Open Source Ecology Creates Tools For a DIY Civilization

Open sourcing, a practice that aims to remain free of intellectual property laws, has become increasingly popular over the past few decades and is seen by many as a triumph for community collaboration and innovation. Many open source software creations like Linux, Drupal, MySQL, Firefox, and WordPress, allow developers and users to be creative without having to pay exorbitant fees to use proprietary tools. In the past ten years or so, the maker community (see the Maker Faire) has spawned a plethora of open source hardware platforms for making all sorts of incredible technologies. Tools like the RepRap, Arduino, and Fab Labs have opened the flood gates to a new generation of inventors — inventors like Marcin Jakubowski.

Marcin Jakubowski, a former graduate student who earned his Ph.D. in fusion energy, decided to take his life a different direction. He started a farm in Missouri. He soon began to understand the woes of farming when he bought a farm tractor, only to have it break shortly thereafter. He realized that it is very difficult to find affordable, sustainable farm equipment that will last decades rather than years. Instead of paying a ton of money to buy the top-of-the-line farm equipment, he decided instead to build his own. That epiphany led him to start the Open Source Ecology organization and the Open Farm Tech wiki site. Open Farm Tech has a goal to create the Global Village Construction Set, a list of fifty machines that can be used to build a sustainable modern civilization. To grasp an idea of what they’re accomplishing, see the video below:

Mr. Jakubowski recently gave a brief talk at TED in which he discussed the background and goals of their project. See below:

Open Source Ecology/Open Farm Tech releases the blueprints and CAD designs to all their tools through their wiki site for completely free. They utilize knowledge from a contributor community that spans the globe. As more people take Open Source Ecology’s lead and go start their own DIY civilizations, the scope of innovation will undoubtedly be astonishing.

As economic inflation drives up the prices of consumer goods, more people are looking to gain some resilience from looming economic disaster. Consequently, people are turning to the DIY and maker culture to create sustainable technologies that can help families become self reliant and less dependent upon the consumer industry.

Tagged in: agriculture, food production, sustainability