Senior TED Fellows Application
by Marcin Jakubowski, September, 2011
Why do you want to be a Senior Fellow? What in particular makes you a stellar candidate for the program? We know you're awesome, but we'd like to hear why you think you should be a TED Senior Fellow.
What have you been up to post-TED? We know you've been super busy -- please tell us about it! Still rockin' your work? Have you been collaborating with any fellow Fellows or TEDsters?
At this juncture, how has being part of the TED Fellows program affected you? (For example: personally, emotionally, socially, professionally or in other ways)
Thought experiment 1: You are working in the developing world and come upon a village that is very poor, in very poor health and with virtually no access to water, education and electricity. What would you (and others?) do to materially improve the village's quality of life?
Thought experiment 2: If you could design and create any product or service (assume sufficient funding) what would it be and why?
What would you be working on over the next two years?
6. Why do you want to be a Senior Fellow? What in particular makes you a stellar candidate for the program? We know you're awesome, but we'd like to hear why you think you should be a TED Senior Fellow.
We have shown initial prototypes of the low-cost, open source infrastructure building tools – the Global Village Construction Set (GVCS). Since then, we have shown economic significance of these tools by netting $25k from a production run (just finishing now). With our present growth trend, we are aiming for finishing and optimizing the initial 50 GVCS tools by year-end 2012. Many of the tools are basic devices like tractors - but there are much more complex ones such as affordable solar concentrator electric power or extraction of aluminum from clay. We need help to deliver prototypes - while producing clear and clean instructionals for scaling and replication – while developing the missing open source CAD/CAM solution to assist in the above. We are calling for the development of open source microfactories and economies. A 'civilization starter kit' as such is a scalable and adaptable solution to reinventing community-based solutions of re-localized production. Our eventual goal is to train entrepreneurs of tomorrow – armed with the Civilization Starter Kit as their product. The applications in the developing world are clear – and for the developed world - we aim to demonstrate - first - a new engine of optimized production (elimination of competitive waste and design-for-obsolescence) – fueled by open source design. Second, this engine can also power the creation of sustainable communities with economies that are resilient in the case of global economic crisis.
7. What have you been up to post-TED? We know you've been super busy -- please tell us about it! Still rockin' your work? Have you been collaborating with anyta fellow Fellows or TEDsters?
Since TED, we've done a production run of 4 tractors, 5 Compressed Earth Brick presses, 9 power units, and 2 soil pulverizers – to get us ready for testing these tools in building a 5000 sq ft workshop and 8 living units. We sold most of this equipment to bootstrap further development – by developing our living and working infrastructure. We collaborated with other TED Fellows – Adrian Hong – as Advisor to our project, and with Cesar by helping him publicize the Protei Kickstarter, and we are currently working on our own Kickstarter. I was also invited as one of the speakers to TEDxKC, and my talk was received exceptionally well. I also followed up with Manu for contacts at Vigyan Ashram, and Aparna on assistance for prototyping in India. Lesa Mitchell also invited me to give a presentation to her group at Kauffman Foundation. Moreover, I am currently getting coaching on enterprise scaling and team development from SupporTED, with a leading coach, Scott Blessing. I regret to say that I have not kept in much contact with the other TED Fellows, especially Esra'a, simply because I was buried in the production run and preparing for construction, so most of my work filtered through these 2 needs. I am committed, however, to inviting some of the TED Fellows on-site – housed comfortably in the infrastructure that we are currently building – to collaborate between our projects – where Cesar and Esra'a come to mind immediately.
8. At this juncture, how has being part of the TED Fellows program affected you? (For example: personally, emotionally, socially, professionally or in other ways)
We received $60k for construction of our facility, and are currently applying for a $148k Kauffman Foundation grant. Shuttleworth Foundation contacted me regarding their assistance of $250k directly for project development for 2012. This was all a direct result of the TED, not to mention the flood of developers and subject matter experts that contacted us after seeing my TED Talk. We doubled our True Fans about 2 months after my TED Talk went live, and now, most of our collaborators filter through my TED Talk. Also, OSE Europe Foundation was started, and we recruited a resource developer for the USA operations. Now, I spend less time in the workshop and more on team-building and funding.
Socially - the TED Talk took me to somewhat of celebrity status, which affirmed my need to keep clear on core values of service to humanity. I manage this by keeping clear on the end-state by meditation – to maintain and develop our initial core values of open source economic development for the benefit of all.
