Makerspaces to Global Tech Ecosystems, Elton Yang, Mario Behling, Mitch Altman, Saad Caffeine

Yes. So this is the um open hardware at scale panel uh from maker spaces to global technology ecosystems. Um today we have like four distinguished uh experts including me maybe but like three uh uh experts here with me I should rather say and uh from very different uh backgrounds. So, I'd like I'd like to introduce um our panelists here today. So, first like um next to me is Dr. Elton Young. Um he's a TOC mentor for the open killing community and a longtime open-source ecosystem leader in China. Um you work on large scale open technology ecosystems connecting operating systems, hardware platforms and industry. Exactly what we need here on the intersection of these areas. Then um yeah, welcome please. >> Thank you. >> And next to him we have Mitch Alman. Mitch, you were on stage here uh with a very impressive story. I I feel like I inspired you a bit to this story. I don't know but was very nice. And so you're hacker inventor of TVB gun and but also many other hardware projects. You're a longtime advocate actually of the hacker space movement. um global electronics education through workshops and community spaces. That's what you do and a lot of more things that we will learn about a little bit about it here at the session. And um uh then finally uh last but not least um Sad Cavin co-founder of Savage Garden Assistive Maker Space that's in Singapore and uh you work on frugal innovation community technology projects and assistive hardware developed through maker communities. So welcome also Mitch and Sad. Okay. So let's talk about um um maker spaces and global uh technology ecosystems. Um my idea is like uh let's start uh talk about maker spaces. How how things started with open hardware? what are the ideas a bit behind what are you doing in this sphere and then like of course move to industry and you're already active um with the community and we are very interested to learn more maybe what uh are your plans or ideas for the future so um opensource transformed the software industry over the past decades do you think open hardware could follow a similar path and what would need to happen for that to become reality I think the best person to talk about this because you know what's going on for many years. You've um been active but also observing it for many years. Mitch, what do you think? What are the chances here? >> No clue. Um you know uh I think open hardware is uh a fascinating realm and really helpful for many many people. Um but um you know it's a really difficult uh realm to be in when surrounded by um capitalism because I think it's actually quite profitable. But when we have the virulent form of capitalism that we're all surrounded with now, it's not about making enough money. It's about maximizing money. And these investors are uh manipulating people to uh maximize money and not just maximize money but maximize money every quarter with no long-term thinking just to sell stock. So um they believe these investors that you have to patent things in order to maximize profit. And um that may or may not be true. I have no idea. But we don't need to maximize profit every quarter. We need to make enough money so that we can live our lives in a way that we want to live our lives. And that's up to each of us to decide how much money that is. And open hardware is a fantastic way to do that. Because if you're engaged in open hardware, any of these projects, you're engaged in it because it's meaningful for you, whatever the project might be. And if it's meaningful for you, it's probably meaningful for other people. And those are the kind of things that people are willing to pay you to provide them. And that's a worthwhile thing to do because you're not only helping yourself by making by being engaged with something meaningful, but you're providing something meaningful to other people who are supporting you to provide that for them. And if you're making enough resources to continue doing that, what more do you need? So there's a lot of this going on at hacker spaces, maker spaces, whatever you want to call them, all over the world. There's thousands of these spaces with communities that support each other in doing that. Some of these projects grow really, really big, like 3D printers started from a hacker space in New York City. And what we now call drones started with an open hardware project with just a few German hackers uh that was first presented publicly in 2006. And uh they called them microopters that just used computer fans, old desktop computer fans. And it was really really cool. And they of course they had lots of LEDs as well because they have to look cool as well. But um yeah, these things grow huge and other things aren't as huge, but there's so many projects that people make a living from that are meaningful. And this has grown from just a few of us doing this back in um 2007 8910 uh to many many people doing it now. So I'm hoping it'll continue to grow because it's so helpful for so many people. Um, and I think we can do this parallel to society at large and the mainstream economy. We're engaged in the mainstream economy, but how engaged is up to each of us so that we can continue to do what we feel is meaningful and worthwhile in our lives. So that's my perspective. >> Yeah. And uh um so that that's a bit like that open hardware is still a bit the underdog. Um but uh we have seen things can change dramatically and like uh in open source free open source software um we could see that actually um some companies can grow