and creative to navigate new topics and projects - navigating complexity - or is a dynamic environment a challenge for the person? 3. Does the person operate comfortably within an open, collaborative environment, or is the person territorial or protective? Does the person believe in open culture - ie, that innovation can be maximized by open collaboration between numerous stakeholders? Does the person give selflessly to the world as a manifestation of open culture?

General Comments and Feedback: (Word Limit: 250) We are a young organization fully intent on structuring operations to stabilize and scale the project. This year is intended to build the structure and executive team to enter into a phase of rapid development between 2014-15 to finish all 50 GVCS tools by year-end 2015. This is very ambitious, but we are seeing evidence of innovative rapid-development techniques that are putting us on a solid footing for accomplishing the 2015 goal.

Applicants Sought

Via http://www.tfaforms.com/192365?tfa_WHApplicantID=a0lG00000035pQJ

Project Manager

Type of Work/Functional Area (e.g. HR, strategic planning, marketing, new venture) (Word Limit: 15) Open Source Hardware Development - Project Manager

Overview of Work Scope: Describe the anticipated scope of work within your organization, overall goals, and the primary roles and responsibilities of the Encore Fellow. (Word Limit: 250) * This is for a temporary (2-12 month) Project Manager position in product research and development. We are an open source hardware development organization, currently building the Global Village Construction Set (GVCS). Last year we learned how to produce our automated Compressed Earth Brick Press in a single day. This year, our goal is to develop radically collaborative product design methodology to allow for the collaborative design of advanced products on a similar time scale. By leveraging new collaborative cloud 3D design tools such as Sunglass - and combining these with innovative collaborative processes based on Hackathons and Jams - we intend to develop similarly rapid development processes for the design of physical products. Our current priority is to develop a massively collaborative, rapid product design methodology capable of producing complex product design, applied to the GVCS. The Project Manager would be responsible for developing this technique in part or in whole. Depending on the interest of the applicant, s/he may be involve in developing this process in whole or in part. This applies to any mechatronic products - from tractors to energy production to digital fabrication equipment. The primary role, again, depends on the interest of the project manager, and at best would be where the project manager is involved hands-on in product and protocol development in addition to their management duties. We are looking for both project managers, engineers, and product designers. The candidate is expected to work within a boundary-crossing team of engineers, designers, fabricators, entrepreneurs, documenters, and others.

Work Impact. Describe what outcomes - both measurable and qualitative - the Fellow will have achieved at the end of the fellowship. Please describe the plan for your organization to sustain and support the project outcomes after the fellowship. (Word Limit: 250) * If the Fellow works with us for 2 months, a good outcome would be modeling the rapid development protocol in the form of a Design Jam where a large number of designers - co-located and remote - come together to do conceptual and technical design, as well as a machine build - with a goal of accomplishing this in 3 days. We have already demonstrated that we can do heavy machine builds on the scale of 1 day. Therefore, the goal is to produce the design on a rapid time frame of a couple days. The goal would be to iterate the methodology until we can attain massive parallel development, and until we document this towards replicability - setting a new standard for massive collaborative development. After the Fellowship, we could consider hiring the Fellow. We plan to develop and scale these methods within our organization, as well as to lay groundwork for mainstreaming these methods in other corporations.

Work Environment. Briefly describe the work setting, including factors such as physical environment, organization size, level of interaction with others inside and outside the organization, team vs. individual work, and organizational culture. (Word Limit: 250) * The site is Factor e Farm, a 30 acre research and development campus of Open Source Ecology, located in a rural area 1 hour away from Kansas City, and 15 minutes away from the nearest big box store. The site will include our operations manager, executive director, community manager, and documentation manager. There may be other interns on site. The candidate may either live on campus, where we have a 4000 sf workshop and 3000 sf house. We are currently building separate staff housing, or the person may live in the local town 1 mile away. The nature of the role would be highly collaborative, where in one scenario - the candidate is responsible for large development teams - and inviting them either to an on-site, multi-day development event- or to a development session in a major urban center. The organizational culture is open, collaborative development, and it is a learning environment. This may be combined with contracting of other professionals required in the development process on an as-needed basis. This will really depend on the skill set and interests of the candidate.