Emotionally, the TED Talk gave me reassurance that the idea is truly sound – the reception to my TED Talk was and is spectacular, and people are hungry to see this solution materialize. TED has provided legitimacy for the project that was missing before.
9. Thought experiment 1: You are working in the developing world and come upon a village that is very poor, in very poor health and with virtually no access to water, education and electricity. What would you (and others?) do to materially improve the village's quality of life?
We would secure $5M ASAP to develop, document, and develop enterprise training around the Global Village Construction Set - in as rapid fashion as possible. The GVCS address all infrastructure needs: food, energy, water, housing, transportation, and technology. Once developed, we would adapt the GVCS for the particular village, at about $100k of seed money (this is a point that we will develop and document rigorously). We would plan to resolve all the resource scarcity issues on a timescale of 6 months by applying the technologies immediately. However, to leave lasting change, we would use the construction infrastructure of the GVCS to build a training facility/school so that the village could learn and assume full responsibility for their well-being – independent of foreign resources. Once the material foundation was secured – the school could continue its teaching to other areas of cultural and scientific advancement – in harmony with promoting the wisdom of generations past.
But that is only the beginning. Upon success in its own borders, the village would move forward to train other trainers – to help thousands of other villages to emerge from poverty. The village itself would serve as a beacon of not only possibility, but also practical entrepreneurial activity.
10. Thought experiment 2: If you could design and create any product or service (assume sufficient funding)what would it be and why?
The product of interest would be, so to say, a General Store of the 21st Century – comparable to WalMart – except all the wealth is generated from local natural resources. There are 2 main parts. First, this would be a facility with a local supply/processing chain for agricultural goods. Second, the facility would include on-demand, custom and digital fabrication of any technological goods. Think of this as a combination of TechShop, Walmart, organic farms, and automated microfactories all in one – which are capable of producing the complete sustanance base (food, energy, technology, etc) – from local resources.
If soil, plants, and sun are available – such complete bootstrapping is possible. The only barriers are access to knowledge (addressed by open source) and energy. We aim to address the latter via the world's first, affordable, scalable, open source solar concentrator electric system. Based on our prior data points on cost reduction, we conclude that this is a solid possibility, and we aim to prove this next year.
In a nutshell – the product is an uber-production facility – that can produce all the 50 GVCS technologies, where these technologies are used to derive any other products. This implies a shift of power – to address geopolitical compromises. It is a practical program for Civilization Starter Kit entrepreneurship.
12. What would you be working on over the next two years?
The single focus is completetion of the entire GVCS 50 tools by year-end 2012, with $4-5M of funding. Over the next 4 months, we are building infrastructure on site to promote rapid development of the remaining GVCS technologies. Starting January 1, 2012 – I will be engaging full-time project management. I will be managing 10 projects at a time, with 1-month prototyping schedules going through 3 prototype iterations for each machine. This will be in conjunction with a CAD, design, and fabrication team on site at Factor e Farm – where we will test and dogfood our machines as well. For each machine, we will also demonstrate economic significance by engaging in production. This takes us to the next 16 months. January 1. 2013 will mark the kickoff of the social experiment: testing whether it is possible to create a materially-prosperous community, whether right here at Factor e Farm or in the heart of Africa, on the scale of Dunbar's number in size - that enjoys 1-2 hour per day work requirements to provide a modern standard of living (including ability to trade) – via wise use of productive technology - while at the same time avoiding contribution to geopolitical compromises. We aim to generate data points on the above. These data points will include - practical work requirements in hours; level of technology achieved; sufficiency of local resources; happiness, satisfaction, and meaning found in the population.
13. Please provide any relevant websites or links that you would like the selection committee to see.
Main OSE website – http://opensourceecology.org
Rollout Plan - http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/GVCS_Rollout_Plan
Wiki – Crash Course - http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Crash_Course
Progress on Documentation – CEB PRESS– http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/CEB_Press/Manufacturing_Instructions/Frame_with_main_cylinder POWER CUBE - http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Power_Cube/Manufacturing_Instructions – TRACTOR- http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/LifeTrac/Manufacturing_Instructions
Infrastructure under construction for 2011 - http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/OSE_Shop_2011
Team Log at Factor e Farm to see what the on-the-ground work looks like - http://opensourceecology.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Factor_e_Farm_Logs
