“The future will be ecosystemic”: An interview with Simone Cicero

After a brimming Open Hardware Summit, full of projects and ideas, we had the chance of talking with Simone Cicero, co-chair of the event and a sort of polymath of the New Economy: Blogger, Speaker, Digital Strategist, Event Designer, Facilitator, Dot Connector… Through his multiple activities and his blog Meedabyte, he analyzes the changes in society, economy and production in this new era of collaborative blossoming and disruptive technologies. This, together with his front-row activities as Connector at Ouishare, gives him a broad view of the advances that Open Culture and Sharing Economy, among other issues, are experiencing.

Simone Cicero at Innovation Week Rome 2014

P.N. After Open Hardware Summit 2014, which are your conclusions of the event ?

S.C. My impression of the Summit is that it was a good start, but it is quite far from where I would like to be in terms of awareness and groundwork… That kind of event should be much more a community trying to lay out the world. I really think that we need to start to do more in terms of actionable knowledge and decisions, like a wiki, discussion groups, etc. –a real community, because there is no a real community engagement right now. And we are a big community, so we have to spread wider to discuss about real issues. What I see is companies flocking to this collaborating economy and open source, increasing blogging interest and so on, and it’s like the tipping point is finally arriving. This is reflecting that our community is growing exponentially. Finally, we are getting to the point that this must be changing as soon as possible, now the question is will it be possible to change everything in such a small amount of time …

P.N. But it is going really fast …

S.C. Yes, it is going fast, but also unfortunately that disaster where we are living is going pretty fast, probably faster, so when I think that we need to change everything in 15 years…

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Additive creativity: Maker Faire Rome 2014

The Innovation Week Rome ended with the Maker Faire European Edition, a huge event where makers from all around the world met to showcase and share their innovative ideas and inventions with more than 90,000 people from all ages.

Showcases, exhibitions, workshops and talks in the field of robotics, 3D printing, drones, sensors, and many more, took place during 4 days at Rome’s Auditorium Parco della Musica.

Maker Faire Rome was promoted by Camera di Commercio di Roma and curated by Massimo Banzi and Riccardo Luna.

On this post we will focus on the Opening Conference that gathered an array of noted international speakers to talk about the future of the Third Industrial Revolution and Maker Movement.

IMG_20141003_125328 — Young makers at work

I can’t let you do that, Dave

Science Fiction author and technology activist Cory Doctorow made one of the boldest speeches of the meeting. Doing a strong call to make an active defense of liberties on the Internet, he depicted a chilling future if we don’t do something now about some issues: particularly, he addressed, privacy and freedom of expression. He talked about the interests of companies to limit liberties on the Internet, being done that for the ruling technocapitalism system it is not convenient that people can freely share their knowledges and discoveries –even they are already achieving to turn illegal the act of publishing certain informations.

Referencing Hal 9000’s quote of the film “2001: A Space Odyssey”, Doctorow mentioned the growing possibility of machines starting to decide what things we can communicate based in parameters predefined by companies.

Furthermore, he also remarked the importance of organizations like Open Rights Group to preserve liberties of individuals on the Internet, and finished saying that “The Internet is the nervous system of XXI century”, hence we shouldn’t underestimate the importance of these issues in order not to jeopardize the future of Humanity.

Cory Doctorow — Doctorow advocating for Internet liberties

Superhumans

Scientist Michael McAlpine from Princeton University presented his researches in the development of bionic humans. Some years ago, he developed a flexible material that produces energy when subjected to mechanical pressure. This can be applied to generate power from human motion, for instance portable electronics powered by walking. Nowadays, he is working on the creation of bionic organs through 3D printing, being the advancements so promising up to the point that McAlpine envision a future where being bionic will be something normal.

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Connected by default: Meet IoT (Innovation Week Rome)

From 27 sep to 5 oct, Rome hosted the Innovation Week, a place where leaders in innovation, technology experts, makers and many more met to share views on how the near future will be. Promoted by the Chamber of Commerce of Rome, and organized by the Asset Camera, in collaboration with Arduino and Make magazine, the Innovation Week took place in Auditorium Parco della Musica.

The Innovation Week featured many events, ranging from the huge Maker Faire European Edition to the Open Hardware Summit (here, our review of this event), as well as many other events covering an array of topics like social innovation, smart cities, Internet of Things, data society, wearables, creative start-ups, smart money, and so on.

Maker Faire cookies at Innovation Week bar

For those who are not familiar with the Internet of Things concept yet, briefly we can summarize it as the development of a wide network of interconnected everyday objects via the Internet. From traffic lights to fridges, lamps, and even your own body, everything could be linked to the web, sharing data and being commanded online. Considered as the “big next thing” by amateurs and specialists, Internet of Things (abridged, IoT) brings as many expectations as doubts about its impact on people’s lives.

Meet IoT was the event focusing on Internet of Things at the Innovation Week, showing how IoT developments can make our lives better, but also bearing in mind the challenges and even dangers this would mean. Following, our highlights.

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Getting back to the physical world: Open Hardware Summit Rome 2014

The Open Hardware Summit is the annual conference organized by the Open Source Hardware Association. The 5th edition of this international event was held in Rome, Italy on 30 sep – 1 oct, as part of The Innovation Week, which also featured other events as Maker Faire: The European Edition, MEET IOT and Smart Money.

First day was fully focused on talks, there we listened to fascinating speeches from a range of open source hardware experts. Following below, some of our highlights.

Second day was the community day, organized in small workshops to connect face-to-face and learn from key protagonists of the OSH movement.

“I’m a believer”

David Cuartielles, one of the creators of the platform Arduino, opened the summit with an encouraging speech. Being able to believe from his childhood and through his adolescence, what Cuartielles believes now in his maturity is in open source, and particularly in open source hardware. A place where he finds there is still room to contribute to a greater good. So, he stated, don’t worry so much about open source being useful, but make it useful, go create stuff, and make things open.

Day-to-day robots

From design collective MADLAB.CC, researchers Madeline Gannon and Zach Jacobson-Weaver (also from EnArtDezArk) presented Robo.Op, an open, modular platform for hacking industrial robots. This hardware & software toolkit prototype works as an universal shield adaptor to communicate with robots by using different software interfaces and devices. Their search goal is to approach robotics to a broader public, overcoming the current limitations in the area (prohibitively expensive, proprietary interfaces, private knowledge) with their proposal of modular hardware, user-friendly software and knowledge hub.

MADLAB.CC is also a collective that explores the edges of digital creativity by merging disciplinary knowledge from architecture, robotics, human-computer interaction and design. We had the opportunity to speak with Madeline and Zach about all these issues. The interview will be posted soon.

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