Senda Verde Permaculture Eco Center

Sunday 24 January 2010

Open source appropriate technology with Marcin Jakubowski

an open source compressed earth block press

We are building the world's first replicable open source self-sufficient high-appropriate-tech permaculture ecovillage—to transcend survival and evolve to freedom.

Factor e Farm is the land-based facility where we put the theory of Open Source Ecology into practice. Agricola sum. We are farmer scientist, working to develop a world-class research center for decentralization technologies.
Now there's a tool for doing this: open source permaculture and technology deployed via flexible and digital fabrication. Open engineering is applicable to our technology base, and from that, to providing basic needs. That is a stepping stone to evolution.

Factor e Farm is not a factory farm. Why “e”? It is a transcendental number. We aim to transcend. We push towards open source, with a factor 10 reduction in price. Or at least e. Ten times cheaper means ten times the freedom. It is Factor e improvement in quality of life. It is technology for ecology: evolve to freedom.

We started with raw land. We paid our last electricity bill three years ago. We are getting our power from waste vegetable oil and the sun. We drink pure free rain water. We grow most of our food. We are free. Welcome to our life. We want to help others do the same: decentralization. Regain control of your life. Be your own boss. Evolve to freedom.

The Global Village Construction Set is the first experiment of Open Source Ecology. Our challenge is to see how far we can reach into human prosperity on a small scale. Can we create an advanced, largely self-sufficient “civilization” on the scale of villages or farmsteads? Have we overlooked something? If so, what else is needed? Could this have the potential to transform the world?

Open Farm Tech with Marcin Jakubowski


Marcin Jakubowski is one of the premier pioneers of open source appropriate technology and agricultural innovation. Guided by Gandhi’s principles of swadeshi, Marcin has made great strides in moving towards community-based development and local autonomy. One of his first great innovations is an open source compressed earth block press, which he discusses at length in this podcast.
Visit Open Source Ecology

Thanks to Frank at the excellent Agroinnovations podcast for another great interview.



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3 comments:

  1. I am sorry to have to post a negative comment on a blog that is clearly trying to do something good for mankind but I have to tell you that most ordinary people will take one look at it and then click away somewhere else.

    Why?
    Verbal diarrhoea!!!!!

    To get people on board you need to keep it simple and talk plain English.

    "We are building the world's first replicable open source self-sufficient high-appropriate-tech permaculture ecovillage—to transcend survival and evolve to freedom."

    Oh Dear!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. The audio interview with Marcin Jakubowski is fascinating, and open source apropriate technology i.e hardware, could well be as big as open source software, you know like Firefox and Linux.
    This is a post about a podcast, why dont you listen to it?
    Thanks for your comment.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Brilliant blog and philosophy!

    ReplyDelete

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