Shuttleworth Fellowship Application
Contents
What is the Shuttleworth Foundation Fellowship?
2014
2013
- Shuttleworth Fellowship 2013 Submission
- Shuttleworth Fellowship Application - 2013 - Marcin Jakubowski - draft
2012
Bio – link to Resume - Marcin_Jakubowski_Resume
Marcin Jakubowski came to the U.S. from Poland as a child. He graduated with honors from Princeton and earned his Ph.D. in fusion physics from the University of Wisconsin, before shifting direction and starting a hydroponic vegetable farm. He then began his education from scratch, and in 2003 he founded Open Source Ecology in order to make closed-loop manufacturing a reality. At his research and training facility, Factor e Farm in rural Missouri, he is developing the Global Village Construction Set and has since become an international leader in open source hardware.
TED Talk – 4 min - http://www.ted.com/talks/marcin_jakubowski.html
GVCS Kickstarter – 3 min - http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/622508883/global-village-construction-set
Personal Intro – 3 min -
Transcript of Felowship Application Intro Video - script
4 Application Questions
Describe the world as it is. (a description of the status quo and context in which you will be working)
The status quo is an economic system based on artificial material scarcity. This is defined as a general global condition, where in the abundance of material and energy resources (rocks, plants, sunlight) in the absolute sense, humans fail to distribute and utilize these resources effectively or ethically to meet human needs within the constraints of natural life support systems. This promotes geopolitical compromise - which continues to manifest as resource conflicts, material deprivation such as hunger and poverty, corruption, and a general tendency of competitive waste to compromise genuine human progress.
What change do you want to make? (a description of what you want to change about the status quo, in the world, your personal vision for this area)
My program for addressing the above issues involves open-sourcing of material production. We are addressing this currently by developing the 50 GVCS technologies for creating infrastructures of small scale civilizations with modern comforts. I am committed to removing material scarcity as the underlying force driving human relations, personal and political – by making access to material security a universal human condition, as opposed to a privilege enjoyed by the few today. I am doing this by demonstrating this first-hand: living a life of post-scarcity. By developing enabling tools, I would like to demonstrate that advanced civilization can be build on the scale of any land parcel, using its local resources – starting with me and a community that I build as the guinea pig. By developing open source tools and techniques, I would like to make ethical living the norm, not the exception. This option has deep economic implications post-s carcity economics - where a repository of open design fuels distributed, flexible, digital fabrication on an equal playing field where everyone has access to the best design. I am interested in developing the next economy - in the form of distributive economic systems based on open source principles. I would like to create the Ubuntu of open hardware as the means. (post script: To clarify, the scope is much greater than the 50 GVCS tools. The GVCS is intnded to provide a solid economic base for further development of the OSE Paradigm. The greater goal is open-sourcing of the entire economy. This means making open source economic development an acceptable paradigm in society. Open source economic development is the development of Distributive Enterprise.)
What do you want to explore? (a description of the innovations or questions you would like to explore during the fellowship year)
To this end, we're building the GVCS as the enabling tools – a high performance, open source toolkit sufficient to create complete economies. This will be in preparation for my next step, taken on from 2013 – testing these tools - by determining whether a modern standard of living can be achieved by using these tools at a required work load of 2 hours per day. This will be tested on a community of Dunbar's number in size, and real data points will be generated on the feasibility of applying all knowledge of humanity to date for the purpose of creating sustainable settlements as a foundation for genuine human progress towards cultural advancement where people gain a higher level of fulfillment and meaning in their lives.
What are you going to do to get there? (a description of what you actually plan to do during the year)
Exterior construction on our fabrication workshop & living space will end November 15, with interior finishing continuing through early December, such that the enabling workshop and living infrastructure is secured for next year's on-site production and prototyping. To begin the development of the 50 product releases by December 21, 2012, I will secure $540 of investment by January 1, 2012 - private donations (~$50k), nonprofit sector (~$150k), product presales (~$100k), angel investors (~$100k), investors (~$100k).
The $540k will fund a rapid deployment program of 13 further product releases by April 1, 2012 as shown in my introductory video. This will take the total number of product releases to 17 by April 1, 2012.
With 17 product releases by April 1, 2012, we will recruit 4 full time fabricators for that date, and 4 more by July 1, 2012. We anticipate scaling from $5k/person/month to $20k – for total monthly bootstrap earnings of $20k by April 1, and $80k by July 1.
4 OSE Fellows will join us on March 1, and 4 more on June 1. Fellows will develop 8 more product releases by year-end, bringing the total number of product releases to 25. Prototypes will be developed by OSE Fellows who will work with an average budget of $15k per product (approximately $5k per prototype).
On March 1, a full time farmer, and a full time builder, and an operations manager will arrive on site. If we succeed on the Shuttleworth Fellowship, we will allot a $100k budget for the farmer and $150k budget for the builder. The builder will construct additional infrastructure so that we can bring on 4 more OSE Fellows by June 1 and 12 full-time documenters by September 1.
We aim to fund the Fellows via the nonprofit sector. We aim to fund the farmer, builder, and operations manager via production earnings if the Shuttleworth Fellowship doesn't come through.
We aim to fund the rest of the 25 prototypes via unsolicited donations from entrepreneurs interested in access to low cost, high power equipment for their enterprise. Thus, each quarter will yield 12 new product releases for 48 total by year-end, and the GVCS will be completed in that time. I will serve as project manager for 12 projects at one time, with an expected budget of $2M for 2012. Going into full speed in September, 2011, the Documentation team will publish all results, designs, and techniques, to produce Civilization Starter Kit DVD v1.0 on December 21, 2011. Any additional funding beyong the $2M will be allocated to documentation and is expected to be on the order of $1M - for Sep 1 – Dec 21, 2012, with DVD v1.0 release on December 21, 2012, with refinements made on a continuous basis.
Application Followup Questions
See open document - File:Shuttleworthfollowup.odt
