Traditionally, new products are developed by a team of designers, engineers, and other experts in a closed process. For consumers, the process is usually not accessible. However, it is becoming increasingly apparent that this strategy is not sustainable. The European research project OPENNEXT is funded by the EU under Horizon 2020 with €5.9 million.
The project aims to enable companies and communities of consumers and makers to collaboratively develop and manufacture products through new mindsets, design processes, business models, and collaborative software solutions. The consortium consists of 19 partners from seven European countries. Professor Dr.-Ing. Roland Jochem, head of the Chair of Quality Science, is the coordinator of the project.
Public sharing of product designs
"OPENNEXT facilitates the public sharing of product designs and technical knowledge on digital platforms, creating completely new collaboration opportunities between small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and consumers. This makes it possible for anyone anywhere to become part of the development process and to freely modify and develop further what already exists. The project goal is to transform the production of SMEs into an open source development ecosystem and thereby establish open source hardware as a viable business strategy for the future," explains Robert Mies, research assistant and project manager.
The team invites international practitioners, experts, interested members of the public and civil society organizations to the new exciting series of five online workshops to be held every two weeks, starting 14 January 2021.
The workshop series will focus on everything from the biggest potentials and challenges of open hardware development today to concrete and hands-on insights from the maker spaces and companies working and participating as pilots in the project. “It is our hope that the Open Hardware Future Talks series can establish itself as a regular and independent discussion forum on open design and open hardware development. In view of the current crisis, it is imperative that we work together on the vision to successfully utilize open source principles for hardware in industry and science,” says Professor Dr.-Ing. Roland Jochem.
Workshops are open to anyone
The five workshops are open to anyone and are aimed at interested members of the public, open source hardware enthusiasts, makers, industry, as well as related science and research initiatives. Join us for one or more of the five workshops. All workshops will be held in English.
Thursday, 14 January 2021, 15:00 (CET)