um with uh projects I mean projects become companies sometimes and u um like open source is used and it's a is a foundation for very large companies there's a whole different topic if that's good for society or not and how how this interaction and community and so on. I think we can't solve all of these topics but let's talk a little bit about more more open hardware. Where is the opportunity here? Maybe that uh the industry maybe gets on board with open hardware more and and uh sad you're working in a maker space. What do you see in your maker space? People come with different projects. You're also very well aware what's going on all over the world because I I meet you at many different events like all over the world and you're aware what's going on um across the region here in Asia. and maybe like start by telling us very shortly a little bit about Salvage Garden um and then yeah if you can um give us some ideas. >> Yeah, so to set the context um Salvage Garden is a maker space uh that is very weird and we have zero employees. Uh we're a volunteer organization registered as a nonprofit based in Singapore of all places to do a volunteer organization with zero staff is really weird. Um, but we're just a bunch of people and like-minded individuals like what we have here at Force Asia and like what Mitch was saying, um, these, uh, tech companies get excited about the tech, but the companies are made out of people who are also excited about the tech. So what I set out to do with Salvage Garden was hold space for people who are excited about the technology and direct that interest towards solving for people with disabilities and caregivers. We try and use that context. We we operate out of the public library once a week every Sunday. So we just hold space um call it a maker space if you like a hacker space if you like but the intention is to allow for that conversation to happen is like what are we trying to solve for? Is it meaningful? Yes, we can get excited about technology and yes we can talk about this until the cows come home and I'm sure we will. But where is this even going? What are we actually solving for? um what is is the technology that we're excited about actually meaningful in this person's problem. So we have the space to ask that question and maker spaces are excellent spaces to do that. Uh we're lucky in Singapore where we have a library where you have access to 3D printers, laser cutters um and other tools. But it is at the end of the day a public library. So it is what we make that space out to be. If we hold space there to talk about how we can improve the design to maximize profit, there's nothing to stop us from doing that. But at the same time, if you have crazy people who are interested in applying these kinds of uh problem solving skills towards meaningful problems uh and what is meaningful to one person might not be for the next person. But what we found with Salvage Garden is um every Sunday there's a lot of people who do care for people with disabilities and um if you're in an environment where you have the tools like 3D printers and laser cutters and you have people who are creatively looking to apply those technologies and you present them with a problem that says look this person is struggling to hold a fork for whatever reason could be an injury it could be a disability it could be a temporary thing it could be permanent thing but that's the the the problem. The problem is holding a fork. It's not something super uh complicated like you have to redesign a wheelchair, you have to like reinvent a language um uh to communicate with the blind people. You don't have to do anything like that. The problem could be as simple as holding a fork. Uh and if you have access to a 3D printer, you've got access to Wi-Fi, you Google and see what a solution is there. It gets the mind thinking. uh you're able to download something, print it on the spot, ask the person, say, "Look, does this work for you?" And the person says yes or no, or that starts the conversation. They say, "Look, it's not working for me because I mean, it's great that you found it. It's great that you use the 3D printer. It's all very exciting, but I still can't use it." And then the question becomes, wait, but why? And that's what Salvage Garden is about. It's about holding space uh enough so people can try things out, find where the gaps are, and then use the same skills uh to try and solve for those gaps. The advantage we now have with 3D printers is that they are a lot more accessible. Um they're low cost. Um and because the designs are not proprietary, they're easy to download and they're digital. We can modify them and we can modify them on the spot. if you are in a maker space, but that's not limited. We're not creating an environment of dependency. You can take that uh design home with you and if you have a 3D printer at home, you can do it. Or if you have a friend who has a 3D printer, you can get them to do it. So, you're not relying on a social service enterprise to go keep going back and saying, "You designed this amazing assistive technology. I got it from you, but it's not working for me, so I have to keep coming back to you to make a change." um if it's 3D printable, it opens the the door for the person who's using it to be involved in the design process. So, that's kind of what we're about. We're about co-creation. We're about making the um the technology more accessible. Uh and the the scale at which we're adopting these technologies, 3D printers, uh way back then were still kind of seen as, oh, you needed to be like a