Using wikis and digital fabrication tools, TED Fellow Marcin Jakubowski
is open-sourcing the blueprints for 50 farm machines, allowing anyone to
build their own tractor or harvester from scratch. And that's only the
first step in a project to write an instruction set for an entire
self-sustaining village (starting cost: $10,000).
Declaring that, "We can lead self-sustaining lives without
sacrificing our standard of living," Marcin Jakubowski believes that
only by opening the means of production can we achieve abundance for
all. Though he has a Ph.D. in fusion physics, he became dissatisfied
with its remoteness, and turned back to the earth as a farmer and social
innovator.
He is the founder of Open Source Ecology,
which is creating the Global Village Construction Set — the blueprints
for simple fabrication of everything needed to start a self-sustaining
village. At Factor e Farm in rural Missouri, he's been successfully
putting those ideas to the test. www.opensourceecology.org.nyud.net
"It's not reinventing the wheel; it's open-sourcing the wheel."
Julia Valentine, farmer, The Atlantic
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