Operations Manager

Type of Work: Operations Manager (OM) (organizational maintenance and development, site management, production management, resource development, construction management, product development)

Overview of Work Scope: Overview of Work Scope: Describe the anticipated scope of work within your organization, overall goals, and the primary roles and responsibilities of the Encore Fellow. (Word Limit: 250) We are an open source hardware development organization, currently building the Global Village Construction Set (GVCS). Last year we learned how to produce our automated Compressed Earth Brick Press in a single day. This year, our goal is to develop radically collaborative product design methodology to allow for the collaborative design of advanced products on a similar time scale. The Operations Manager reports to the Executive Director and Manages the rest of the executive positions - Product Lead, Technical Community Manager, and Documentation Manager. The OM 'keeps the whole ship together' - a combination of the organizational structure and land-based operations at our research and development facility - Factor e Farm - in rural Missouri 1 hour away from Kansas City. Organizational development includes running operations and producing an Operations Handbook of protocols for smooth operation. On the organizational front, we are developing our fundraising capacity within the nonprofit sector. On the production side, we are developing production to fund our work. Site Management includes management of the housing, workshop, water retention, and agricultural operations. Production management may involve assisting the Product Lead in production + prototyping runs. Construction management may include building additional housing and infrastructure, such as a biogas digester for electrical production. Product development and documentation is our core work, and it involves managing a collaborative development process that we are currently developing.

Work Impact. Describe what outcomes - both measurable and qualitative - the Fellow will have achieved at the end of the fellowship. Please describe the plan for your organization to sustain and support the project outcomes after the fellowship. (Word Limit: 250) The intended outcome is for Open Source Ecology to stabilize as an organization - by structuring to the point that we qualify for multi-million dollar nonprofit budgets within 12 months. To support the project outcomes, we would have to recruit a full time Operations Manager, assuming that the rest of the core team (Product Lead, Technical Community Manager, and Documentation Manager) are in place. The outcomes include establishing clear and effective roles, clear communicationk, and effective operational protocols. This would manifest as our ability to scale to 4 prototypes being built per month with full quality control of resulting documentation - while engaging in some field testing of machines on site, and deploying pilot projects worldwide. Regarding the site - improvements would include stabilizing remaining infrastructures (water, electricity), and establishing sound erosion control and fertility building pracices, while building up waterworks for water retention. Work Environment. Briefly describe the work setting, including factors such as physical environment, organization size, level of interaction with others inside and outside the organization, team vs. individual work, and organizational culture. (Word Limit: 250) * The site is Factor e Farm, a 30 acre research and development campus of Open Source Ecology, located in a rural area 1 hour away from Kansas City, and 15 minutes away from the nearest big box store. The site will include our operations manager, executive director, community manager, and documentation manager. There may be other interns on site. The candidate may either live on campus, where we have a 4000 sf workshop and 3000 sf house. We are currently building separate staff housing, or the person may live in the local town 1 mile away. The nature of the role would be highly collaborative, where in one scenario - the candidate is responsible for large development teams - and inviting them either to an on-site, multi-day development event- or to a development session in a major urban center. The organizational culture is open, collaborative development, and it is a learning environment. This may be combined with contracting of other professionals required in the development process on an as-needed basis. This will really depend on the skill set and interests of the candidate. Work Space, Equipment, and Other Resources. Describe the workspace, support and equipment (e.g. computer, phone, desk, etc.) you will provide for the fellow. (Word Limit: 250) Office with internet, desk, chair. 30 acre farm. 3000 sf living unit. 4000 sf greenhouse. Access to fabrication equipment and heavy machinery. Support of the rest of the team (Product Lead, Technical Community Manager, Documentation Manager) plus support of interns and volunteers on site. Transportation comments. Provide any comments on access and proximity to public transportation, parking, etc. (Word Limit: 250) Rural - no public transport. Parking available on site. Airport 1 hour away by car. Greyhound available 20 minutes away. General Comments and Feedback (Word Limit: 250) Diverse role filled best by a competent person (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competent_man) in absence of which, we must be strategic in what the Operations Manager can really do.