tinkerer. you needed to be a maker to get them to do what you wanted to do. But today, you just, you know, you download a file, you put it in the printer, and then you walk away. It does its thing. And we couldn't do that. Um, I don't know, four or five years ago. Now, it everybody can, and it's accessible. And that's only because of, I think, scale. Without that kind of industrial adoption and production, um, we wouldn't have as many people comfortable with this idea of 3D printing at home. So I think it's necessary to have both those discussions and to hear you say it the way you say it which is wonderful. Uh my question is why can't we do both um with the sort of organization's perspective we try to be inclusive as much as possible. So we should be able to have both the conversations. It's not either industry or not. It's not nonprofit or forprofit. I feel like there is a room for um how can we do both and how can we get one to complement the other. We certainly can, you know, like 3D printers. Makerbot became uh it was started off as just a project for one person and then two people and three people and those three people founded Makerbot and that was at NYC Resistor, a hacker space in New York City and it became huge. You know, they sold it for almost a billion dollars. Uh it was a huge and and now that was just the beginning and it's all these companies now doing 3D printers and it's all over the world and now you can even buy little toy ones for like a few euros. Um, so yeah, these little projects that we create are meaningful for other people and they spread and there's nothing wrong with making a profit. Uh, making a living from projects that you find meaningful are fantastic motivations for doing cool things not only for yourself but everyone in the world and uh yeah well thank you for making the bridge to the industry. Um, and uh we have Dr. Elton Young here and your background is industry but at the same time open source leadership and um that's in China and like the society and um how things are structured is very different to um like other countries and um often we don't know so much about it. So um we would love to hear u from your perspective like um uh and uh yeah I have additional question afterwards because like um why we have this big division sometimes um in the west u um for example between like open and uh proprietary it is also because it's not very fluid. we have a very strict legal system. Um and maybe in other countries in other regions it is more fluid that maybe like copyright doesn't have such a strict enforcement or um always or um you know it depends on the time and so on. I think there are many different facets to it but Dr. Elton Young give us some ideas. You see there are a lot of questions. Um maybe you can also shortly share a bit about your background um software hardware and um what do you think is there a chance um that we see something similar what we saw with open source and free and open source software um in open hardware? We already have the maker scene. Can we see more of it also in the industry? What do you think? >> Sure. >> Thank you. Uh first let me share a little bit background about myself. You know I'm a software guy. I've been working in software area for like uh 25 or 30 years but my working experience always been a hardware company. Uh many of you don't know I've been working with Intel for more than more than 20 years. So, so my most of my working business is actually in a for in a western company like Intel and I've been working right now I've been working in a local uh you know hardware company also. Um so you're talking about the open source in China you know one thing I can tell people here is the open source in China is nothing different with that in the rest of the world. I can tell you that because you know I've been been through the uh you know most of the area you know times China doing open source. I'm probably the first batch of people working in open source. I hosted you know uh richest doman in China and I saw you know Linus himself many times in Intel's conference in you know uh you know open source events. So what I can say is this you know in China open source we also have a many people who are very devotees and interested in open source during their contribution in communities like open kitty and also we have a open source foundation open open atom foundation which provides a lot of support to those communities and open source projects it's nothing different but the differences in China is we have a much bigger user base, >> right? And we have a lot of companies. I don't know you're talking about commercial, but you know, I my view is, you know, commercial and open source, they can they can help each other. They're not naturally, you know, you know, uh kind of confront with each other, right? Um so there are a lot of companies in China they want to join also want to join the opensource ecosystem you know because they have of course they have their you know uh purpose you know they want to make money through open source but there's nothing wrong they can contribute to open source but at the same time use open source to make money right so and I think that also help a lot with the developments of open source So that's my view and also and you know with communities like like open Ken we have many many people working in different areas you know like I said in presentation we have more than 156 you know everything you want to do like you want to to do open hardware you do want to do a specific boards or a robots you can always find similar pe people who has similar