The Open Source Hardware Summit Goes Virtual
As the world continues to wrestle with the COVID-19 pandemic, the Open Source Hardware Summit pivots to a digital format, and the community finds new ways to help.
Back in February of 2020, the virus known as COVID-19 was already a horrifying reality for people in the eastern parts of the world. At the time, I traveled to Supplyframe’s home office and, after discussing the situation with my colleagues, wrote a piece about how the situation could affect global supply chains. Now, only a month later, so much has changed.
As the virus makes its way into cities and towns across America, panic has begun to set in. More than that, economies are in a freefall as conventions and conferences are cancelled to mitigate exposure in large groups. Among these is the Open Hardware Summit (OHS), which celebrated its 10th anniversary this year, albeit in a virtual fashion. The event was equal parts eye-opening and inspiring, and it gave me something we all could use a lot more of in the current world: hope.
We’ve Always Had the Tools, It’s Time to Use Them
As someone who has worked from home for the better part of the last decade, this new shift to social distancing isn’t a massive shock to me, but it can be for the countless people who are suddenly locked inside their homes and forced to focus in an environment far more chaotic that your typical office setting.
All of this points towards a common lesson here: we need to adapt. That’s why the OHS pivoted towards a virtual conference. They also set up a discord server for the community to chat and engage with one another.
They say necessity is the mother of invention, and I believe that’s been a mantra in the open source/ maker communities for some time now. When there’s a problem, you can bet this community will come together to find a solution.
This phenomenon was a small portion of the summit’s keynote by Supplyframe’s own Director of Product, Sophi Kravitz. Her talk, entitled From Basement to Graduation: How Open Hardware Grew Up chronicles the journey that this community has been through, and how, in the face of this new and terrifying reality, we are still coming together to pursue a common goal.
You can check out the full summit here, and I highly recommend that you do. For such a radical shift in format, the entire event went incredibly smoothly. While it can be difficult to collaborate on hardware when you’re not in the same space, this hasn’t stopped several projects and teams from doing their part.
A Community in Action: How Open Source is Tackling The COVID-19 Pandemic
When medical devices and open source designs converge, things can quickly get murky. The strict regulations in place for things like ventilators are there because biocompatibility is paramount when you’re designing something that needs to integrate or interact with the human body.
This doesn’t mean that open source doesn’t have a place in the medical field, but it does require us to take extra precautions. That being said, the global community has already shown some of the ways that this type of collaboration could help.
In our March 10th edition of Framing It, we reported on open source COVID-19 tests. Zach Muller, co-founder of Seattle bio-hacking lab Sound Bio is working on a crowd sourced COVID-19 test with JOGL that uses PCR machines, which are relatively low-cost and widely available.
More recently, a story about a hospital in Italy appeared on Twitter:
Taking this concept to a global scale is Project Open Air, which seeks to gather expertise and skill sets in the pursuit of developing open source medical devices that are easily reproduced and assembled, all to assist with the global pandemic.
In this time of uncertainty and global shortages, the open source community is primed to step in and use their collective knowledge to bring new and innovative solutions to the table. We may not be able to gather in our normal hacker spaces, or meet at our favorite events, but the virtual world has already proven to be a valid avenue for the community to come together and do what they do best.
