Strategic Plan Abstract
Overall Abstract: This is a plan for creating the Open Source Economy (see Definition). The program begins with developing the open source Global Village Construction Set. The GVCS is defined as a minimum set of technologies necessary to create advanced civilization from locally-availabe 'dirt and twigs' with 12 people and 1 year of time starting with a container-load of the same GVCS. In the process of developing the GVCS, we will be developing a scalable, open source product development platform - the Distributive Enterprise Platform. We intend to grow the organization to 3000 facilities worldwide by 2028 by training Distributive Entrepreneurs who then take integrated production capacity back to their communities. The goal is to create economies capable of being powered by local resources. The intended sociological effect is to allow people the autonomy to pursue mastery consistent with higher purpose - as a possibility for the next step of humanity's evolution.
Strategic Abstract - 10 yr– This is a strategic plan for creating an Open Source Economy. An open source economy is defined as a parallel economy (enjoyed by 0.1% or more of the advanced world's population) marked by efficient production of physical goods and other products. Efficiency is defined as access to open source design, open source business models, and Distributive Enterprise – implying relocalization of physical production as a means to efficient resource use. This is marked by collaborative product development and elimination of competitive waste. The tactical approach to achieving the above begins with development and beta testing - of a scalable, open source product development methodology by year-end 2013. Then, the Global Village Construction Set (GVCS) is developed rapidly in 2014-2015 as proof of this methodology. Funding for GVCS development is obtained via a combination of production runs and non-profit sector support. In 2016, we intend to create a 2-year replication training immersion program for social entrepreneurs - and specifically, Distributive Entrepreneurs - and grow this to 3000 graduates over 15 years. Replication requires development of a branding/distribution strategy. To demonstrate the viability of our social model of life-work integration, we intend to build a small prototype OSE Incubator community of ~24 people by year-end 2015. This is intended to demonstrate that one's lifestyle can re-center around purpose and meaning – via a work week of 2 hours/day to generate a modern standard of living from on-site resources via appropriate, open source technology that meets or exceeds industrial productivity standards. Our change model is creation of 3000 model communities on the scale of 200 people by 2028. This is intended to instigate clearly-visible transformation of surrounding economies to local production of essential goods.
Business Plan Abstract - 1.5 yr - The success of our immediate 1.5 year plan relies on the development of a $20k/month earning level from production by end of 2012 to fund our development staff while proving the economic viability of our products. This success is based on sales of compressed brick presses, followed by tractors, power units, and soil pulverizers. We are recruiting 3 Machine Designers and one Master Fabricator, by November 1, 2012 - to design and test further prototypes, as well as a Construction Director to assist in testing many of the machines. The Master Fabricator will work with volunteer apprentices on work/training exchange. This is intended to increase our development ability to 3 machine prototypes per month at a monthly budget of $26k for staff + $10k in materials per month. Completion of development is marked by development of a Distributive Enterprise business model including augmented reality training materials via the Aurasma platform. The goal is to increase earnings to $80k/month by end of 2013 – to support full-time staff yielding 6 prototypes per month ($50k staff, $30k materials). This development relies on the injection of $1/2M for scaling up to $80k/month production earnings – where $200k comes from the nonprofit sector and $300k comes from product sales. The goal is scaling to 6 prototypes per month and $80k/month production earnings by end of 2013. For 2014-15, we are aiming for $1M/year net earnings via collaborative production and another $1M/year via non-profit sector resource development. Either the earnings or the non-profit sector would suffice for funding the project at the 6 prototype per month level, while both source would allow us to accomplish our work ahead of schedule.
Implementation Plan Abstract - 10 months – Agriculture, Construction, and Fabrication infrastructure developments are part of the package as we build the economic sustainability of the organization. We are developing both the organizational infrastructure and physical infrastructure – as we build to a stable prototyping/living community organized around building an exemplary yet replicable Campus with the potential to transform the local economy towards an Open Source Economy. The goals are to create a model community in addition to the enterprise aspects, with management serving the dual purpose of lifestyle investors/guinea pigs for the experiment. This introduces a number of tactical details that have to be considered. The key is a careful interplay of recruiting, production development, scalable platform development, production optimization, on-site community-building - while keeping replicability as the highest priority. For recruiting, we plan on hiring 1 Master Fabricator by October 1; 2 Machine designers by November 1, 2012; and a Construction director by Dec. 1, 2012, and an Information Architect by Jan. 1, 2013. We aim to reach the 3 prototype per month deployment level by Nov. 1. We plan on attaining $20k/month net production earnings - marked by the deployment of our first Distributive Enterprise, by Jan 1, 2013. We plan on continuing this process to a steady stream of 3 prototypes per month by mid-2013, with Distributive Enterprise status of 3 futher products reached by mid-2013.
Social Model Abstract - 10 year - The social model for staff/management and volunteers involves lifestyle investment towards becoming transformative, Integrated Humans. This includes a quest for happiness: peacefulness that is supported by high productivity. The scope of our community is a 30 acre, 30 person community in the Kansas City area of Missouri, and long-term intent is replication as a viable lifestyle for 0.1% of the industrialized world's population (growth to 1M people living in the OSE Campus concept communities within 13 years of 2015). The unique feature of this community is its positioning as a learning + research and development community that regenerates local community economics via development of open source enterprises. The lifestyle model involves a 2-hour daily work requirement necessary to provide all necessities of creature-comfort living (food, shelter, energy, technology), while the rest of the time is spent on open source economic development – as Open Source Ecologists. The technological scope of this 4 year program is reaching standards of modern technology up to metal smelting from ubiquitous, on-site resources – after providing food/fuel/fiber/mineral products from regenerative natural resource stewardship. This 4 year plan does not include semiconductor production from local resources. The intent of this phase (until year-end of 2015) is to complete the GVCS development and to provide substantial data points on the building of a modern, autonomous Global Village. This involves not only the technology base for a modern community – but also the integration of community dynamics based on collaborative production as a novel means of economic organization. The basic approach is cultivating a 12-person team of developers on a ~1.5 year time scale, followed by rapid development of the GVCS as the community grows to 30 people. This work involves developing open source blueprints of powerful, proven infrastructure technologies – as well as documentation of techniques and methods for using these tools as an integrated construction kit for building community infrastructures. The intrinsic goal of community design is to promote a transition to regenerative community infrastructures in surrounding settlements.