new interests work together with you. The community is a way to amplify your voice. As long as your voice, you know, are, you know, have common common understanding, you can amplify. So, um, okay, open source, you mentioned open source, but I want to dig a little bit deeper because I would like to know what do you mean with open source? Because like we talk about uh um open source software. Yeah, many people like to call it free software. It's sometimes confusing um because like in other languages like German we have several words for the word free so it's it's less confusing for us um but uh let's not dive into this now that's a topic of Richard Storman he he can share about this let's dive a bit in the topic of open source and open hardware and of course there are um like different levels of open hardware like u you could say for example um um making the schematics of a hardware uh available um and then producing it and um and then selling it um that's that's one way and that's already a good level of openness. This is for example what force Asia is doing with the uh pocket science lab. Yeah. However, then some people come and say oh yeah but the chip the chip is not open source. Okay. Okay. Then we say oh yeah but like you know we're actually working on a new version um it's has a risk five chip now. Yeah, it's true. But it's is that specific risk five chip open source? Well, depends how you define it. It's an open standard. Yeah. Okay. So, we're going in this direction of openness and uh sometimes I'm thinking like uh if I don't know about the world, if I just think about the logic, isn't it easier to make like the schematics open and you still have to produce it? It's actually difficult to produce things. We have our own experiences. Sometimes things went wrong. Yeah. So, so you have to produce it. Whereas software is you can just copy and deploy it or like run it on your laptop or or somewhere is actually it's easy in comparison I think because doesn't cost anything. You can just like give it to anyone and anyone could just copy it. But hardware you have to produce it. So shouldn't it be easier to make open hardware and also like um as as a kind of business um and and and support people um that's the question. So let's not dive too phil philosophical where we set the the the the level like what is really where it's open enough. Let's talk about like the basics open hardware. So where a company share schematics with the community community could for example join it um improve it. They're like some um open hardware laptops out there. Banani hang often at the force Asia summit did the first one um I think it was 2014 around that time. um and uh the Novena laptop back in the days. What do you think? Is there an opportunity for open hardware? What is your perspective um like in China also? Yeah, I mean I saw a lot of people who are very interested in the open hardware because you know I think you know people have a similar thinking you know at the same time you know we are using a lot of commercial hardware you know big servers GPUs you know burning a lot of power uh but at the same time you know we want to know what's really inside the hardware like you just mentioned you know we like to control what's the hardware you and with our own supervision you know without you know like a black boss doing something we don't know so I saw a lot of people were interested interested to do that so either they either make some little boards or some you know devices uh you know uh uh you know uh they have a sometimes just have a small group around them doing that but you know um if you want to share this kind of idea or meaningful things to a larger group of people. I think one way to you to utilize is use the open source community. Like I said, you can amplify your voice because you know with a big bigger group of people, you can always find someone share the same interest and they can also contribute because you know when they know you're making a little chip or leave device, they say, "Oh, I can do more. I can add more things and extend the usage." Another thing I think the important is open source is you know the ecosystem. Hardware is not always hardware. You need a whole system. You know I'm a software guy. I've been working in the hardware company but I know how important it is for the software ecosystem because you know every new hardware if you want to push the markets you always face a problem of chicken egg right application developer user right but with the community with more people share the same interest join you you can together build a much bigger ecosystem with all those like uh you know some people well I'm the compeller I can contribute a compiler optimized with LVM to you know kind of make your device or efficient 10 times faster right sometimes oh I can write application we can extend your usage of your hardware you know you can always find this fun people but how can you find these people community is I think is the most important place you know in especially in China we have a huge user base you do not know how many people are interested in your idea right you never So you know when you have some place like force Asia to share your idea a lot of people will echo it right. So it's important to use the community build influence find some people similar to and you know just open candy the way you can do that you just just create a se right you can find people around you think that's the best way to do that and the community give you many resource to do that submits events you know PR message uh you know uh in China