Skoll World Forum
Contents
MJ Applies to the SWF via the TED Network
Time is ripe, as major scaling of open civilization reconstruction is nigh. What are you currently working on?
1
We have been working on the Global Village Construction Set since 2008, and we are currently finishing the product release of the Seed Eco-Home, with a goal of making affordable, ecological housing widely accessible. We are at the stage of starting an apprenticeship with 24 students, where we teach to build this code-compliant, incremental housing build in 5 days. We have uncovered how to reduce build labor costs 3x by a combination of efficient design and modularity, where the house can be site build or built in a workshop and then assembled rapidly on site. Our specification is the highest quality house at the lowest possible cost. We believe we have finally reached the stage of a robust enterprise model that allows us to cross-subsidize our much larger original goal, the Global Village Construction Set. We are developing scalable design-build techniques based on open collaboration, with the same initial goal of eradicating artificial scarcity.
2
We are finishing the product release of the Seed Eco-Home, and starting an apprenticeship with 24 students, where we teach to build a complete, code-compliant, incremental starter home in 5 days. We have uncovered how to reduce build labor costs 3x by a combination of efficient design, modularity, and swarm build techniques. Our specification is the highest quality house at the lowest possible cost. We believe we have finally reached the stage of a robust enterprise model that allows us to cross-subsidize our much larger original goal, the Global Village Construction Set. We are developing design-build techniques based on scalable open collaboration that can be applied to various global issues.
3
We are doing the product release of the Seed Eco-Home, and starting an apprenticeship with 24 students for building incremental starter homes in 5 days of build time. We learned how to reduce build costs 3x by a combination of efficient design, modularity, and swarm build techniques. We are testing a robust enterprise model that allows us to cross-subsidize our much larger goal, the Global Village Construction Set. We are developing collaborative problemsolving techniques - within the framework of educating movement entrepreneurs - to create talent dedicated to world transformation.
4
Product release of the Seed Eco-Home + starting an apprenticeship with 24 students for building incremental, code compliant starter homes - in 5 days of build time. We reduced build cost 3x by a combination of efficient design, modularity, and swarm build techniques. We are testing a robust enterprise model that allows us to scale collaborative design for a transparent and inclusive economy of abundance - the Global Village Construction Set. We are developing an education program to build talent starting from 18 years old - specifically for addressing pressing world issues as the core program goal. - 591
Product release of the Seed Eco-Home + starting an apprenticeship with 24 students for building incremental, to-code starter homes - in 5 days of build time. We reduced build cost 3x by a combination of efficient design, modularity, and swarm build techniques. We are testing a robust enterprise model that allows us to scale collaborative design for a transparent and inclusive economy of abundance - the Global Village Construction Set. We are developing an education program to build talent starting from 18 years old - specifically for addressing pressing world issues as the core program goal. - 600
5
Product release of the Seed Eco-Home - an incremental, code-compliant, starter home. Starting an apprenticeship with 24 students - for 5 day builds - based on 3x cost reduction by a combination of efficient design, modularity, and swarm build techniques. We are testing a robust enterprise model that allows us to scale collaborative design for a transparent and inclusive economy of abundance - the Global Village Construction Set. We are developing an education program to build talent starting from 18 years old - specifically for addressing pressing world issues as the core program goal. - 591
Why Now?
Skoll's core goal of supporting social entrepreneurs resonates highly with our current ambition of going even further - which is to create more problem-solving entrepreneurs in the first place. We are taking an explicit step exactly in this direction at this time. We are at the exciting time as we have proven the enterprise case for our efficient, integrated design-build techniques. This allows us to start self-funding apprenticeships that integrate design-build-enterprise into one package, because the type of integrated, interdisciplinary talent that we need is extremely rare and otherwise would not allow us to scale. We are emerging from 4 years of development work since COVID on proving the enterprise model with 3 prototypes and 1 product build. We believe we can now fund the completion of the larger Global Village Construction Set by 2028 as promised back in 2008. Participation in the Skoll World Forum would be just the right timing for further global collaboration, as we are ready to emerge and grow.
Anything Else?
We are innovating on enterprise models that do not rely on scarcity at their core, and believe that we have uncovered integrated, open design as the core feature that can move the world forward. This allowed us to innovate on drastic cost reduction through integrated design/builds of the Seed Eco-Home. However, integrated design requires interdisciplinary, integrated skillsets, and in a world that is largely specialized, siloed, and uncollaborative - as expressed by patents and other enforcement of artificial scarcity - true collaboration is indeed a rare find. Our goal is to normalize the culture of collaboration, and in order to get there we decided to create education - redefining the state of art in rapid learning programs that re-cover the integrated genius in people (98% of children are creative geniuses - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfKMq-rYtnc). The core of such rapid learning must include physical plant - real experiments and modules for learning - which we are strong on because we deal largely with modular, open hardware builds. Rapid learning must start with motivation, and motivation must start with moral intelligence - which is the core intelligence behind emotional and intellectual intelligence. We are at an exciting time where we are putting this all together in an education program, dedicated at the core to solving pressing world issues. I just wish I had such education available to me, so I would like to create this opportunity for anyone interested. If we have a way to fund this program - it can scale. We believe we have found a bootsrapping way to fund it, which is extremely exciting from the prospect of world transformation.
How do I keep active in TED Community?
Mentorships via Renee and collaboration with other TED Fellows. I always took advantage of the TED mentorships organized by Renee Freedman, and have been collaborating with my current mentor, Steve Netzley, for 5 years on marketing and enterprise development. We did an Afforestt planting with Shubhendu Sharma at our headquarters in Missouri, at which Adital Ela also participated. We had Fellows participate in Microhouse builds at our site (Luke HItchison and Jae Rhim Lee). Ceasar Harada and I collaborated on design of extraterrestrial construction, but the actual workshop in Hong Kong was canceled due to COVID. We also hired Adrian Hong to help us on organizational development. Through the Collaboratorium, we ended up meeting Sunny Bates who is currently on our Board of Directors, as well as Emily Aiken, another TEDster who helped us on brand development. It could be said that I am engaged with TED 100%, literally as my life partner + TED Fellow Catarina Mota is actually collaborating full time on the current work.
Anything Else?
We are innovating on enterprise models that do not rely on scarcity at their core, and believe that we have uncovered integrated, open design as the core feature that can move the world forward. This allowed us to innovate on drastic cost reduction through integrated design/builds of the Seed Eco-Home. However, integrated design requires interdisciplinary, integrated skillsets, and in a world that is largely specialized, siloed, and uncollaborative - as expressed by patents and other enforcement of artificial scarcity - true collaboration is indeed a rare find. Our goal is to normalize the culture of collaboration, and in order to get there we decided to create education - redefining the state of art in rapid learning programs that re-cover the integrated genius in people (98% of children are creative geniuses - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfKMq-rYtnc). The core of such rapid learning must include physical plant - real experiments and modules for learning - which we are strong on because we deal largely with modular, open hardware builds. Rapid learning must start with motivation, and motivation must start with moral intelligence - which is the core intelligence behind emotional and intellectual intelligence. We are at an exciting time where we are putting this all together in an education program, dedicated at the core to solving pressing world issues. The program is also a no glass ceiling, inclusive class mixer, as this world is struggling with affective polarization today. I just wish I had such education available to me, so now I would like to create this opportunity for anyone interested. If we have a way to fund this program - it can scale. We believe we have found a bootsrapping way to fund it, which is extremely exciting from the prospect of world transformation.
