CoC OSH in Berlin

Plans to build a center of competence for open source hardware in Berlin.

Vision and motivation

We hope to create a sustainable "center of competence"" for open source hardware in Berlin. Skills to design, produce, and market an product inside an open source hardware should be provided and tought. Research hardware should be a topic of interest and the center should be able to guide researchers, engineers and entrepreneurs.

A center of competence may have a physical space. It is usually a research-centered unit, with a specific goal to thrive innovation and knowledge transfer (meaning the transfer of technologies from the universities to the economic sector). For its "open source" aspects, such a center should thrive the development of communities of makers.

Problem description

Despite its potential for the industry and for open science, OSH has not found its recognition. Interests and skills are too scarce for the adoption of OSH at a large scale. Hardware development has a local component, which makes OSH development needs different than for open source software, local infrastructure and communities are therefore more important.

Berlin would be in a good position to thrive such development, because of the interests of the universities, the existencoe of some communities (open hardware association), and a putative interest of the public-private sector in open source.

Roadmap

• Talk about the idea with different actors.
• Refine the concept, especially in relation with existing programs.
• Build a team and governance structure.
• Look for funding opportunities.

Community and Contributions

List of team members / contributors

• Julien Colomb
• Robert Mies
• Tim Landgraf
• add your name here if you want to participate

Who could contribute

Anyone with an interest can contribute, no specific skills required.

Communication channel, how to contribute

Open issues and PR on codeberg, some communication will be done through the OHAssociation chat. You can also email us, see the www.openmake.de/contact

License and rights

This repository is provided under a CC-BY-4.0 license

Funding information

Sponsors and funding:

• OpenMake project: www.openmake.de
• LAUDS Factories project: www.lauds.eu

Future funding opportunities:

• DFG
• Sovereign tech fund ?
  • uni tech transfer offices ?
  • EU call ? EOSC?

Note: This was created using the template for research hardware project, it is meant to be used at the ideation stage of the project, and be later expanded by adding files and folders coming from additional template.