use wehat official group a lot of people know more right I I think this is is a is very important way to do that. >> So, uh Mitch um you um have shared your story about uh how you started uh open hardware um many times and u um and and many people followed you. Um my question is now um looking beyond the the maker community um nowadays like we have like 3D printing as s mentioned and um we have um people who create u PCBs they send it to uh PCB manufacturer a few days later um it's coming back it's it's really cheap nowadays like compared to the past um so we have an initial uh process but there are a lot of um hardware applications out out there that are not within the reach of the maker community as Dr. Elton um said, for example, like sometimes you need a lot of resources for projects. I'm thinking some medical devices. Um for example, I'm I'm thinking really like um u more um advanced hardware that's maybe um in in new cars um or um like spaceship. I'm always a fan of space, right? Um like um rockets and so on. I I don't know. So, so there are um hardware projects that would require more resources and um the um open hardware business model um like it exists but um I don't know of like a really large project that like succeeded on a big scale. So um do we need this? Uh um I know you have a critical opinion about capitalism and in in in some aspects um because in in some aspects it's like it's more maybe more monopolism and not really competition and collaboration between different companies. Um but let's talk about open hardware like if you want to really like look beyond the maker community. If you want like let's say my dream would be a real competitor to Nvidia, right? Let's let's think big. What would we need for that and how should that work? What do you think? What are your thoughts? >> What we need for a competitor with Nvidia and companies like that is China. >> Okay, good. >> And and we have it. China exists and open source uh mindset exists in China for a long long time. And Bunny Huang long time ago wrote uh essays on basically open source in China but without that phrase being used explicitly. Um you know like Huawei started as some you know group of people who are copying iPhones. But this is the way we all learn as humans is copying one another. If we put impediments in the way then innovation is stifled. I'm not a um uh critical of capitalism uh across the board. Our current form is the thing where everything must be maximized for profit next quarter. China has long-term goals as a country and also people in business can go beyond just the short-term neoliberal capitalism virus that we're all engraved in. But um China uh has all of these resources and all of the supply chain and everything along the way. the current crop of fearless leaders that we have all over the world uh is pointing at China and saying they're feeling threatened by this and uh in a way from their point of view it is a threat but China is what it is because people have collaborated and not just for a a couple of decades this is like millennia going on now uh so that's I think the model that we can all look to and Um, I would love to see China not be the enemy as it was for a great many number of years where people in the west and people in China are collaborating with each other, learning from each other. We all have things to learn and share with one another. And if our fearless leaders would just get out of the way for a moment, maybe we could proceed and make uh things better for one. So, you know, there there's open hardware companies in China. These are explicitly open hardware companies in China like seed studio and some others and uh Espressive being a not so little company is making really good use out of the open hardware community all over the world. I guess they're based mostly in uh Singapore but certainly a lot of it's going on in China. China is not the enemy for them and it shouldn't be the enemy for any of us. So I I see some hope there. um we can as individuals at least if not working with our fearless leaders uh encourage that and move forward in some positive ways. >> Um Dr. And so um yeah what what do you think like u um looking into subject and like considering that we don't have enough time in this panel to go into um all the details really uh solve this question um but considering you hear this um like we see uh communities and um companies um um engaging open kellin open ula um in risk five development and so on. um um also going out um coming here to the first Asia summit for example like going out and uh to meet the community. So um what are your ideas? What do you think will be the next step to continue uh these kind of conversations um over the next few years? What do you see um happening? what are the plans maybe to to to connect um and maybe continue the discussion about open hardware also in a context outside of China. What do you think? >> Okay. Yeah. I think you know open source and open hardware they are both open ecosystem they are from my perspective you talk about the open spirit it's nothing difference all we want is to you know use your either hardware or software you know as the way we want right um we don't want big company control everything but at the same time the company join is not really a bad thing we can coexist Right. Um in China I think you know most of the communities like open kitty we're not position oursel as only in China. We're global that's why we are here right we want to talk to people around the world let them know you know what's China's open source community look like. So