STEAM Camp Invitation

Dear Person Interested in Transforming Education,

Marcin here, founder of Open Source Ecology (OSE). We do collaborative design for a transparent and inclusive economy of abundance. Please see my TED Talk on the Global Village Construction Set for a brief on our work.

I'd like to ask if you'd be interested in serving as an instructor our 9 day Open Source Microfactory STEAM Camp. We can offer between $5-8k for your time if there is a good fit. We teach collaborative design of technology that matters. We are building on our last event (https://www.opensourceecology.org/open-source-microfactory-stem-camp/) - for a tighter event like this - https://wiki.opensourceecology.org/wiki/STEAM_Camp_Curriculum . We focus on involving people in building the world around them - to shift the economic playing field from proprietary to collaborative. We believe in the promise of distributed manufacturing - with open source microfactories and open source design. We recognize that technology can help - but the real shift involves growing as humans.

The instructor role includes the necessary preparation, and joining a collaborative effort to improve the next STEAM Camp event. Your YouTube channel indicates to me that you have a relevant, diversified skill set to teach and learn. OSE would do most of the organizational work and back end, including shipping kits used during the STEAM Camp. You would be responsible for the teaching time - and helping to secure a venue, in addition to preparing your piece of quality curriculum. All curriculum becomes open source, for anyone to build on it and with it. The Camp takes 9 consecutive days from 9AM to 6 PM each day.

Essentially, we cover design and CAD, 3D printing, CNC machine design, microcontrollers, mechanical and electronic design, automation. We focus on a fully open source, modular, scalable, construction set approach. Part of our offer to you is rapid learning from other instructors - where we all collaborate on content and effective teaching - to make a one-of-a-kind program. This is where I need your help. We teach both technical skills and entrepreneurship. We plan on running 6 STEAM Camps at the same time. We collaborate prior to and during the event - including all event participants - in a process of developing real, open source products designed for distributed manufacturing. All instructors are expected to contribute curriculum and design refinements, and to integrate their modules so they fit within the construction set. We are committed to teaching technical literacy and meaningful productive skills, so that open source microfactories can be realized as the next evolution of industrial production. As such, we require individuals who are committed to public development via open source - specifically - via open source hardware products.

We envision microfactories in all communities - with the potential to produce 80% of the products that we currently find on Amazon. We envision lifetime design, and a shift from consumerism to ecological responsibility. From Open Source Ecology's perspective - open source, modular design leads to closed-loop material cycles and lifetime design - as anyone can fix or improve the products. The STEAM Camps aim to provide such enabling skills. We will also host public-interest incentive challenges for open source product design, for which the STEAM Camp can provide training.

In the STEAM Camp, the first 4 days are skills boot camp, and the last 5 days are project days where all teams collaborate on a real product design. See the proposed schedule. The idea is that we continue developments in successive STEAM Camp, improving the product by building on past experience, until we arrive at commercially viable products with proper quality control. We aim to leverage the true power of open collaboration.

So if you are a super-cooperator, are willing to collaborate in the open source (CC-BY-SA 4.0 is our current license), and are interested in sideline income for this - let's talk. We'd like to post our first event in about 3 months, and are now actively recruiting instructors. We have some curriculum, but we want to improve it with your input. If this is something you might want to be a part of - I'm available to discuss further on a conference call. I am available after 11 AM CST USA time on most days - just pick a time to give me a minimum 24 hour heads up.

Thanks, Marcin