I think you know the goal for you know open source organizations, open source communities and open source projects in China and they all want to get connected with you know other people who are also interested in open ecosystem all together you know that's very important open source is a global movement not just region even China is big enough you know if you look at the the commercial side we can always get enough money from only in China, right? But if you're talking about open spirits, that's a global thing, right? We want all people all around world know about open source, utilize open source and make their life easier. I think that's why we have you know uh you know communities like open kitting you know going to Thailand to Europe even to the US if permitted to you know talk about open source in China because you know communities like open kenning we are not a profit uh organization you know we have a you know of course we have a um you know a fund foundation we have open up provide us like funding supports uh this fund is donated by big But the technology developments evolution all based on open source experience you know the discussion technical decision all in open and the governance is also open open it's nothing like I said it's nothing different with rest of the the open open source organization we want people to know that understand that we like to work people all around always keep it open >> um okay um we are coming to the end here I'm like having like the team pointing at me that we should be coming to the end and but it's so interesting and I'm I'm really inspired. Um I think like um we should get credit here in in this panel for um using the word open so much. Yeah, I think like people really like know aware and um yeah so the sharing spirit is there. That's really cool. And um um before we come to the absolute end, I still want to make a short final round um and hear from you guys very briefly. Um what would you like to see? Um and what do you think um we could see and what you would like to see in the next three years. In the old times we asked 10 years, but we are now an accelerating age. Um everything is faster. So I'm asking you in three years um what do you want to see in three years? Sad uh with your maker space? What do you see in three years? In regards to open hardware, >> I think it it sort of picking up on what Dr. Elton was saying that um it's about um engaging the people and what you were saying. We don't really need fearless leaders anymore as we used to before. I feel like we've got enough agency in the people who work for these institutions to be able to strike out or step out and um act on the agency that we now have. the fact that 3D printing and um all the other technologies that are being used in maker spaces today uh allow us to do a lot more than they used to maybe 5 years ago. Um we don't really need to um hit up against the barriers that require institutional buyin. So I feel like if you engage the people on a people level that community ask them what they're motivated by what motivates you to contribute what motivates you uh to work with other people then building on that will allow us I think to move in a positive direction I hope so the question for the next three years more of this what you were saying that you know forums such as force Asia bring people together allow us to have this discussion sort of re uh affirm why we're doing what we're doing. Meet the people and people and say meet the people in person and say okay this is what's motivating you that's why I can connect with you and so we can um identify that these are things that keep us moving forward. So I feel like these kinds of events and occasions need to happen more often. Uh there is ashwa to plug another event that's coming up in Berlin. uh there's open hard open open source hardware association which um engages the community in ways that I think uh is meaningful to all of us. Um so those kinds of events I feel need to increase in number and I'd love to see more of them in this part of the world rather than be stuck in the western side. Uh so then we can have more people participating and also I get to participate which is nice. So more events that are like for Asia Yeah. Well, uh, you said pretty much everything I wanted to say. So, yeah, community, people getting together, fearless leaders be damned. Uh, we don't need them in order to communicate. Here we all are, and we can do a lot more of that and learn, continue to learn from one another, providing infrastructure for more people to learn. Uh, one realm that we haven't really touched on is the realm of uh, bio and biotech and creating the infrastructure there so that um, medical technology doesn't have to be hundreds of thousands or millions or tens of millions of dollars, euros, whatever. Um, that can happen through open hardware as well. and getting together with people from India, from China where there's billion people or more um is really really important and through community that's how we do it and events like this are invaluable >> and and yeah what would you like to see in three years? >> Yeah, I mean I been working in open for many years you know I can see you know more and more young face every time I join this kind of summits. Um but one thing I want to talk about today is about AI because you know I know people have different but for myself I think AI is coming no matter you like it or don't like it right you know I think best thing for the for the open source community for us as as a individual is to embrace AI but you know we don't want to be